You probably hear the phrase "growth-mindset" all the time. There's a $5-Billion industry out there aimed at the "wellness market" But what does that really mean? How do you grow as a person?
I am going to tell you what growing as a person means to me. I hope that you will find this useful to your own life and purposes. I do not have everything figured out yet and I struggle with taking my own advice all the time. Yet, I am never going to stop striving, your journey may look a lot different than mine but you should hear me out.
There are three ways to grow as a person: Your Character, Your Impact and Your Work. That's all you need to focus in order to grow.
Your Character
There is a whole scientific area of research called "Positive Psychology" that uses evidence-based studies to figure out what sort of "thing" affects real, long term, lasting happiness.
Personally I got a lot out of reading Martin Seligman's books TL;DR: Focus your efforts on improving the things you control, more specifically put energy into improving your character. You don't have to buy his books or anything to benefit from his findings. You can look here to see the 24 character traits listed in his books. For convenience this is the list of character traits: Appreciation of Beauty & Excellence, Bravery, Creativity, Curiosity, Fairness, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Honesty, Hope, Humility, Humor, Judgement, Kindness, Leadership, Love, Love of Learning, Perseverance, Perspective, Prudence, Self-Regulation, Social Intelligence, Spirituality, Teamwork and Zest.
It turns out you can always grow your character, you can never have too much wisdom, you can not go wrong when you work on improving all the traits instead of just one. The key is finding the right balance. Too much of one thing will come at the cost of something else.
Some of these things may come easy to you, I am naturally inclined to curiosity and I love learning new things. I have to make a conscious effort to improve my Social Intelligence, Self-Regulations and Spirituality.
There are surveys online you can take to learn where your strengths are. I encourage you to find out for yourself where you are at.
The Impact You Make
How does your life affect other people? Nobody is an island so your connection to the world matters. Do you inspire the masses? Your child? Are you a good spouse/parent/sibling? Are you a good friend?
You can say that these things are also related to your character but you can think about something that is bigger than yourself. A cause that matters to you and others. What can you do to make the world a better place to not only you but the people that will come after you.
I want to make clear that I struggle with this. I think about the things that I think I'm doing well, for example I think I could have been a lot worse parent, but then again, loving my kids came super easy to me. What about the people in my life that need help? People in my family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. I think about what else I can do for others, for a good cause. Conserving and restoring the environment, pushing for equality, for a more just world, for a kinder world. This is an area for growth, we can always do something.
The Work You Do. Push for Excellence
For me this means the code I write, the work I create as an engineer should be as good as I can make it. There's always a lot of work to do with deadlines and pressure to deliver. I want to ensure that what I create is excellent. You can apply this to what you do. This sounds like it applies to artistic endeavors only but that's not the case. When you create something, that artifact (it could be a sandwich or a novel, a song) is a reflection of you. It's an opportunity to express yourself. Take your time to strive for excellence. You may not think it matters, but this makes an impact. This is also an area of work for me. What can I say about my works? What is my legacy? The good thing is, we have time, we're here, we can always do better.
List of things that don't work
More money, more pleasure:
Money matters, a lot. Being poor is bad for your health and your happiness. It should be obvious. However, after a certain point, having more money will not make you more happy. After all your basic needs are met, things like food, shelter, health care, doubling your salary will let you buy nicer things and have more freedom but will not double your happiness. Buying nice stuff will not bring you lasting happiness as you will adjust to it and will long for the next thing.
A similar thing is seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. You can live a life with constant traveling, partying, feeling good and still feel a void inside. More pleasure doesn't equate to lasting happiness.
You can learn more about this in the Hedonic treadmill
More Fame
If you seek validation from outside yourself you will never feel whole. Validation comes from within. You must learn to value and accept yourself before expecting the same for others. Side note, everyone you meet is dealing with the same thing, keep that in mind before you judge what other people do.
Being Smart
A lot of people value "being smart" or more accurately, they value appearing smart to other people. They obsess about grades, credentials, achievements and intelligence. Comparing yourself to other people only makes you more miserable. Strive to do better for its own sake, not for what it will do to your image. There's always people way smarter than you. Focus on the impact of your actions and improving yourself. Learn for curiosity, growth or just because, truth is, nobody cares that you are smart, they care about how you make them feel, what you do for them, to them. Being smart for its own sake is meaningless.
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