The truth is, your career doesn’t necessarily dictate how much you’ve grown as a person. Often, we find the most self-growth outside of work and school. I know I certainly have. I truly believe that if we reframe our minds to focus on our own self-growth over career-growth, the world would be a very different place.

These are my five favourite strategies for fueling my own self-growth, and trust me, none of them require meeting strict deadlines at work or finishing any school assignments!

Travel somewhere new – ideally for longer than a month

If you’ve ever travelled anywhere for an extended period of time, you’re no stranger to the serious amount of growth that comes with it. Travelling forces you to start from zero in a completely new environment – whether that’s a new city, province, or country. And with that comes a ton of life lessons.

When I moved to Scotland, every single day brought new opportunities to expand, develop, and just learn about myself in ways that I never would have if I stayed back home in Ontario.

We’re extremely fortunate to be living in an era where travel has become so accessible. Taking a gap year (let’s be honest – gap years) is becoming the norm among our generation.

But if travelling for an extended period of time just isn’t financially possible for you (trust me, I get it), short-term is your next best option. Go on a week-long Contiki trip to Brazil…or Greece…or Vietnam! The world – and an undiscovered part of yourself – awaits!

Get outside of your comfort zone (and stop being self-conscious about it!)

My life opened up in so many extraordinary ways when I finally realized that strangers do not care.

I guarantee that when you’re on the dancefloor shimmying your stuff, everyone else is too busy worrying about how they look to care at all about you!

There are so many daily practices you can do to get your comfort zone walls tumbling down.

Go to a bar alone. Go to the movies alone. Strike up a conversation with that cute Italian barista. Get lost in a new (and perhaps a bit eclectic) neighbourhood. Go to a palm reader. Send a message to that boyfriend who broke your heart in grade 10.

When you start doing things that push you outside of your comfort zone, over time you’ll get more comfortable with it. And once you’re comfortable feeling a bit uncomfortable, a world of possibilities opens up to you!

Re-awaken your inner child

Many of us who have passed the threshold from childhood to adulthood are in a constant state of mourning for our inner child.

We may not realize it consciously, but deep down we all yearn for a missing part of ourselves – the part that was more free, more creative, more imaginative, more playful, and more open to life.

As we age, we often lose touch with our inner child. This may manifest in a number of ways, including (but not limited to):

• Having a pessimistic outlook on life; never really feeling excited about things
• Conforming to what everyone else is doing even when you really don’t want to (a wardrobe full of grey and black when your favourite colours are pink and green)
• Feeling overly anxious and self-conscious around people (“What are they saying about me? What do they think of me?”)
• A paintbox full of untouched paints
• A bookshelf full of unread books
• A forgotten hobby
• A forgotten passion
• A forgotten backyard

If any of this sounds like you, don’t worry. You can re-awaken your inner child by doing a bit of mental time-travelling and getting back in touch with the things that made you light up when you were young.

And once you do, you’ll discover a beautiful, long-forgotten side of yourself you didn’t realize how much you were missing.

Journal every day

When it comes to self-growth, journaling is the equivalent to breathing.

Every morning when you wake up, write as many pages as you can of stream of consciousness style writing.

When we write without thinking too much about it, what we’re really doing is getting in contact with our higher self (our soul).

The magical thing about stream of consciousness journaling is that all you have to do is show up on the page and your soul will do the rest. It may sound a little bit cheesy, but before you mock it, try it.

I promise you that through the physical act of writing, insights will begin to bubble up inside of you and flood out onto the page – insights into what you’re truly thinking and feeling.

After a few months, it’s amazing to look back at older entries to see how much you’ve grown through the pages.

Listen, listen, listen – to everyone and everything

Make a deal with yourself. Instead of thinking “I already know this”, instead ask “what can I learn from this?”.

This simple way of reframing your mind can have a radical impact on your personal growth.

Once you approach the world with an open mind and an open ear, you’re opening yourself up to the possibility of learning something new every day and exposing yourself to new perspectives that may change the way you think about life.

Listening to podcasts and reading books are two of my favourite tools for learning something new, so I always have a book in my bag and a couple good podcasts downloaded on my phone.

Ted Talks are another fantastic resource for expanding yourself and exploring new ways of thinking.

Everyone has their own story to share, and we can all learn from a good story. Try treating everyone you meet like your guru and see what unexpected insights you discover.

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I continue to use these five strategies to grow and expand myself each and every day. I hope that you too will benefit from them as much as I do!

I wish you good luck on your journey – remember I’m right there with you.

The first step to achieving your goals is to make a kick-ass plan, but the idea of making a big plan can be pretty daunting. Enter the goal setting worksheet. This is a super easy way to plan your big goals completely from scratch.

And just an fyi, goal setting and planning doesn’t have to be for the ultra-intense-super-achiever (although it can be), it can also be for people who have personal goals, such as becoming more mindful, getting healthier, or being more social! It can be for everyone to help them reach their career/life/financial/educational/etc goals!

So for this post, I wanted to focus on creating the perfect goal setting worksheet that is tailored to your own personal needs and goals.

How helpful can a goal setting worksheet actually be?

For some people, a goal setting worksheet might be just another piece of paper that gets crumpled and stepped on and used as a napkin or doodling paper.

But if you actually commit to using one, it can be an amazing way to motivate yourself and remind yourself frequently to stay on track!

Before you start:

Removing Expectations

You need to remove the expectations that society/ your parents/ and any other sources are putting on you and start to think about what you really want.

So with that being said, here are two big questions you need to ask yourself:

1. What would I do if I didn’t need to impress anybody?

2. What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail? (cliche I know, but important)

These questions are simple but we tend to ignore the answers because our fears of disappointing others and of failure are too strong.

keep this in mind as you go through the next steps and starting making your goal planning worksheet.

Step 1: Figuring Out What You Really Want

I want you to focus on what you want to do and how you want to feel.

Understanding what you do want

For your general work/life goals, here are some prompts that can help you to better understand what you want:

What activities/work make you feel the happiest?

These are questions that will help you to decide what you really want and what will make you feel good in life if that is what you want to do.

Understanding What You Don’t Want to Do

You should also address what you don’t want to do in life. When pursuing any goal in life, there are going to be aspects that you don’t enjoy that much. You might be able to deal with some of the more difficult tasks, but there might be some things that aren’t really worth it to you. And that’s totally fine – it will just show you that that specific path is not the right one for you.

What/who is significantly negatively impacting your life and causing you stress?

What things do you really not enjoy doing in your regular life that you find yourself doing quite frequently?

 Understanding the Factors Holding You Back

There also might be certain aspects of your life that are preventing you from reaching your full potential in your professional goals. I have outlined some questions that could help you figure out some personal development goals that will help you to create the right skills to help you out in the future for your life goals.

Are there certain times in your life where you feel a block/barrier that is preventing you from doing things that you want to do?

Are there things you wish you had the courage to do, but can’t?

Are there habits that are wasting time for you? (TV, sleeping, nervous habits)

Hopefully these questions will give you some indication of some personal goals you could start with or give you an idea of the goals that you might not want to pursue because of the negative aspects that you might not want to deal with.

If you want some more help with finding the right goals for you, you can check out another article of mine: How to Find Goals that Align With Who You Really Are

Step 2: Categorizing Your Goals

Now, what areas in life do you have goals for and which are the most important to you?

• Professional goals (career, job, livelihood)
• Physical goals (body, health, weight)
• Relationship goals (romantic, friendly, familial)
• Financial goals (savings, wealth/money, financial habits)
• Emotional/mental goals (feelings, mental health)
• Spiritual goals (connection to something greater, your spiritual path and values)
• Experiences/hobbies goals (travel goals/other fun experiences)
• Educational goals (learning and knowledge)
• Philanthropic goals (giving back to the community, world)

These nine areas should give you a good basis for the areas in which you should base your goals. This also might show you that you actually might have more goals than you might have thought.

So when you fill out your proper goal setting worksheet that you can download here: it can be best to only focus on one goal at a time.

Step 3: Narrowing Down And Focusing On One Goal At A Time

You can go through the next few steps for each goal if you’d like so that you can narrow it down into more manageable pieces.

Basically, you are going to have your main goal, which you have determined using the steps above, but you also want to find the smaller goals and steps that you will need to achieve first in order to reach this bigger goal.

So what you need to do is further break down your goals into mini goals and then break those down into micro goals.

Mind Map/Flow Chart

It is a good idea to do a mind map or a flow chart to see if any of your bigger goals are actually steps to reaching your other big goals, or if there are mini-goals that will help you work towards multiple bigger goals.

Tip: This is also a good time to check in to see if there are any goals you have that really don’t fit in with your major goals. Sometimes we don’t have time to complete all of our goals and sometimes certain things we want are more distracting than anything else.

In the image below (which is from my goal planning workbook) will help you with a visual representation of your goals and mini goals.

Step 4: Defining Your Goals

For all of these goals (especially the bigger goals), you want to be as descriptive as possible because you want to have a very clear idea of what you want and the steps that it will take to get there.

So, there are a few exercises that you can do to help define your goals. And don’t worry, I have compiled all of these into a goal setting worksheet (or workbook, rather) that you can download.

5 Ws + H

So the first thing you want to do is answer the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How? Answering these questions will give you a lot more insight into what it will take to reach this goal.

More specific questions you can ask are:

Who

Who will be involved in this Goal?

Who will be affected by this goal?

Who’s help might you need in order to achieve this goal?

What

Be as specific with this goal as you can.

What is the final result you will achieve with this goal?

What resources will you need to achieve this goal?

Where

Where will this goal take place?

Where will you need to be/go in order to reach this goal?

Where will you work to reach this goal?

Why

Why is it important that you reach this goal?

Why do you want to reach this goal?

This question is a bit of a double-check to ensure that you really want to complete this goal and that it is for you and not for someone else. Also, it’s a great way to motivate yourself with all the reasons that you want to do it!

Making SMART Goals

You will also want to check that your goal is SMART. Smart goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

To check that you have a smart goal, you can go through the following:

Specific

Be very clear with your goal. You want as many details as possible so that you know exactly what you need to achieve.

Measurable

how will you know that your goal is complete? ex: how much weight do you want to lose? what will you have achieved?

Achievable

How will you reach this goal? Are there any constraints that might prevent you from reaching this goal? (ie. financial, where you live, other commitments)

Relevant

This will be more for your mini goals. Do they work towards the overall goal that you want to achieve and towards the life that you want?

Time-bound

You need to make sure that you have a deadline or series of deadlines that you can adhere to so that you stay on track.

Once you do this with your bigger goals, you can go through again with your mini goals and micro goals.

Now that you have your goals well-defined, you can start to make a plan.

Step 5: Making a Plan

You can start to map out when you want your milestones to be.

Mapping Your Milestones

1 Year Goal:

9-month goal:

6-month goal:

3-month goal:

1-month goal:

1-week goal:

Today’s goal:

Once you have those goals figured out, as well as your mini goals and even micro goals – you can start putting your plan into action by filling out a yearly calendar, then monthly, weekly, and daily.  I have included yearly, monthly, and weekly calendars in the printable goal setting worksheet here.

If you want an even more thorough goal setting worksheet (well actually it’s a workbook), check out this one. I use it myself and it is so thorough and so detailed. It’s around $30 but totally worth it! It has 60+ pages and even just using a couple of them has helped me out a lot!

But if you don’t want to shell out the cash, you can download my free goal planning workbook below: not as thorough but I will be working on updating it and making it a lot better!

Also, a huge part of achieving your goals is your mindset, so you should check out my free mindset training course. It will be specifically dedicated to reframing your mind and habits toward reaching your goals.