You Can Grow Alone.
What if I told you an individual can be alone and still grow? What if I told you growth does not include material or career gains? So many people will “level up” in their jobs and education but mentally and spiritually be the same as they were before their monetary “glow up.” Take Issa and Molly for example. Two fictional characters so many people can relate to. One of the reasons I think this final season of Insecure is bad because this so called “growth” is really non-existent when you take away the the career changes characters have had. Molly is still a boy crazy 13 year old girl trapped inside of a 30-something year old’s body. Lawrence still really hasn’t learned the importance of protected sex and Issa still low-key puts her self worth in whether she is in a relationship or not. This piece isn’t meant to be another Insecure centered piece, but if you ask me, everybody on the show needs to stay single. What’s most important to me is the message this show seems to give off and patterns I’ve noticed with Issa and the lives of people I know, including myself. That message seems to be, moving on and growing up means you’re making more money and fucking somebody else just to show the last man or woman that you can live without them. Nowhere in there does it mention anything about personal development.
As I touched on before, I’ve made the mistake of thinking growing meant how much money I’m making or personal goals I’ve achieved throughout my life. I was using those moments and “work” as an excuse to claim I am working on myself without actually doing the necessary work. Not saying that money and career goals don’t matter nor should we not be happy for both. I’m saying a bitter bitch making 6-figures with 10 degrees is still a bitter bitch. I don’t make six figures and barely have one degree but that does not mean what was just said does not apply to you or me.
There’s An Issa In All of Us.
You may not be bitter, but you are lonely. You’re lonely because you measure your self-worth on who wants you, how many people want you and what self-imposed needs you place on others. Meaning you tell yourself this person(s) need you because of “x,y,z” when in reality you’re just stretching yourself thin for someone/people who have not made it clear to you that they actually need you for whatever you claim they need you for. You do this because you don’t want to be alone because being alone makes you feel bad. You feel bad because being alone forces you to think about what isn’t going well in your life and you’re involvement in it. No matter what people say in my experience and observation, most people do not like to do shadow work. I laymen’s terms, most people do not like self-improvement.
4 Steps of Personal Growth.
- Engaging in honest self-reflection. This is where I’ve noticed the difference between someone who ays they want to grow because that is the acceptable thing to say and someone who truly wants that for themselves. Critically assessing yourself entails you to dig deep into that shadow side of you. The parts of you that you don’t even want to deal with. You’re going to have to if you truly want to grow. The thoughts, the memories, the emotions, all have to be dealt with. Good luck. I suggest starting with a diary.
- Getting out of your comfort zone. I’m still learning this one myself. I never claimed to know everything, but I won’t let that stop me from sharing what I do know, and what I do know is you can’t make any positive changes in your life being the same person. A simple example is someone with weight/body goals. If they want to change the way they look they need to change the food they eat, maybe change their activity level if they aren’t very active. They need to get out of their comfort zone and stop eating comfort food or drastically decrease their consumption of it. What I’m learning is the changes that I need to make don’t all have to be “all or nothing.” The only aspects of my life I feel I don’t have to do anything in are the aspects that I do not want to change. Simply put, if there is something in your life that you wish to change, getting out of your comfort zone is part of that. Good luck.
- Develop Thick Skin. People are going to say things you may not want to hear. People are going to tell you about yourself, deservingly so. You do not have to like what is being said about you, but I’ve said this plenty of times, not liking the truth doesn’t make it any less true. This is when shadow work comes to play. Like hate, nobody is born with thick skin. It is developed over time. No matter how old you are now you can still become someone who can take uncomfortable constructive criticism and use them to make you stronger. Not harder, stronger. Hard headed/hard hearted people fear challenge and harbor resentment for themself and take it out on others because they failed before trying, thus making them harder, but not smarter or better people. They’d rather be hard like a rock, too heavy to move, while others opt to be stronger so they are able to move that tock blocking their path. Do you want to be the tock, stuck, not going anywhere and in everybody’s way or do you want to be the strong man/woman/person who uses their strength to move that rock so they can keep going forward? The choice is yours. Good luck.
- Commit to a life long journey of learning. Because you’re also not a know it all, you shouldn’t just stop learning and growing once you’ve reached a certain age or milestone in your life. I’ve met so many people who think they are flawless because they went to therapy in the past. What many of them failed to make clear at the beginning was they went to therapy for one specific thing to work on and now that they’ve managed one piece of the puzzle that means everything else will magically piece itself together. What kind of Harry Potter shit is that? That’s not how life outside of Hogwarts works. You master one thing, you move on to the next thing that needs improvement. I think the reason people who’ve gone to therapy don’t want to continue to self-improve is because they do not want to tap into that shadow side again and go through those dark moments again working through the other issue(s) plaguing them from being their best self. But as I said at the beginning of this section, if you can’t do shadow work, you can’t grow and it is up to to grow into the person you want to be.
What’s wonderful about following these steps is that they can all be done by yourself, with or without the approval of someone else. That’s not me saying cannot and should not reach out for help when you need to nor deny help offerings when in need or not. I’m saying it’s time we stop lying to ourselves. Burying ourselves in work and school and making gains in these areas to avoid what we really need to work on in order to grow for real. Stop placing your personal worth on others because you are playing a dangerous game by doing that.
“Invest in yourself” is not just financial advice #NotFinancialAdvice.
Sources: https://www.inc.com/matthew-jones/7-easy-steps-to-rapidly-improve-personal-growth.html. I’m not a relationship coach either but you can learn more reading my book “Relationship Advice from a Nobody Vol.1” https://tablo.com/ernest-sandefer/relationship-advice-from-a-nobody.
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