As you know I am a big personal growth guy, I genuinely believe that that’s what we are here for…I think that we are spirits having a human experience as opposed to humans have a spiritual experience.

And so I’m going to cover my 5 favourite personal growth tools that you can use if you so choose to and I’m going to make this super practical and actionable because…

Where a lot of people tend to get hung up when it comes to personal growth in my opinion is in the cerebral stage, for example…

Self-help books can be useful, however knowledge in and of itself without action is essentially useless…I could read a book about public speaking, I could acquire all sorts of tips and tricks about how not to get nervous, appear confident, engage the audience etc…

But at the end of day, if I truly want to be a better public speaker, where the rubber meets the road is to speak in public…that experience cannot be replicated in any other way and so we’re going to be focusing on action, which reminds me of an amazing little blurb I came across the other day that I’ll share with you now…

Scheduling time to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Making a to-do list for the thing isn't doing the thing.

Telling people you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Messaging friends who may or may not be doing the thing isn't doing the thing.

Writing a banger tweet about how you're going to do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Hating on yourself for not doing the thing isn't doing the thing. Hating on other people who have done the thing isn't doing the thing. Hating on the obstacles in the way of doing the thing isn't doing the thing.

Fantasizing about all of the adoration you'll receive once you do the thing isn't doing the thing.

Reading about how to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Reading about how other people did the thing isn't doing the thing. Reading this essay isn't doing the thing.

The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing.

I love that because it’s just true and so listening to this podcast episode is not doing the thing, it can inform you about doing the thing…however what I’d strongly encourage you to do when we wrap up here is to pick one of the following 5 things, whichever one resonates with you most and do it. Do the thing either today or first thing tomorrow morning.

Okay, let’s dig in…

Nutrition

You might be wondering, how is nutrition a personal growth tool, oh boy is it ever…

Eating healthier is not difficult physically, putting together a steak and rice bowl is not exactly hard labour, but…

Making the choice and committing to eating healthfully on a consistent basis and following through is no easy task, for example…

It is just as easy physically to put something healthy in your grocery cart as it is to put something unhealthy in your grocery cart…and yet we purchase funky foods that we know are detrimental to our health all the time.

It’s also equally as easy to order a healthful meal at a restaurant as it is an unhealthful meal...the only difference are the words that we choose to use.

So…when you’re faced with a choice to order the pizza or a lettuce wrapped burger with a side salad, therein lies the growth opportunity…

You may think…’well all my friends are ordering the pizza or the pasta and I don’t want to stand out or appear different’…interesting, why not?

You may think…’fuck it, I just feel like the pizza, it tastes better’…but what about your fat loss and health goals?

You may think…’I deserve the pasta because I had a tough day or it’s been a long week’…we could argue that you and your body deserve to eat the most nutritious food too.

The point is that the growth opportunities presents themselves in these moments and they are not physical in nature.

Are you willing to confront the ‘fuck it, I’ll just have the pizza voice’ or the ‘I deserve this for x, y or z reason voice’ and still order a steak and potato…

Are you willing to feel whatever feelings come up when you choose the salmon and steamed veggies instead of the chicken strips, even if all of your friends ordered them…

Are you willing to do a bit of meal prep on a Sunday when you’d prefer to be doing other things…?

What if you get home from work and dinner isn’t cooked, you’re tired and ya feel like ordering in…but again you’ve got goals…what choice are ya gonna make in that moment?

These aren’t physically demanding tasks, the work is done between your ears in instances like this.

I used to tell myself that I ‘deserved’ all sorts of treats because I was quote unquote ‘so good all week’…the kicker was that I did this so regularly and to such a degree that I literally just erased my progress from the entire week!

I used be like…’it’s Friday night I’m staying in, I’m not even gonna drink and so I deserve to crush a huge calorie dense meal’…and you know I’ve gotta have dessert and snacks too so bring on the cookies and ice cream!

I would get so creative via coming up with some sort of story that justified whatever decision that I felt like making in that moment that I essentially just spun my wheels and made no appreciable progress for years on end…but it wasn’t anything physical that was holding me back!

It was mental and emotional…I wasn’t willing to process the emotions that would come up in those moments when I thought about not indulging…I was only willing to repress them by eating funky food.

‘I’m bored, let’s eat…I’m sad, let’s eat…it’s my birthday, it’s summer, it’s Christmas, it’s thanksgiving, it’s my partners bday, it’s the second Tuesday of the month’…it never ends.

So many of my clients have told me after we get rolling with the fat loss process, ‘I thought that this was just going to be a physical transformation, but wow there are so many mental and emotional components at play in my food choices that I wasn’t aware of!’

This is a beautiful realization because changing your body can genuinely change your entire life and I’m a classic example of that.

Modifying your nutrition and lifestyle is a personal growth practice and don’t take my word for it, you can easily test this for yourself, for example…

You can commit to eating solely single ingredient whole foods with an emphasis on animal protein for the next 10 days straight…so nothing processed at all.

Now, watch what happens…your physical body is going to LOVE IT because it’s going to be incredibly nourished, but your mental and emotional bodies are gonna have some work to do.

Journaling

I started journaling almost 5 years ago now and I friggin’ love it…I do it Monday through Friday morning first thing because you always have time for the things that you do first…

I typically don’t write on Saturday and Sunday and I find that that way I’m stoked to get back to it on Monday morning…I actually like missing it a little bit, it keeps me on track.

Journaling is such an incredible way to check-in with yourself and most importantly be super honest…you can write absolutely anything that you want, no one is going to get offended or hurt, it’s just you and that piece of paper.

Also there’s something about physically writing that is just so therapeutic, I personally really enjoy putting pen to paper…I can’t explain it, it just feels so different than typing on a keyboard or on my phone.

I’ve heard some really interesting objections to writing over the years like, ‘I wouldn’t want someone to find my journal’ and my response is…’burn the pages after you write them if you want to!’ I don’t save my journal entries by the way, they go straight into the garbage…

And I do that because for me it sort of signifies letting whatever I wrote about go!

Another classic is ‘I don’t have the time’…I mean, if it’s priority you’ll make time.

Also, journaling is an amazing way to make sense of things because the longer that you write, typically the closer that you get to the answers that you want because you provide yourself with the time and space required solutions to come up.

It’s sort of like that thing where people say, ‘it came to me in the shower’…the biggest aspect of this is that you’re just not doing anything else and so the container or empty space is provided for that insight to surface…journaling is much the same.

Another objection is, I don’t know what to write about and in that case, I’d recommend listening to podcast episode #269 titled How to Start Journaling…I outline exactly how I do it and how to get rolling…journal prompts included.

Movement

I’m not just talking about exercise, I’m using the word movement intentionally.

You already know that I’m a massive fan of walking, that is my number 1 source of quote unquote ‘exercise’ even though I don’t think about it that way…walking is a non-negotiable for me, it’s like eating and sleeping.

I’ve averaged 15-20k steps per day for well over a decade now and my life genuinely changed when I committed to daily strolls.

It’s really interesting because something that I’ve noticed is that folks that make a point of moving daily typically have a much better relationship with their bodies than folks who don’t move regularly and I believe that part of this is because moving itself is a form of gratitude.

It’s a moving appreciation for all of the amazing things that the body allows us to do and experience…formal workouts are just one very small part of that!

I often think about how my body allows me to travel and experience new cities and cultures and people…I think about all of the different hikes that I’ve been on, bike rides, I’m super into running at the moment and that has opened up an entire new world for me to explore because of movement.

Sex…movement allows us to experience it and I can’t imagine that I’ll get much kickback on this one because sex is pretty awesome!!

I ran my first ultramarathon a few months ago and it was a serious growth experience. Just signing up had me feel nervous, excited too…but nervous. The training alone for the ultra had me learn a ton about myself…my limiting beliefs, old stories that no longer served me, pushing mental limits, observing my thoughts, the list is endless.

Movement is a form of medicine and we are animals, animals that are literally designed to move and if we don’t…there are serious consequences. I remember being in Venice Beach years ago and I saw what looked like to be a 80+ year old woman in a baby blue tracksuit on the boardwalk dancing her ass off repeating…’if you don’t use it, you lose it haha!’

I will never forget that and she’s right, it also reminds me of this quote…

‘A healthy person has a million dreams, but an unhealthy person has just one.’

So how can you take advantage of movement as a growth mechanism…you can commit to hitting 10,000 steps per day, you can sign up for a 5k, 10k or a half marathon, you can start lifting weights or join a weekly boxing or yoga class or start cycling to work…the possibilities are endless!

And if the commitment to that movement practice has you feel nervous, great…that’s perfectly okay, do it anyway…because that’s where the growth is! It’s in the stretching of ourselves, it’s doing a little bit more than we’ve done in the past…that’s how growth occurs.

Therapy

I feel very strongly about therapy, I’ve been doing bi-weekly sessions with my counsellor for I don’t even know how long…I originally met him when I was 16 years old and we still work together today.

Therapy has fundamentally changed my life trajectory and I know that cost is a big deterrent for people and personally, I look at the cost of therapy like I do groceries…it’s food and I need to eat.

The truth is that the vast majority of people that say that cost is the reason that they don’t see someone is just because they don’t want to see someone…it’s not a priority and that’s totally okay!

Most folks would rather spend their money on other things, I get it!

I remember my therapist telling me that people come to him for 3 reasons…

One, something quite traumatic happens and they need support ASAP…the end of a long term relationship, a parent passing etc.

Two, something is/feels off and they want to get back to where things were before…

Three, which is the least common by far…people that genuinely want as much progression and growth as possible, these are the folks that metaphorically ‘do the work on a sunny summer day’ when everyone else is at the beach…

Like I mentioned most folks are not in category 3, most people do therapy when there is an acute problem that they want to fix and then they stop…they often think that they need a definitive reason to see someone vs…

Going regardless, seeing what comes up and truly building above ground as opposed to just digging themselves out of a ditch from time to time…huge difference!

If you’re interested in therapy, I’d recommend asking your friends and family if they know anyone. You can also look online for people and ya might not find someone that you jive with right away and that’s okay…

It’s the same with anything…if you’re doing some renos on your home, you’re probably going to get a few quotes from different companies unless you already know someone that fits within your budget and does good work.

Sleep

The primary reason why I’m mentioning this as a personal growth tool is because it really sets the foundation for our lives because our sleep status impacts every single waking moment that we have…

It specifically impacts the personal growth work that we are willing to do, for example…

Are you more likely to put together a healthful meal after a long day at work if you’re well slept or under slept? No brainer.

Are you more likely to go for a walk or a workout if you’ve slept well the night prior or not so well? Clear as day.

Are you more likely to journal in the morning or skip it depending on if you slept super soundly or not so much? Easy answer.

There are a million more examples.

Sleep sets us up for success via feeling better and when we feel better, we do better.

No one is the best version of themselves when they’ve had a shit night’s sleep vs. an amazing restful sleep…not one person.

How can we make sleep actionable…?

You can get your pre-bed routine rolling 20 or 30 minutes earlier tonight…

You can read a book before you fall asleep instead of watching tv or messing around on your phone…this way you don’t have that blue fluorescent light interrupting your circadian rhythm.

You can sub your afternoon coffee for a decaf version so that you sleep more soundly …

You can get out for a walk at lunch and/or after dinner so you feel less restless when ya hit the hay…this will improve your sleep quality as a result.

You can eat an appropriately portioned healthful dinner at least 2-3 hours prior to when you want to be asleep so that you don’t wake up with the night sweats because ya overate and/or your blood sugar is dysregulated.

As you can see, none of these things are fancy, they’re not sexy, they’re not headline grabbing, there are no quote unquote ‘hacks’…I loathe that term…as if we can ‘hack’ our biology like we could a computer!

We either play by our bodies rules or we don’t, there are no hacks. We can either swim upstream or downstream, there is no fooling or tricking the body…but that’s an article for another day.

These are basic and fundamental because the foundations are what work…

Speaking of, these actions work so well because they’re hard…typically the harder that something is the better the reward and so…

There are no ‘hacks’ for personal growth either, the people that grow the most put in the most work simple as that…they show up day after day ready and willing!

So…like I mentioned, I would highly recommend implementing one of these things right now or first thing tomorrow morning and committing to it for at least 10 days.

It’s worth mentioning that if you go with the therapy option, have your action step be setting up the appointment ASAP, that’s a win in and of itself…that is a step forward, a huge one!

And just remember action is where it’s at with all of this stuff…reading books, listening to podcasts, thinking about it, talking about it…these are all examples of not doing the thing.

Go do the thing!