10 Behaviors That Stop You Growing as a Person

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A few years ago, I wrote a post titled – Are you Growing as a Person?

My earlier post looked at questions to ask yourself to assess if you are growing as a person.

How we think and act plays a large role in how much we grow. When it comes to personal growth, there are definitely behaviors that move us forward and some that hold us back.

Today we’ll be looking at 10 behaviors that stop or hold back your personal growth.

See if you can relate to any of these and give some thought to the behaviors and habits that you may need to introduce or eliminate to get your personal growth back on track.

Let’s look at 10 behaviors that can stop you growing as a person.

Disclosure – This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. Any compensation I receive does not affect the price you pay.

1. Not taking time to reflect

I get it, life is busy. With work, family, friends, housework, bills, kids etc (this list goes on and on and on) it all gets a bit crazy.

With all that going on – who has time to reflect?

Who has time to ask themselves – Am I on track? Am I being the person I want to be? Am I growing as a person?

Despite life being busy, it’s important that we make the time to reflect on where we are and where we want to be going forward.

It doesn’t have to take a great deal of time but it needs to be a regular occurrence.

If you only check in with yourself say once a month (or worse once a year), it makes it harder to get yourself back on track. It also means you were off-track for longer than you needed to be!

A quick check-in once a week on what’s working and what’s not can make a big difference in your life.

Preferably this should be written down so that you can track your progress and make sure you follow through on decisions and goals.

Other posts relating to growing as a person that you might enjoy –

2. Not taking time to plan how you want to grow

You know you want to grow as a person and you know you want this year to be better than last year but do you have a plan to make that happen or do you feel that things should just happen by themselves?

Reflection is a great first step, but you also need a solid plan in place to make sure what you have decided you need to do comes together.

Leaving it all up to ‘let’s see what happens’ just won’t cut it.

If you really make to make progress, you need clarity on what you need to do and when you need to do it.

3. Wanting everything to be perfect

Perfection. What a piece of work perfectionism it is!

The moment we start wanting everything to be perfect, we get stuck.

Perfectionism makes us delay taking action or if we do take action it stops us from following through because nothing is ever good enough. Nothing is perfect enough.

As a creative, you might put in the time and effort to create something wonderful but then never have the courage to put it out into the world because it’s not perfect (which is such a terrible waste of your talent!)

Perfectionism doesn’t just cripple creatives, it can affect everyone. You won’t finish decorating the spare room if you are obsessed with it being perfect and if you finish it, you might agonize over it not being good enough and go back and redo the whole thing. The end result is a big waste of your time and money.

Perfectionism has us doubting the hell out of ourselves.

I dislike the word perfect. I try not to use it because in my mind nothing is perfect. That doesn’t mean I don’t see the beauty, joy, and wonder in things, it just means I know that what is ‘perfect’ for one person, might not be ‘perfect’ for someone else.

We all have our own versions of what perfect is and what it means to us.

4. Doubting yourself

While we are talking about self-doubt, let’s get real here.

Self-doubt can stop you from moving forward. Hell, it can push you backwards if you let it!

If you want to improve your life, it helps to get your self-doubt under control.

Getting your self-doubt under control doesn’t mean you are never going to experience self-doubt again but it does mean that you will learn how to deal with it and push through it quickly and appropriately when it occurs.

The scary thing is self-doubt has become a habit for many of us yet we are not even aware of it. Our go-to thought as soon as we start dreaming big or thinking about something we want is to jump straight to self-doubt. It’s instant and it’s a habit.

The good news is like any other habit – it can be changed. We can change our habits and yes it takes work and repetition but the payoffs are HUGE.

If you can get that self-doubt loop from hell under control, you are definitely heading in the right direction!

I recently completed a great online course – How to Break the Habit of Self-Doubt and Build Real Confidence.

This CreativeLive course taught by the amazing Mel Robbins has been a real game-changer for me and I believe it can benefit you as well.

I wrote a review on the course which you can read all about in this post – How to Break the Habit of Self-Doubt and Build Real Confidence Course Review. I highly recommend this course, I got so much out of it and I’m sure you will too.

5. Believing you know everything

If you think you know everything, you are not going to grow.

Of course, the concept of someone knowing everything is actually impossible – more likely you think you know everything about a particular topic.

While it’s great to be confident in your field of expertise, it’s also important to remain flexible and open-minded.

Life changes so often it’s important to remember that sometimes another person can see things from an angle that you might not have looked at or anticipated.

6. Believing you are always right

Some people go out of their way to prove other people wrong in an effort to prove themselves right.

The truth of the matter is no one is right all the time and everyone makes mistakes.

Believing you are always right is going to stifle your personal growth, not to mention damage your relationships. If you believe you are always right (and go out of your way to prove other people wrong) you are bound to be upsetting the people around you, which can lead to conflict and tension in your relationships.

You might be right but at what price?

7. An unwillingness to try new things

How often do you try new things?

Are you keen to try something out of your normal routine or do you balk at the idea?

You won’t grow as much as you could if you don’t try new things.

This means seeking out new experiences and pushing yourself to do things that make you feel afraid or challenged.

Do you only ever do things that you know you can do well?

Make a list of 3 new things you would like to try.

They might be things that you have been thinking about for a while but just haven’t done yet or things your family would like you to do with them.

8. An unwillingness to learn new things

You might be okay with learning new skills for work but be reluctant to translate that into learning for your personal benefit.

In fact, you might think that with all the learning and study you need to do with work, you simply don’t have the time to do any learning on a personal level.

If you want to be successful and if you want to sustain that success, you need to keep learning.

Learning doesn’t mean that you have to complete a university degree or two (though that’s fine of course if that’s what you want) but it does mean that you have to be an active participant in the learning process.

Thankfully, there is an amazing variety of online courses that you can take in the comfort of your own home and at your own pace (for a reasonable price which is always great news as well!)

One of my favorite online course providers is CreativeLive. They offer courses on personal development, business, productivity, photography, and a whole bunch of other things.

Don’t forget to try to make learning as fun and interesting as possible, that way you are more likely to stick with it as well as embrace it wholeheartedly.

9. Trying to avoid suffering

Your first response to that headline might have been – “What the hell, I’m suffering plenty!”

I hear you and I understand where you are coming from but let me explain what I mean.

Life can be hard, we are all aware of that.

Often our plan for dealing with pain and suffering is to ignore it, deny it, numb it, or escape from it.

Anything but having to actually feel it and process those feelings.

I’ve been guilty of this myself lately and it’s given me a wake-up call to change and monitor my behavior. I’ve been struggling with a few issues and escaping reality was becoming part of my routine.

My escape options of choice are food, wine, and television (sorry nothing really original about this lot). None of these options help me with my problems. In fact, they do the exact opposite. They take time away from growing my business which is a priority right now.

I fully understand that sometimes we have to pick one problem to deal with at a time, but eventually, we have to deal with the problems which means confronting the suffering.

The other important point when it comes to suffering is that we need to be selective about what we suffer for.

One huge glaring issue is that we are suffering for things that aren’t important.

Last year, I read the brilliant book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life‘ and it really opened my eyes and got me thinking.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough, I absolutely loved it. So much so that I kept it in my handbag and re-read a chapter on the train to work every morning and every afternoon. (I was going through a difficult, stressful time at work and it really helped me).

The truth is life is going to make you suffer but the key is knowing what’s worth suffering for.

A petty little argument with an acquaintance or family member that you are not close to (and don’t honestly like) – not worth it. A dear friend struggling and in need – worth it.

You get to choose what you suffer for. Choice wisely.

The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just have to find the ones worth suffering for.” – Bob Marley

10. Having a fixed mindset

When you have a growth mindset you believe that things can change.

With a growth mindset, you believe that your efforts will be rewarded (even if that means you have to work your butt off) and that your plan will come to fruition.

If you have a fixed mindset, you believe that things won’t change no matter what you do.

If you believe that nothing will change no matter what you do or how hard you work, it’s going to be a lot harder to get motivated to do the work in the first place because deep down you’ll be thinking – why bother?

As you can imagine a fixed mindset, isn’t going to let you grow.

Having a growth mindset and believing in opportunity and possibility is essential if you want to grow as a person.

Being aware of your behavior gives you the ability to make life-changing decisions and take action in the areas where you need improvement. When it comes to growing as a person, what areas do you need to work on?

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