How Successful People Grow

1. Intentional Learning: Growth Doesn't Just Happen

If you focus on goals, you may hit goals—but that doesn’t guarantee growth.

Growth requires intention. Personal growth is not automatic; it requires a conscious and deliberate effort. Unlike physical growth in childhood, mental, spiritual, and emotional growth necessitates intentionality and ownership.

Overcoming misconceptions. Many people are held back by mistaken beliefs about growth, such as assuming it will happen automatically or not knowing how to grow. These "growth gap traps" can be overcome by actively seeking knowledge, starting now, embracing mistakes, and rejecting comparisons.

Making the transition. To become an intentional learner, ask yourself where you want to go in life, start now, face your fears, and shift from incidental to intentional growth. This involves scheduling time for personal growth, keeping a growth journal, and incorporating learning into your daily life.

2. Self-Awareness: Know Yourself to Grow Yourself

You must know yourself to grow yourself.

Direction in life. To grow to your potential, you must understand your strengths, weaknesses, interests, and opportunities. There are three types of people: those who don't know what they want, those who know but don't act, and those who know and do. Aim to be the third.

Finding passion and purpose. Discover your passion and purpose by exploring areas like career, faith, family, communication, and creativity. Ask yourself if you like what you're doing now, what you would like to do, and why you want to do it.

Taking action. Move from what you're doing now to what you want to do through awareness, action, accountability, and attraction. Seek advice from people who do what you'd like to do, and be willing to pay the price in time, resources, and sacrifices.

3. Self-Belief: Value Yourself to Add Value to Yourself

If you don’t realize that you have genuine value and that you are worth investing in, then you will never put in the time and effort needed to grow to your potential.

The power of self-esteem. Low self-esteem can limit your potential, as your performance will never exceed your self-image. The value you place on yourself often reflects the value others place on you, so it's crucial to believe in yourself.

Building self-image. Guard your self-talk, stop comparing yourself to others, move beyond limiting beliefs, and add value to others. Do the right thing, practice small disciplines daily, and celebrate small victories.

Positive vision. Embrace a positive vision for your life based on what you value, and practice the one-word strategy to define yourself positively. Take responsibility for your life and believe that you have value and can make a difference.

4. Reflection: Pause to Let Growth Catch Up

Learning to pause allows growth to catch up with you.

The power of pausing. Reflection is like "the pause that refreshes," allowing experiences to turn into insights. Evaluated experience is the best teacher, and pausing helps you recognize life markers and expand your thinking.

Using your I's. When you pause and reflect, focus on investigation, incubation, illumination, and illustration. Investigation involves asking questions, incubation is like meditation, illumination is the discovery of "aha" moments, and illustration is putting flesh on ideas.

Asking good questions. Good questions are the heart of reflection, stimulating creative thinking and leading to solid convictions. Ask yourself personal awareness questions and relationship-focused questions to gain clarity and direction.

5. Discipline: Consistency is Key to Growth

Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.

Growing in consistency. To become more disciplined, know what you need to improve, how you are supposed to improve, why you want to keep improving, and when you are supposed to improve. This involves matching your motivation to your personality type and starting with simple stuff.

Personality types. Different personality types (Phlegmatic, Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic) require different motivational approaches. Phlegmatics need to see value, cholerics need to focus on choices, sanguines need to make it a game, and melancholics need to focus on the joy of learning details.

Growth vs. goals. Be patient, value the process, and remember that you will never change your life until you change something you do daily. Instead of being goal-conscious, focus on being growth-conscious, which is lifelong and changes you.

6. Positive Environment: Surround Yourself for Growth

Growth thrives in conducive surroundings.

Change depends on choices. To grow, you must make the right changes, distinguishing between problems you can change and facts of life you cannot. Change your attitude about facts of life and address problems head-on.

Assessing your environment. Assess your current environment to determine if it promotes growth. Ask yourself if others are ahead of you, if you are continually challenged, and if the atmosphere is affirming.

Changing your environment. Change yourself and your environment simultaneously for faster and more successful growth. Consider the right soil (growth), air (purpose), and climate (people) to create a conducive growth environment.

7. Strategic Planning: Design Your Life for Growth

To maximize growth, develop strategies.

Life is simple. Life is simple, but keeping it that way is difficult. It's about knowing your values, making key decisions based on those values, and managing those decisions daily. Designing your life is more important than designing your career.

Planning your life. Plan your life by finding yourself, knowing who you are, and customizing a design for your growth. Remember that life is not a dress rehearsal, so give it your best from the start.

Multiply by two. In planning your life, multiply everything by two to account for the fact that important things usually take longer and cost more than expected. Depend on systems to achieve goals strategically, and ensure these systems take the big picture into account.

8. Turning Negatives into Positives: Manage Bad Experiences

Good management of bad experiences leads to great growth.

Everyone has bad experiences. Life is filled with ups and downs, and everyone experiences negative events. What separates people who thrive from those who merely survive is how they face their problems.

Turning pain into gain. Learning to turn negatives into positives is essential for individuals who want to grow and reach their potential. Embrace a positive life stance, develop your creativity, and embrace the value of bad experiences.

Taking responsibility. Make good changes after learning from bad experiences, and take responsibility for your life. Remember that your circumstances don't define you, but your choices do.

9. Character Development: Grow from the Inside Out

Character growth determines the height of your personal growth.

Character matters. Character growth determines the height of your personal growth, and without it, you can never reach your potential. Focus on being better on the inside than on the outside, as the inside influences the outside.

Climbing the character ladder. Follow the Golden Rule, teach only what you believe, and value humility above all virtues. Strive to finish well and maintain high standards until the day you die.

Humility. Remember the big picture, recognize that everyone has weaknesses, be teachable, be willing to serve others, and be grateful. The stronger your character, the greater your growth potential.

10. Stretching: Embrace Tension for Growth

Growth stops when you lose the tension between where you are and where you could be.

The value of stretching. We have the greatest value when we are stretched, and only by continually stretching will we reach our potential. Few people want to stretch, but settling for the status quo ultimately leads to dissatisfaction.

Stretching requires change. Stretching always starts from the inside out and requires change. Stop looking over your shoulder, take risks, and do what you have never done before.

Significance. Stretching sets you apart from others, can become a lifestyle, and gives you a shot at significance. Use the tension between where you are and where you could be as impetus to stretch and distinguish yourself from your peers.

11. Trade-Offs: Give Up to Grow Up

You have to give up to grow up.

Trade-offs are opportunities. Trade-offs are available to us throughout life, and successful people make good ones. See trade-offs as opportunities for growth and ask yourself what the pluses and minuses are and whether you will go through or grow through the change.

Personal changes. Trade-offs force us to make difficult personal changes, and the loss of a trade-off is usually felt long before the gain. Most trade-offs can be made at any time, but a few come only once.

Worth the price. The higher you climb, the tougher the trade-offs, and some are never worth the price. Be willing to give up financial security today for potential tomorrow, immediate gratification for personal growth, and security for significance.

12. Curiosity: Ask Questions to Stimulate Growth

Growth Is Stimulated by Asking Why?

Curiosity is key. Curiosity is the key to being a lifelong learner, and if you want to keep growing, you must keep learning. Curious people possess a thirst for knowledge and continually ask why.

Cultivating curiosity. Believe you can be curious, have a beginner's mind-set, make why your favorite word, and spend time with other curious people. Learn something new every day, partake in the fruit of failure, and stop looking for the right answer.

Enjoy life. Get over yourself, get out of the box, and enjoy your life. When you're curious, the entire world opens up to you, and there are few limits on what you can learn and how you can develop.

Last updated: May 10, 2025