Two major moments in my life revealed to me how vital personal growth is for moms. One was when I was 25 and found myself a single parent which I share about here. The other moment was during our boys’ tween years. I began to realize that my kids were outwardly displaying some of my inner struggles. It’s one thing when your kids repeat a bad saying you have and quite another when you see your kids acting out your own thoughts and attitudes. I knew that the healthier I was emotionally, the better shot my children had at emotional healthiness! So we are going to walk through the steps to developing a personal growth plan. You will then have a workable schematic that you can adapt and reuse for many areas in your life to bring wholeness and emotional health! Ready?
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8 Steps Smart Moms Know on Making a Personal Growth Plan
We can’t strive for perfection, but as moms we certainly can allow our role as mothers to motivate us to live as authentically and emotionally healthy as possible. So when we see certain attitudes or fears of our own begin to display in our tween’s behavior we don’t have to panic. OK, perhaps we need a small moment to panic!
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But then let’s get to work! With a personal growth plan we can gradually work on personal areas that need strengthening.
Personal Development needs a Desire to Grow
First, we need to have a desire to change. Some people love to learn and others feel the need to buckle down and shore up their defenses when someone mentions “personal growth.” Personal development doesn’t mean that you throw everything out and start over completely.
Yes, you may have a pivotal moment or two in life when you need a complete life make-over.
But most the time, when we speak of personal development, we are just talking about making small but habitual changes to become a little stronger emotionally each day!
Get excited about personal growth!
Think of a personal growth plan like cleaning out your closet. We will keep some of the clothes we love, ditch ones that don’t bring a “spark of joy” and buy a few new key items to freshen our wardrobe! Fun!
Identify One Focus For Real Personal Growth
What has recently shifted in your life that is causing you concern or distress? Have you gone through a recent traumatic event? Have you suffered a loss? Did you recently face a big failure or disappointment?
We tend to be willing to make changes in our life when we feel so uncomfortable with staying where we are! So what is making you VERY uncomfortable?
For me, as mentioned above, it was seeing my son act out certain attitudes that I knew he had learned from me.
Perhaps you have seen this in your tween. Maybe you realize that their fear, about trying new things, they learned from you. UGH! We don’t want our kids to be afraid to fail or think they have to be perfect.
So what do we do?
We identify the problem. Our child is experience a lot of fears that are holding them back in life. But in order to encourage our kid to try new things, WE have to face our own fear of failing.
What Do you Hope to Achieve with Your Personal Growth Plan
Now that we have narrowed down our pain point, we will examine what we hope to achieve. What would it look like if we were more organized? How would our family function if our marriage was stronger? What would our life look like if we learned to say no?
Think of it as prepping for a journey. You don’t start off on a journey without some idea as to where you want to end.
YES! I want my Personal Growth Plan Worksheets
and access to The Resource Library
We need to become clear on what we hope our end result will be so we can set goals to get us there. We also want to set our sights on a destination that exists. There are things we have control over and some things out of the realm of our control.
As you set our sights on the changes you desire, be sure to be realistic about what YOU have control over!
In our earlier example, say that your child has become fearful. You can change yourself, begin to try new things and slowly begin to set a better example in this area. You can’t control how long it may take your child to “catch” this new attitude.
Another main reason we develop a clear idea of where we want to go in our personal growth plan, is that change in hard. When we start to make changes, we will meet resistance, in ourselves and from others.
This is why it is important to have thought through your concerns and the reasons behind why you feel sure a change is needed.
Examine Your Underlying Belief
Examining your underlying belief may feel a little uncomfortable to you if you are new to personal growth. But that is OK. The trick is to remember your reason for wanting to change and where you are headed.
Pay less attention to the voice in your head that is saying, “Let’s just NOT think about it. We can keep doing things the same way we have always done it.”
Remember, most of us don’t like change. But as moms we have a HUGE motivation to grow stronger so we are going to ignore thoughts or feelings of panic as we make small changes.
Our feelings of panic are more indicative of the fact that you are doing something new, not that you are doing something wrong!
What is the reason or belief behind your current thought pattern or attitude?
Again going back to the example of having an attitude of fear about trying new things. Why are you fearful? What other messages are attached to these feeling of fear that your mind plays over and over? How did your family growing up handle trying new things? Did you go through a hurtful event that made you dislike trying new things? What do you imagine would happen if you did decide to step outside your comfort zone? What is your “worse case scenario” that plays around in your brain.
Gently ask yourself questions around your fear. Journaling about your fear or concern can also be helpful and enlightening. There is something about getting all your swirling thoughts out of your head and onto paper. It adds perspective as you can be more rational as you see in black and white what you are thinking.
Discover the Real Truth and Replace Your Old Belief
After we looked at our pain and the underlying belief behind it we are ready to replace it with truth! This is such an important step on your personal growth plan!
This step will look a little bit different for everyone.
Some of our beliefs when simply said aloud or written down will be easily be exposed for untruth.
For example, we may be hesitant to open our homes because we are not the most organized person in the world. And we were harboring this belief that no one would want to be our friend if they knew what a mess our house is.
We can see that is clearly NOT true. If everyone’s house was spectacular then shows like Tidying Up wouldn’t be so popular! We clearly are not the only ones that struggle to organize and clean:) This shouldn’t hold us back from opening our homes.
But what if your underlying belief goes even deeper. Perhaps you feel that you are a failure at housecleaning…and perhaps everything else. We may have to get more serious about replacing our old lies with truth.
For me, I go the source of Truth, the Bible and examine what God says is really TRUE about me. You may decide to do this. Or you may utilize other sources that you use to gauge what is true.
Don’t allow your LIE or UNBELIEF to reside in your house and your life. It isn’t just about you. You are also FIGHTING for your kids, right? So we can’t allow limiting beliefs to get all cozy in OUR HOME!
You may even want to call or share this discovery with a close friend or mentor. Allow them to speak TRUTH to you and help you reframe your old belief with a true one!
Set Goals for Yourself Around Your New Belief
As part of our personal development plan we want to set up a few goals to help us move forward.
It is time to take ACTION!
We need to keep challenging our old believe by taking action on our new belief.
For example, perhaps you struggle with telling others no. You have discovered that one of the lies behind your fear of saying no is the fear of rejection and abandonment. If we have replaced our old fear of saying no, with a new goal of saying yes to the things we love create some small goals around this.
Here are a couple of suggestions:
- We may write down a verse or quote about our worth as a person, about acceptance or authentic friendship.
- Say no to the next thing we CLEARLY don’t want do.
- Read a book on how to break free from people pleasing.
- Learn and experiment with new ways to say no.
- The next time a good friend asks what you think or would like to do, share with them honestly.
While your motivation is fresh in your mind begin to set your actionable goals. We don’t want to get too comfortable again in our unbelief.
Yes, I want my Personal Growth Plan Worksheets
and access to The Resource Library
If we simply identify our unbelief BUT DON”T REPLACE IT, you will have a void in your life, that will easily be filled back up with your old belief.
So once you begin to tear out the roots of your old belief PLANT something NEW!! Set small goals and take action! Today:)
Share Your Personal Growth Plan with a Mentor or another Mom
You have started something new in your life. Share your personal development goal with a mentor or friend!
It is powerful when you set your intentions and make a goal. But when you share with a mentor or mom friend it helps you in two ways. Your mentor or mom friend may have some creative ways to help you accomplish your goal. And telling someone safe your goal will help you be more accountable to take action.
Take this step a little further and find a friend that is strong in this area. Ask them how they handle this situation or why they find it so easy. Pick someone who you feel comfortable sharing with but don’t hesitate to ask for help:)
Celebrate Your Personal Development Wins
Personal growth is a journey, not a destination. You will hopefully have points when you “arrive” in the sense that you realize one day that you don’t struggle much any more with that old fear. But most of personal growth is just small daily actions.
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So celebrate your small wins! When you try something new or tell someone no for the first time, celebrate! Celebrating will encourage you and fuel your desire to keep going. Celebrating also balances out the negative feelings of panic you may feel as you try something new.
Being thankful over your small wins gives you joy for today. Celebrating also conveys the message to your children, who are watching you, that emotional health is about continuing to try each day, not about perfection!
8 Steps Smart Moms Know on Making a Personal Growth Plan
You made it! I know that was a lot of information. So make sure to PIN this post for later and click here to print off your own personalized personal growth plan (and gain access to The Resource Library). And now that you know the step by step plan you can create an emotionally vibrant home!
Comment below what step is the hardest for you? Are you working on an area of your life right now?
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Bekki says
Great tips, thank you for such a useful article.
Miranda says
You are so welcome Bekki!
Laura says
This is great! I was just talking to my husband last night about how I need to make more of a conscious effort in my responses to my kids instead of getting frustrated all the time. These are great reminders and I am looking forward to making some positive changes!
Miranda says
Making decisions ahead of time instead of just reacting as a mom can be so helpful! So glad you found some beneficial reminders.
Stephanie says
This was a great read, thank you! I agree that overcoming your underlying beliefs is an essential part of personal growth, we have to get to the bottom of what is holding us back. Thanks for sharing!
Miranda says
I’m so glad you found some encouragement in this post!