The 4 Stages of Personal Growth All Millionaires Go through

Stages 2 and 3 are where most people get stuck.

Many people have tried to define personal growth. From the number of habits you can track and improve, to the number of degrees you hold, to your salary, and to your level of enlightenment; it can seem that personal growth can go in any direction.

I mean it is titled “personal” growth, so it is all up to you.

But why not set out some steps that can be applied to all areas of life? Especially if these are the steps that most millionaires follow.

Meaning of life

To take a look at all aspects of life and the growth that occurs, I think it's important that we define what direction growth happens in. For me, this starts with growing in the direction of one’s meaning of life.

What is the meaning of life? lol, I don’t have the answer. But I have been examining life purpose for a little while and how one can seek clarity about what brings someone meaning in everyday life. So that’s part of it, finding a direction in life that gives you meaning.

Ok, but what’s meaning? I really like Brendon Burchard’s definition in his book, High Performance Habits, where he said that in his study of over 1'300 people, the high performers were found to equate meaning with the 4 following factors:

• Enthusiasm
• Connection
• Satisfaction
• Coherence (if it makes sense)

So for any journey that you choose to embark on, check if these 4 factors are present to get a more wholesome sense of meaning and fulfillment.

And if you have no clue about where to start looking for life purpose, this article might be helpful for you:

The different stages of personal growth

1. Absorbing new knowledge

In any pursuit of growth, it starts with trying to grasp what improvement looks like, and for this to occur you need new information and perspectives.

For example, when I became curious about writing more regularly and putting my thoughts on paper, I started reading about other people’s writing journeys. And while exploring what writing was all about, I needed to define whether this was something for me; which is why gaining a lot of new information is great in the beginning to be able to explore different perspectives.

I started learning about writing habits and structure from Ali Mese, how to write compelling articles from Nicole Bianchi, and how to promote and drive more attention to my articles like Fab Giovanetti. Reading and testing out different methods allowed me to get a more complete understanding of what good writing looks like.

To put this into the context of personal growth, this can be viewed as expanding my self-expression and growing my personal brand; of which both align with my current life direction/purpose.

Since writing was a new endeavor, it’s important to point out that in order for me to start growing in this area, I needed to go through this stage of acquiring new information to be able to use it in my own life.

2. Gaining new skills

Practice what you’ve learned. This is where the going gets a bit tougher, and some might hesitate to venture into. But you know what? It also starts getting fun as you try new things.

Learn a little, implement a little. The factor that implies that you’re moving into phase 2 is that you’re implementing what you’ve learned. Many people may stay a long time in phase 1 where they absorb a shit ton of information; however, this isn’t always useful because then you may not know where to start.

“Start now, start simple” — Daniel Ramamoorthy (Dan Ram)

This stage may last as long as you want it to as we humans love to try new things and explore different facets of learning, and that’s totally ok, but remember that the best way to learn is to implement the information yourself.

Many people will choose to stay in stage 2 (and eventually stage 3), as they’re quite comfortable while also being able to grow at a stable pace. There’s always something that you can add on to improve your skills right? However, to make a significant impact in your community and those around you, you will eventually have to test out the 2 last stages of personal growth.

3. Making a change in your community

Once you’ve determined that you’ve learned certain skills and can confidently replicate them, how about sharing this with others?

You only need to know the specific skill a bit better than the next person for them to gain value.

This is where helping your immediate community comes in. By community I mean your current networks and people that you know, both online and offline; this is usually the place where people start sharing their knowledge.

All great humans eventually fall into the role of educating others on what they have gone through so that others can learn and improve upon their built-up knowledge; and now it’s your turn.

As I’ve been learning to write better, I’ve gained knowledge about creating articles that catch people’s attention and then getting them to read them. And even though I’m not an expert by any means, I’m still one of the few people in this world writing something at least every week and working on improving myself, thus already knowing more than the average individual (even though it may not seem exceptional at times since there are quite a few successful writers here on Medium).

As I’ve been on Medium for about 6 months now, both as a writer and reader, I’ve noticed a lot of patterns and have gotten to know how the platform works. And from simply sharing my articles through my social media accounts, I now have friends asking me how Medium works, and what the best practices are. One writer that is doing this really well is Sinem Günel as she has her own FB group community where she can share valuable insights and also promote her own courses. She’s doing a great job because people are hungry for this information (including me).

People could look this up very easily, but they prefer to learn from someone they trust and who has already demonstrated a level of expertise beyond what they know.

You already know much more than you think, and people are hungry to learn from you.

4. Educating others to improve their own communities, and eventually the world.

To reach the most amount of people in the world with your message you need others to advocate for you. You do this by training others to use your methods.

This is what you see the most influential voices in personal development doing, but you don’t need to be known at that level to still have a significant impact.

This is where you teach others how to teach. And if people love what you’re teaching they’re more likely to send other people to go learn from you, instead of going for the competition.

Take one of the main names in personal development, Tony Robbins. He’s making a change to the community he’s built up around him because of how he educates through his products and services (through books, courses and events). And he also has a coaching certification program, where he trains people to help others as he does. Not only do the people who get trained get a certain accreditation, but it’s also an honor to be able to be trained by him, making his master coaches advocate for his methods even more.

Many millionaires will still be active in all 4 phases because it’s imperative to be learning and improving every day, but once you empower others to spread the message of how you’re helping others, this is when growth accelerates at insane levels.

All while focusing on your purpose and meaning of life.

My current journey, as I don’t believe there’s only 1 life purpose but is a continuous evolution, is to bring people together to experience joy and find meaning in life in an authentic way. So no matter in which way I want to improve my personal growth, I try to align it with these 4 steps.

It’s definitely not a short, easy, or linear journey, but in the end what matters most is how we have an impact and connect with those around us, which is what these 4 stages try to help us do more of.

Even something as specific as wanting to be more productive and efficient in our everyday life starts with getting an understanding of what can be improved, but ultimately happens because of this greater mission to have a wider impact on those around us.

If you could be an expert at anything what would you want to teach the world?

Take the skill of active listening. This is an awesome skill to have, but if you’re working towards it simply to be able to communicate better on a surface level, you may not fully embrace how it can make a difference in your relationships and work if it doesn’t align with your purpose.

It’s important that you get a sense of meaning to be able to go deeper and progress through these stages, as most people may simply end up constantly improving one habit after the next.

Where are you now on your journey?

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