Do This Every Day for Your Personal Growth…

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Do you ever look at your past with regret?

Regret for something you did?

Regret for something you didn’t do?

Regret for something (or someone) you didn’t pursue?

If you’re like me (and most people), you have.

But the thing I always go back to when I look at my twenties is what a waste of time it was.

Sure, I had fun, I had many friends, and I enjoyed life a lot.

But I can maybe recall once during that time period that I was uncomfortable.

That’s my biggest regret. I just stayed comfortable the whole time.

And comfort equals stagnancy.

The opposite of personal growth.

Because if you want to grow, you have to be uncomfortable.

My Decision for Personal Growth

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

There have been a few times in my life that were groundbreaking, earth-quaking, life-shaking wake-up calls.

But my first experience of utter disappointment and regret-filled days was when I lost my best friend unexpectedly and tragically.

There’s nothing like a tragedy to make you look within to question your life.

And that happened here. I was thirty-one, and I examined my life, where I was, and how I got there.

I started to hate who I was in my twenties—the guy who always had dreams but never did anything about them.

Call it what you want — I wasn’t ready, I didn’t have the money, I was scared of what others would think, I feared leaving everything I knew, I feared failure , but it was all fear at the end of the day.

I had so many missed opportunities and unfulfilled aspirations that I grew to loathe my twenties…

I regretted nearly everything about that time in my life.

Side note: Don’t let your regrets, mistakes, and failures drag you down to this level; they’re there for you to learn from. After all, you cannot have true success without mistakes and failures — they’re two sides of the same coin.

The Change You Need

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

The change I made was to grow as a person and start doing what I want — personally and professionally.

I traveled more, and I traveled more alone; I went back to school to be a personal trainer because I wanted to help people get fit and healthy; I skydived, swam with sharks, got a coach, became a coach, started my own businesses, moved to Hawaii, moved to Thailand — to name a few :).

What do all of these things have in common?

Every one of them was uncomfortable.

I decided that to grow, I had to do the opposite of the comfort zone I lived in within my twenties.

So I started stepping outside my comfort zone — even just a little — every day. And the more I did it, the larger the steps got. The more I stayed there. And the more I grew.

So much so, in fact, that I call it my growth zone.

Step Into Your Growth Zone Every Day

Image by Meine Reise geht hier leider zu Ende. Märchen beginnen mit from Pixabay

We all want different things in life, but nearly all of us want something more.

A new job, a new career, living a life of travel, being a digital nomad, or starting a business you love.

The list goes on…

But another thing that nearly all of us have in common is that we don’t pursue it.

We always have an excuse, but almost to a T, all of those excuses are based on fear.

I will give you some pieces of advice to get over some fears you’ll face:

1. First, you’ll never be completely ready to take a step in the direction you want to go. It seems hard, you don’t know enough yet, you need to take this other class first…but the truth is, you’ll never be completely ready. So you just have to go.
2. In the words of Tony Robbins: “Screw HOW.” HOW will make you quit or not even try. What really matters is WHY. Because if your WHY is strong enough, nothing can stop you, and the HOW will come.
3. Take baby steps outside your comfort zone. You don’t have to go all-in all the time. Start small.
4. Get used to getting outside your comfort zone in other areas of life. For example, take a public speaking class, go skydiving, run a marathon. Do something you’ve wanted to do but have been scared of. If you do this every day, you’ll get better at being uncomfortable and in uncomfortable situations (even when life throws them at you unexpectedly), and you’ll get better at stepping into your growth zone more and more often.
5. Don’t let imposter syndrome stop you — we ALL have it, and it’s rarely true. (I’ll write about imposter syndrome next week). The only way to get over it is to DO IT.

Do all of this, and you’ll begin your personal growth journey, and soon you’ll be growing in ways and doing things you never thought possible.

It just starts with one step into your growth zone.