Growth and healing are never a linear process, but I’ve always believed they intertwine in ways we might not be able to see at first.
The parts of ourselves we’re always trying to work on and improve have a profound impact on who we are, and eventually, we’ll always reach where we want to be, no matter how long it takes. Growth draws the connection between who we were and who we’re becoming, while healing shows how far we’ve come.
An important lesson I’ve learned about self-improvement is that even when something doesn’t turn out the way we expect it will, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the best for us in the end. True growth is accepting where you are, and recognizing who you are as a result of the change while remaining open for what’s to come, including healing. Here are 6 signs you’re growing and healing for self-improvement:
1. You Respond To Situations Differently Than You Used To
One of the biggest signs of growth and healing on my path to self-improvement was when I noticed I started responding differently to situations than I used to.
In hindsight, it’s easy to look back on a situation and think about how you should’ve responded, what you could’ve said, or what you could’ve done differently. And even if you can put all of those pieces together, what’s most important is recognizing how you react to current and future situations when faced with similar difficult times.
If I reflect on my past situations, I realize that the things I used to put so much emphasis on bother me less, if at all. Most of our circumstances are out of our control, and a major sign of growth is accepting situations for what they are, rather than what we expect them to be. It can be as simple as a mindset shift, especially because we can never heal or grow if we remain stuck in how we feel.
Self-improvement means learning to respond differently because not everything is worth our time or energy. To me, that’s a significant sign of growth: being willing to let go of anything that doesn’t contribute to you becoming the best version of yourself.
2. You’re Confident In Your Decisions, Even When You’re Not Sure Where Your Path Is Leading You
Another major aspect of growth and healing for self-improvement is recognizing that regardless of your decisions, you can find confidence in knowing that you’ve made choices to the best of your ability.
Indecisiveness was always my downfall throughout my 20s. I prolonged making any decision because I feared making the wrong decision; which often made things worse than if I had just made a decision and stuck to it. This can happen in multiple areas of our lives that we might not realize—because it’s easier to postpone a decision than to deal with the consequences of our choices.
Our path won’t always be clear. Sometimes we’ll wonder how our situations will ultimately turn out while feeling discomfort or doubt. But you can still embrace uncertainty while finding confidence in your decisions, even when you aren’t sure where your journey is leading you.
Growth means understanding that even if you make the “wrong” choice, you’ll still learn throughout the process what you might’ve not known before. Healing is accepting that even if the choice leads you to an unexpected place, you won’t need validation in the end because you already have it within yourself. You’ll learn to trust that your decisions will lead you exactly where you’re meant to be because you’re confident no matter what’s taking place around you.
3. You’re At Peace No Matter What’s Taking Place Around You
It took me years to learn how to find my inner peace no matter what was happening around me, especially since I’m a highly sensitive person. I often struggled with learning how to separate the line between caring about others’ feelings vs. completely absorbing their emotions and energy to the point where it would deeply affect me.
Not every situation in our lives will unfold as we expect, and with that can come discomfort or feeling lost. Rather than losing yourself in the chaos, a sign of growing and healing for self-improvement is learning how to find contentment and peace no matter what’s taking place around you.
We can’t control the reactions of others, and we can’t control the outcomes of situations. But what we can control is learning how to find our focal point of peace—the peace that guides us no matter our circumstances.
4. You’re Unapologetically Yourself
As a (mostly) former people-pleaser, I used to live my life for others rather than for myself. Boundaries were basically non-existent because I constantly conformed to what others believed I should do or who I should be. Instead of trusting my intuition and following my own path, I lost sight of who I was by prioritizing others’ feelings over my own.
But as I transitioned through different life stages, I realized that a major aspect of growth was learning how to be unapologetically myself. I stopped apologizing for who I was and didn’t make excuses any longer for the choices I was making. I learned how to be confident in my decisions, even if that meant that not everybody would understand the reasoning behind those choices.
People won’t always understand or agree with the reasoning behind your decisions, but the best part is that they don’t have to. A crucial part of growing and healing for self-improvement is accepting that being unapologetically yourself means following your own path, regardless of others’ opinions. You’re the only person living your story, and not everybody can see your path from beginning to end.
5. You Focus On Your Purpose And Aren’t Too Hung Up On Your Progress
For years, I was in the back-and-forth cycle of focusing on my progress, rather than looking at my purpose.
I confined myself to a standard that if I wasn’t where I thought I should be, then I was falling short of my expectations for success. I had dreamed of running my own publication for as long as I could remember, and when I felt like I wasn’t even inching toward that goal, I convinced myself I was destined for failure.
True growth means recognizing that things take time. Instead of giving up, you have to learn how to accept your progress while focusing on your purpose. Each season of our lives serves a different purpose, and even if I wanted to be somewhere sooner than the time it was taking, I started shifting my focus to my purpose for the time being.
When we feel lost in our direction, we focus on where we aren’t, rather than being thankful for where we are.
Sometimes, we have to learn how to accept that small progress is still progress. It isn’t always the biggest steps of growth that lead us to where we’re meant to be, it’s all the little steps in-between. It’s the hard times, the unknown, and the uncertainty that aligns us with our purpose.
Our purpose is never found in where we are, but in who we are. Each step we take brings us closer to where we need to be, even when it feels far out of reach.
6. You Find Fulfillment In How Your Life Feels, Rather Than How It Looks
Through my own self-improvement journey, I’ve realized the importance of caring more about how my life feels rather than how it looks.
I know what’s most important for my health: actively making changes for growth, investing in anything that helps me become a better version of myself, and holding loosely to any expectations of how my life “should” look.
The truth about growth and happiness is that we can’t focus on what we think will make us happy, we have to accept where we are and what we have. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing we’ll be happy when we finally receive what we’re waiting for. But when we solely focus on that mindset, we lose so much of where we are. Especially because when we do receive what we’re waiting for, we usually find ourselves waiting for something else.
Your timeline will always be your timeline, regardless if it matches where somebody else is or isn’t. Even when something doesn’t turn out how you expect it will, trust that it’s leading you exactly where you’re meant to be.
The road to growth and healing for self-improvement unfolds over time. With each experience we face, we learn how to improve and change for the future. Even if it feels like you’ll never reach your final destination, you’ll always get there, even if it’s only one step at a time.
