Setbacks are inevitable in life. Your prayer should not only be never to experience them but to emerge stronger whenever you face them. It’s easy to talk or write about pain, but it isn’t easy to go through it. That’s why I want to talk about accelerated self growth.

Soldiers at war don’t always expect to lose the battle, but sometimes the worst happens. They may not only lose the battle but suffer a severe injury that could cost a part of their limb or body.

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A Life Experience of Using Setbacks for Self Growth

Kionte is one of many such cases. He served as a US Marine soldier and suffered an injury that left him no right foot after stepping on an IED. Not only had he suffered the pain, but he had a lot to regret. But later on, he found relief by opening up to a friend and sharing his story with a therapist. Watch the video below for more. 

Think about the last time you went through hell on earth. I mean anything that could have made you miserable or reduced your quality of life. How did you handle it, and what lessons did you learn that you feel made you the person you are today?

Maybe you haven’t overcome that setback, and you’re still taking a beating from life. It could be the loss of a job. A business deal went sour, making you lose lots of money; a toxic or abusive relationship that left you in tatters; struggling with trauma or bad past experiences. 

It’s important to mention that you are the best candidate for accelerated self growth. Sometimes all you need to catalyze your personal development is pain, suffering, or regret.

If sleeping on the floor for years will be your motivator for accelerated self growth, so be it. Pain or suffering shouldn’t put you in a cocoon of shame and self-pity. On the flip side, it should catapult you to greater heights. 

Accelerated Self Growth

Are there ways to accelerate personal growth? Let’s take a deeper dive into this. 

Personal development is a prerequisite to achieving any success in life. There are no two ways or shortcuts to it. Your success in life is directly related to how valuable you are in the marketplace. Here are some pointers to accelerate your self growth. 

1. Be Intentional About Accelerating your Self Growth

Handle your personal growth like a baby. If you don’t take care of it, the little being won’t grow.

That means your every action will be geared towards the baby’s growth. Being intentional about your self growth helps you pay attention to your progress and make the necessary adjustments.

For example, if your current goal is financial freedom, you will want to watch your spending and saving habits to avoid losing money. 

2. Accept when you are Wrong

I find this is almost always the hardest thing to do; accepting that you are wrong. People always think accepting you’re wrong will make you look weak and good for nothing.

But the fact is that it is the start point of accelerated self growth.

You seldom grow by leaving in denial. Accepting that you are wrong is a strength of character. You are not doing anyone a favor but you because that is the moment you start changing for the better. 

3. Constantly Seek Knowledge

Knowledge is power. You have read that before and even heard it being said.

Making money without investing is not making money at all. You can invest the money you make in yourself, a business, or buy stocks or assets. Unfortunately, many make money to pay bills, and that’s where everything stops.

One easy way to accelerate your self growth is to invest yourself in constant study and knowledge seeking. Success comes when you make yourself more valuable than the average Joe.

Read books, attend webinars and enroll in courses that add value to your business or career growth. 

4. Enjoying Doing the Uncomfortable

Things like watching your favorite Netflix show, going for a nature walk, or spending time on social media are enjoyable. You don’t sweat over them, but they hardly add significant value to your life.

Fun stuff kills your boredom for a while but keeps you at the same level of life for ages. Conversely, activities like writing a book, waking up early for a morning run, doing a work assignment, or reviewing your goals aren’t enjoyable.

The absolute truth is that they will make you uncomfortable over and over. But accelerated self growth is not about being comfortable. It’s about learning to live with intentional discomfort today so that you can make a living with problems easier tomorrow. 

Growth is about living with intentional discomfort today so that you can make a fortune tomorrow.

Murunga Kiniale

 

5. Give More than What You Take

Smile at the world, and it will smile back at you. In other words, what you give out is what you get back. Many people always play the victim or play needy even when they have it all to get whatever they want in an opportunity.

This is contrary to walking and living with an abundant mindset. You can choose to be different. Accelerating your self growth starts from a mind of abundance and not scarcity.

Even in your lack or limitations, always see what value you can add to people’s lives to improve them. Don’t always be the one receiving year in and year out. You need to ask yourself right now: What are you giving back to your family, church, and society?

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Take the example of a business owner or an entrepreneur who chooses to train and build their team free of charge to be valuable to him or her in the future. Everyone is learning something in the process and growing. I’m reminded of a quote by Bob Marley, “Live for yourself and you will live in vain – Live for others and you will leave again. ” 

Live for yourself and you will live in vain – Live for others and you will leave again

Bob Marley

6. Join a High-Performance Group

Human beings need one another to spur their growth and personal development. If you feel you are slow on performance or productivity, it’s time to find out what high-performing peers or people are doing and whether you can join their train.

Preferably, enter a high-performance team or group and learn from their wins and failures. You will be able to sync up with their energy in many areas and move forward together.

Imagine being with highly ambitious and proactive people in a room. Sooner or later, you will also be bubbling in that energy and ambition. As a team, you can accelerate your self-growth at the team and individual levels.

Great minds are put together to solve more significant problems than a single demotivated mind. 

7. Narrow Down

Sometimes one of the major killers to our productivity and accelerated self growth is wanting to do everything and anything. You may be doing this out of ambition or urgency, but this could give you the opposite results of what you expect.

The next thing you will be experiencing is burnout, demotivation, and wanting to quit. How about narrowing it down to one or two essential things instead of doing ten things simultaneously?

According to the 80/20 principle, 80% of what we do produces 20% results. It’s way more productive to have a laser focus on what you choose to do with your 80%.

Decide to handle one thing at a time until you feel things can stand independently as you also focus on other projects. 

8. Develop an Effective Morning Routine

How to start your day highly determines how the rest of your day will be. If you started your day late and rushed, you could mess up it entirely.

It is said that highly successful people spend 3-5 hours of their early mornings getting done with the important stuff before the rest of the world wakes up. You want to be deliberate about how you start your day.

Yours could be a devotion, a workout, or reading 20 pages of an investment book. The critical thing to note here is you need to wake up with a purpose, a predetermined set of goals, or to-do lists you want to achieve for the day.

Waking up early with no plan on how you intend to spend your early morning is a waste of time. Have a plan the evening before and wake up to do what you planned to handle.  

9. Remove Distractions from your Productive Environment

Perhaps the pandemic has taught us the hard way how to work from home. This didn’t come easy for anyone. If you have worked from home, you know that productivity killers are all over, which could significantly hamper your self growth.

Distractions create a low-energy environment that doesn’t work in sync with your high-energy levels. According to science, your biology and your psychology are shaped according to your external conditions.

A biologist named Bruce Lipton puts it this way, “The environment determined the fate of the cells, not the genetic pattern. So if cells are in a healthy environment, they are healthy. If they’re in an unhealthy environment, they get sick.”

The environment determined the fate of the cells, not the genetic pattern. So if cells are in a healthy environment, they are healthy. If they’re in an unhealthy environment, they get sick.

Bruce Lipton

10. Know your Why

Your ‘Why’ is the primary reason you want to do or achieve something. For you to realize accelerated self growth, you need to make your way crystal clear.

This should be the drive or fuel that will keep you going for a long time. Your why is like having a purpose behind your goals. Here is an example of a why:

Example: I want to save and invest because I want to achieve financial freedom. 

You could deepen this further by mentioning how financial freedom will change your life and others around you.  

Wrap Up

If you have suffered severe setbacks before or are currently undergoing them, this isn’t the time to stop and give up on life. Use your setbacks for accelerated self growth. We hope the pointers above will help you be a better person tomorrow by achieving your life goals and living a happier life.