Personal growth refers to any activity, practice, ritual, or observance done with the express purpose of enhancing one’s quality of life. Such activities, practices, rituals, and observances aid in the process of getting to know oneself more deeply and help improve awareness of one’s place in the world.

There are a host of personal growth habits that can help one get closer to self-awareness and higher achievement, but this article highlights five specific habits to help you get started on the journey.

Reflection: Taking the time to reflect on yourself and your actions is essential to personal growth. Self-reflection, which often involves introspection, helps you gain critical awareness about yourself and your progress. By examining your own thoughts, feelings, and sensations you are able to gain insight into what is working well for you and helping you make progress, and what is preventing you from reaching your end target.

Goal Setting: Setting goals is another significant way to benefit you on your journey towards personal growth. Goals give you a solid and defined target to work towards and allow you to clearly define success or lack thereof. Useful goals should be SMART- specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Such goals improve the chances of overall success by creating firm parameters for you to work with and easily identifiable ways to determine if you’re off track so you can reset and refocus.

Develop a Routine: Routines are also valuable to adopt on your personal growth journey because they develop structure and consistency, both of which are essential to making personal progress. As you set up a routine, whether monthly, weekly, or even daily, you learn to develop the discipline that can help you stay focused and on task as you pursue goals.

Open-Mindedness: Having an open mind is another habit that can be extremely useful as you pursue personal growth. Open-mindedness helps you to see other perspectives, embrace other ideas, and become more flexible and understanding.

These are valuable benefits that can be applied to your life as you work towards goals, problem-solve, and interact with others. Being closed-minded leads you to pass judgment and jump to conclusions that can be harmful to you, others, and the achievement of goals (Schmidt, 2019). By learning to be more open-minded you expand the possibilities for yourself and enhance learning and knowledge.

Challenge Yourself: Challenges can be uncomfortable to take on, but they also very beneficial in the pursuit of personal growth. Challenging yourself by taking risks and tackling tasks you might view as difficult will allow you to face your fears and build resilience. You learn to embrace difficulties, adapt to change, and bounce back from hardships better and faster. Not only that, but you can also gain new skills, learn new information, create more opportunities, and develop self-esteem by overcoming the challenges you face (Schmidt, 2017).

The above-mentioned habits, when developed and practiced with consistency, can lead to enhanced personal growth. Via practices such as reflection, goal setting, development of a routine, open-mindedness, and chasing after challenges you can enhance your knowledge, develop resilience, and create a path towards more clearly defined success and achievement of goals.