Personal growth is essential for health and well being. Humans have amazing potential to continuously accept, and conquer, new challenges. There are few, if any, things which you cannot achieve, if you really want to do so. 

Many people hinder their own personal growth by coming up with a myriad of excuses for refusing to take action. A personal growth mindset allows you to take on new challenges. All you really require is an open mind, a desire to try new things, and awareness that you can improve your performance with commitment and effort.

Stop Rationalising: Rationalisation is the attempt to give logical explanations or justification of a behaviour or an attitude that is not appropriate. If you find yourself in a position of feeling like justifying your behaviour or attitude....Stop for a moment....Look at the behaviour again...Ask yourself, "Am I  making a snap decision or have I analysed the situation and made an educated decision?', 'is my decision to say or do this driven by anxiety or fear of consequences? or do I feel good about doing or saying this?, "What is the consequence of my doing or saying this?", "What will happen if I don't do or say this?". If you are not sure...discuss it with a friend, a colleague, or relative yopu can trust. If, at the end of this you still feel that you are justified in your behaviour...go ahead and do or say it....AND DON'T JUSTIFY IT....accept the consequences. You do not need to justify everything that you do. You do not need to offer any justification other than ‘because I want to!’

Accept your fears: Accept the fact that, just like any other person, you have fears and insecurities, and they sometimes shape your behaviour. If you don't accept this, you will not be able to recognize when your actions are based on fear and anxiety. And since you cannot change what you do not permit yourself to recognize, you will never overcome your fears either. Everyone has fears and insecurities....even those who appear to act fearlessly. And fears influence your behaviour immensely. The central thing is to be willing to admit your own fears and fear-driven actions, so you can clearly notice them. Once you are able to notice them, you can move to the next step, which is to work on overcoming your fears and insecurities. This is in essence the process of building confidence. If you can recognise and accept your fears, you can do what you truly want and follow your desires instead of letting fear dictate how you live and then feeling bad about it or trying to find comfort in rationalization.

Engage with new people: Seek out and have conversations with people, and groups, whom you might not have spent time with previously. Approach these conversations with an open mind and you will learn new things and have your own views challenged.  This will help to freshen up your life and stimulate your creativity and help confirm or question your behaviour and attitude, and allow you to act without fear or justification.

Allow yourself to dream: As Dr. Abdul Kalam said, dreams of successful people are not what they experience while sleeping, but what they pursue while awake and do not let them sleep. Every achievement begins with a dream. Allow yourself to dream. Do not place limitations on these dreams. Your dreams are part of your creative self. If you embrace them, you will identify new opportunities for growth.

Live your dreams: You may want something that’s well outside of your comfort zone and even scares others in your life, but those dreams are in your heart and mind for a reason. Sit down and say it out loud. No matter how crazy it sounds — get real. 

Research your dreams: We live in a time where information is readily available on the internet. You will probably find that you are not the first person to have your dream. Chances are that someone has mapped out what you need to know and you just need to build on it. Put a plan together and take the first steps. But make sure you have a plan. If you want to quit your job — you should have another job/business in your plan and an emergency fund. If you wish to lose weight — you should map out a healthy diet and exercise plan.

Along the journey to your dream, you will encounter doubt, fear, and self-limiting beliefs. Ignore them. There will be people in your life who don’t get it and will make their opinion known, and try to convince you that you are wrong. Ignore them. Engage with new people who are excited with your dream. And just do it....BUT WITH A PLAN. If you listen to any negativity, it will convince you what you want is impossible, and you won’t take the necessary steps to make your dream life a reality.

Understand your limitations: No matter what you do, there will always be opportunity for improvement. There are always opportunities to learn from your experiences and use the feedback to improve. Therefore, you can never do your best but you can do the best that you can at any given moment, with the knowledge and skill you possess at that time. When you understand and accept this, you will realise that the judgements of others are irrelevant. You can take comfort that you did the best you could at that time and resolve to learn from the experience so that you may do better next time.
There may be activities which you want to avoid because you don’t feel that you would be any good at them.  Ask yourself ‘Does it really matter if I am not very good at it?’  The answer is ‘No’. You don’t need to be good at it, if you enjoy it.
Focus on the path...not the destination: Don't try to set a record Just do what you have to do in order to move forward one step at a time according to your plan. Focus on the experience rather than the end result. That way you will enjoy what you are doing and unwittingly, go beyond your limitations and find something which you are actually good at.

Try new things: You will never find out what you like if you do not try it. Never avoid something new. You may not like it...but that, by  itself, is a learning...and the chances of finding something you like, enjoy or are good at are much higher. More importantly, you will quickly develop a personal growth mindset where you see challenges rather than problems, and you are not afraid to try new things.