I’m such a self-help junkie. I love personal growth books, quotes, and podcasts! Always want to achieve and to do better. I want to learn, improve myself constantly. But with this eagerness, there is also a flipside! Our mind tricks us into feeling disappointment, overwhelm, and guilt. Before we delve further into the mind tricks of a personal growth journey, we need to talk about the reasons behind a personal growth journey. It is important to identify why you want to improve. I truly hope this comes from motivation and not from the thought “I’m not good enough.” If you admit that it comes from the second statement, your personal growth journey will be fueled by negative energy and you need to work on the reason why you feel this way rather than on the solution. That being said, let’s have a look at the downfalls.

Personal Growth Mind Tricks

1. Disappointment 

Once I start something, I want to finish. I go all in, give it my all. So when things are not going how I planned it, BOEM the disappointment bomb drops and scatters all over the place. Doubt creeps in, negative self-talk starts and sometimes anger can appear. This might result in me being cranky for a while or even me giving up. This is so sad because there truly is no need for this. We just need to take a pause and check in with ourselves. Why is it not working? What can I do differently? Can I adjust the end goal? Adjusting the expectations can do wonders to your feelings of disappointment, but remember we will always disappoint if not ourselves, others and we need to make peace with this. Find your own way to deal with disappointment.

2. Overwhelm 

Most personal growth journeys consist of many action steps before we have that sense of achievement. This can often become overwhelming because when we thought it was a good idea, never in our wildest dreams did we think that it would take this much effort! We feel out of control, that we won’t be able to tackle all aspects and we want to stop fighting. To stop this feeling of giving up, we need to set boundaries and assess our priorities. Once we do this we need to find the confidence to say NO. Truthfully, I do not have the power to do this myself. Basically, the saying no part has arisen yet. I’m still in the “identifying that I have to say no” fase.

3. Guilt

You try so hard to improve and yet you can’t seem to get a handle on it. Often this results in feelings of guilt and the ever going down spiral; Why can’t I do this? Creating feelings of shame. Listening to Brené Brown’s Ted Talk, I realised that it is so important that we shift from Shame to Guilt. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behaviour. Damn, we are trying! Give yourself a break. It is OK to fail. This is what makes you stronger. Focus on what went well, celebrate the little achievements, have some empathy for yourself and keep going! Now, keep going can be 2 things;
1. Continue to chase that personal growth goal with newfound motivation
or
2. Reevaluate, What needs to change? And YES you are allowed to change your end goal!

Personal Growth Solution

I continue to remind myself that the self-help industry often creates unrealistic expectations. That’s why I find it important to reframe my personal growth journey with one simple sentence. “What would my future self want?” As you know from the series ‘Tea Talk | Loving lately’ I listen to the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin. This is where I heard this incredible sentence, so instead of focussing on becoming the best version of myself, I focus on becoming my future self. By reframing this, it takes away the pressure of constantly being the best! Being aware that the vision of your future self is ever-changing will allow you to change your goals and habits without guilt.

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Personal growth is a journey where you have to allow yourself to change and adapt. Trick your own mind by giving yourself permission to step away from being the best, but focus on what you want for your future self. Allow yourself to fail and search for the lessons taught at that moment. As you might have noticed, within this post I have mentioned plenty of times to reevaluate, this is key when embarking on a personal growth journey!

Believe in your Future Self

truthful tea talks

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