What is self-growth? Is it a mind-set, a lifestyle, something you can just do, or something you have to work towards for many years? How do you know when you’ve grown, and in what areas of your life are you supposed to grow? In recent times, self-growth has become somewhat of a buzz-word, everyone wants to do it, and everyone claims to be doing it, but how many are actually telling the truth and how do you actually go about it? In this guide, we’ll be discussing self-growth, specifically for men, since a lot of the self-growth industry is targeted at women. Whether you’re already well acquainted with the philosophies and areas of self-growth, or you’re only just learning about this idea, you should be able to learn something, and hopefully grow a little more yourself.
Why does the self-growth industry seem to target itself so prominently towards women? Do they need to grow more? Do men need to grow less? Do men just not want to grow? The answer to all of these questions is, no. In actual fact, the self-growth industry is targeting itself more towards women for a variety of reasons, and there is some debate over the exact reasoning. An accepted idea is that women are generally taught that they need to be constantly bettering and improving themselves, whereas for men, it is more shameful to admit weakness. In reality, self-growth is for everyone, men, women, children, dogs, you name it. As long as you’re a sentient being, you can grow yourself.
But how exactly does self-growth lead to a better life? You might be very happy with your life right now, and not want it to change, so why should you need to grow? Well, self-growth isn’t about where you are in your life right now, it’s about where you can develop further. Nobody is perfect, and there will always be parts of your life that may need improvement, or parts of your own personality or spirituality that you have yet to discover. Self-growth is often a journey of discovering what you don’t know about yourself, and thereby creating a better life, where you are more able to serve yourself as well as those around you. So, whether you feel like your life is perfect, or you’re currently struggling to see the point of it all – self-growth is for you.
Every man is different, and so naturally we cannot create a guide that is going to cater to the individual and unique lives of every single man on the planet. What we can do however, is think more broadly about the areas of life that nearly every man will experience, and indeed can apply to most people, men and women. Although this guide is tailored towards men, that’s not to say that self-growth is particularly different for men or women, just that we need a different approach when talking about it.
One of the biggest areas in any person’s life is money. We wish it wasn’t, but it is. Unless you happen to be an Eskimo living off the land in the frozen tundra of the arctic and have never even heard of money as a concept, chances are you need to make it, and you work every day somehow to do just that. Money is a fickle thing, it can give us great freedom and ability to care for ourselves and those we love, but it can also limit us and warp our priorities by taking us away from our families and causing an obsession with more, more, more. When it comes to money, many men are taught that they need to ‘provide for the family’ and take a lot of pride in this, but this can be quite a toxic mind-set that causes disharmony in the very family that they are trying to provide for. When it comes to self-growth, many men find that adjusting their relationship with and preconceptions about money helps them to not only have a healthier life with less stress, but also achieve increase financial freedom. There are lots of guides and books on the subject, such as: Money and the Law of Attraction by Abraham Hicks and Your Money or Your Life,” by Joe Dominguez. These books often teach the importance of ‘enough’ and how to find balance in your life so that you can live comfortably, while also focusing on what’s important (which ultimately, is never money).
We’re not alone in this world, we’re part of an ecosystem of billions of other humans and countless other animals. Our relationship to those around us, our parents, significant other, children and friends, provides a basis for our lives. It is commonly said that we are a combination of the five people we spend the most time with, and this is true. Who you surround yourself with and the quality of your relationships with them can have a huge impact on your life. Fostering healthy relationships with the most important people in your life, and cutting off those who have a negative impact, is one of the primary ways we grow as people. So, identify those people, meditate long and hard on who you want in your life, who you don’t, and why. Ultimately, no book can tell you how to do this, it has to come from within, but there are guides to help you learn to function better within your relationships, whether it be your partner, mother, brother, best friend or child.
In the same vein as relationships, one of the most important relationships, arguably on a par with the importance of your relationship with yourself, is the one you hold with your children. It’s a common trope that men are roped into having children by their partners or shouldn’t hold such an active role in their children’s lives as their spouse, and this can lead to many men finding it difficult to navigate fatherhood. There are lots of different ways to parent, but ultimately, you are the role model for your child, and fatherhood is often the time where you find yourself exposed and more vulnerable than ever before. Your children will pick up on all your flaws and imitate them, and this is a blessing in disguise. Never is there such an opportunity to grow as a person than when you become a father, so embrace it.
The relationship to yourself sets the tone for the entirety of your life. How you relate to yourself, treat yourself and think about yourself will vastly influence how you treat others, and how they in turn treat you. Making time for yourself, to discover what you like, even in the most trivial fashion, can be a catalyst for self-growth. Maybe you will join a The Original Craft Beer Club, or take up running, or read more, or decide to try and break the Guinness World Record for how long someone can hold their breath under-water. These seemingly fun and meaningless activities can seriously influence how you treat yourself, so it’s time to start investing more time in yourself.
Self-growth is ultimately an individual, never-ending journey, and there’s no way someone could ever cover all the topics that come under the self-growth umbrella. It’s your journey to self-discovery, and hopefully this guide provided some helpful pointers to set you off in the right direction.