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82 Examples of Personal Growth

John Spacey, August 10, 2021

Personal growth is an durable change in an individual that is overwhelmingly positive. This can come with effort, experience and adversity or can be a gentle change that occurs without much drama. The following are illustrative examples of changes that could be considered personal growth.

Working towards an abundance mentality -- a generosity of spirit such that you feel there is enough for everyone.

A process of apology, reconciliation and redemption.

Forgiving and moving on.

Making progress in a difficult time.

Appreciating the small things.

Mastering a skill.

Enduring hardship to prevail.

Becoming optimistic. This is the ability to see the good and potential in people, situations and things.

Being honest with yourself.

Achieving a difficult but positive change such as changing careers.

Facing your fears.

Cultivating friendships.

Demonstrating bravery or courage.

Being nice to people more often.

Living with a sense of gratitude.

Building close relationships.

Devoting time and resources to something that is important to you.

Achieving enthusiasm for life.

Overcoming boring and unimaginative thinking.

Building up basic life skills such as verbal communication abilities.

Liking yourself and trusting yourself.

Developing a talent.

Being more reasonable, stable and grounded.

Trying to like other people by giving them a chance and the benefit of doubt.

Aligning your behavior with your principles.

Demonstrating candor and honesty.

Cultivating a sense of humility.

Becoming more original by thinking for yourself.

Developing self-discipline.

Dealing with unfair criticism and negativity without loss of enthusiasm.

Devotion to family.

Enduring periods where you are misunderstood.

Learning how to easily handle difficult people and situations.

Cultivating a meaningful or useful philosophy to life.

Tempering idealism with pragmatism.

Being more tolerant, patient and kind.

Improving your quality of life.

Improving your decision making and problem solving.

Learning to control emotions.

Doing what you say you're going to do.

Recognizing failure, giving up and moving on in some reasonable way.

Finding more energy for worthy pursuits.

Reading, researching and exploring.

Adopting a healthy and rewarding lifestyle.

Forgiving your own failures, amending and moving on.

Becoming cool.

Establishing a good habit.

Demonstrating grit and tenacity.

Helping others or at least trying.

A daily process of honest introspection and self-improvement.

Improving your work-ethic.

Leading the change of your time.

Learning from failure.

Learning from life experience.

Cultivating a sense of wonder.

Becoming more productive.

Taking on responsibility.

Learning to take it easy.

Achieving spiritual growth.

Living with a sense of wonder and joy.

Learning to be more open, curious and flexible.

Overcoming your fears and limitations.

Pursuing intentions. Intentions are actionable such that they are more important than end-goals. For example, an artist with intentions to have an explosion of creative genius as opposed to an artist with a goal to become famous.

Developing principles and trying to life by them.

Being more empathetic with others.

Paying it forward. This is the process of doing good without worrying what you get in return. This is often based on a sense that good is its own reward or that good works out well in the long term.

Demonstrating politeness and tact.

Overcoming a bad habit.

Becoming a great storyteller.

Pursuing culture and the human experience.

Cultivating a good sense of humor.

Overcoming negative emotions.

Supporting others.

Becoming a good public speaker.

Taking the high road. This is the ability to act well when dealing with people who aren't acting well. Otherwise, you can be manipulated into behaving badly by any fool you happen to meet.

Taking worthy risks.

Tempering optimism with realism.

Using fair criticism to improve.

Leading others towards some worthy cause.

Overcoming preachiness and self-righteousness.

Transcending concern for what others think.

Viewing yourself in a realistic light.

Working towards your most positive image of yourself.

Pursuing imagination, play and creativity.