I have to say that from my first conversation with Melissa I knew I had to do something to combat my health. I was fatigued all the time, bloated, my pain levels were at about a 12 (1-10), and I just knew I had to do something. I took her 21-day Detox, and it changed my life. In 21 days, my pain level was down to about a 2, my cravings were gone, I am no longer bloated and miserable, and my energy levels are amazing, plus I am sleeping so much better, and I didn’t even know that was an issue. I would highly recommend working with Melissa, she guides you through step by step to make it as easy as possible. My life has been changed. You want her guidance.
It seems to be that the personal growth industry is a huge industry, and I’m part of it as a health coach. I read personal growth books and see all the books in the bookstore and online plus I get emails inviting me to a myriad of webinars and courses.
After doing some research, I’ve realized that at $9.9 billion USD, personal growth is still a small industry relative to the entertainment industry including movies and music, at $61 billion or the beauty industry at $265 billion. There is definitely room to grow the personal growth industry and turns out that me talking about this topic, might be more important than I first thought when I planned out my monthly themes back in January 2022!!
Let’s Talk About the Top 10 Reasons Personal Growth
is Important, No Matter Your Age:
1. Healthier Relationships
With healthier relationships we are happier and have a better quality of life. We all know that relationships take work. There are miscommunications, disagreements, misunderstandings that can cause pain, which we need to work through and resolve. The stronger our communication and relationship skills, the greater our ability to encounter these pitfalls less often and recover more quickly, feeling stronger than ever in the relationship from having gone through that little hiccup.
Relationship skills are not actively taught in school, societal skills might be learned on the playground, but there are Love Coaches such as Whitney Kobrin, who was a guest on my podcast back on episode #53 who teach this, as well as some great books that focus on relationships. Books like “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus”, to “The Five Love Languages” and more! The Five Love Languages does not just apply to romantic relationships, but any relationship.
2. Less Stress
When we prioritize, learning mindfulness practices as part of our personal growth journey, we can learn how to reduce the impact of stress in our life. Stress is the reason for over 90% of doctor’s visits!
Stress is negatively impacting your health in so many ways! It kills off the good bacteria in your gut, causing an imbalance, which weakens your immune system. It also negatively impacts your sleep, and not getting enough sleep also kills off the good bacteria in your gut and leaves you less resilient to the stresses in your daily life and you end up in a negative vicious cycle. Stress can cause hormonal imbalances in both women and men, which can lead to a myriad of symptoms and health issues, often hard to diagnose with medical lab tests, and I see that all the time with the functional medicine lab tests I work with. Stress also disrupts digestion, which results in you not getting the nutrients from the food you eat, leaving you depleted and lacking energy.
A mindfulness practice is important, and something I knew nothing of, back when I was in the corporate world, but soon after leaving, I started learning about the importance of a self-care practice of mindfulness. I now regularly enjoy my yoga, tai-chi, meditation and paddle boarding, all of which allow me to calm my mind and body. It doesn’t mean my thoughts stop all together, it simply means the flurry of thoughts stop and this allows room for new thoughts to come and go, and that is often when I get great inspiration.
3. Improved Health
With lower stress, we get improved health. With healthier, happier relationships we also get better health, as our emotions also impact our health. In fact, all those negative emotions we don’t want to feel and instead stuff down, can cause disease over time. Learning how to manage our emotions is instrumental to improving our health. Actively choosing to learn how your body functions, how nutrition, sleep, stress, exercise, toxins impact your health will obviously result in better health.
One of the goals of the Integrative Health Practitioner organization through which I did some of my training is “a health coach in every home”. You don’t have to build a business, but you can teach your family how to choose a healthier lifestyle. I honestly didn’t know anything about health when I was in the corporate world. When I started my first health coaching course, I was shocked at how little I knew about my own body and the impact of stress, sleep, nutrition etc.
I knew exercise was good, I tried to eat healthy, but I didn’t really know how to do that as I’d never been taught any of this at school or through public health. I just did what I “thought” was right, which was very often impacted by marketers wanting to sell their products, that didn’t really care about my health. Back then, I truly thought that choosing low fat / no fat was a healthy option, because that is what the ads told me!
I didn’t know processed foods were less healthy than eating whole foods. I knew eating too much sugar wasn’t good and I avoided candy. I had no idea about the chemicals used in processed foods, the cheap GMO oils, and sugars etc. I had no idea about the level of toxicity in our world today and what that was doing to my health, because I couldn’t see or feel the toxins.
Once I started learning all of this, it made total sense and allowed me to make some significant changes in my life, that really weren’t hard to implement, all because I was on a journey to learn about my health. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know, the more I changed, the more my body liked it, and the more I continued to change, as I learned to listen to the signals of my body.
4. Increased Productivity
One problem many people face is lack of time. We all have only 24 hours in a day – and most people wish they had more hours!! If we could increase our productivity wouldn’t that help?
Well we can, when we lower our stress, we can increase our productivity. As high levels of stress shut down our frontal cortex, resulting in poor attention span and focus, as well as poor decision making.
When we can’t focus, we take significantly longer to accomplish anything. When we instead embark on a personal growth journey of mindfulness, we are not only improving our health, but also our productivity and that in turn further reduces our stress, as we aren’t worried about all things we aren’t getting done! Improved productivity also gives us more time in our day to enjoy the things that bring us joy, leading to improved happiness and quality of life.
Procrastination can also hinder productivity and is often caused by deeper emotions. When you are on a personal growth journey, you are more aware of your emotions and better able to release them, thereby reducing the chances of procrastination.
5. Enhanced Self-Control
Self-control is the ability to regulate your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Our thoughts are very often driven by our beliefs, which come from deep within our unconscious minds. When we embark on a personal growth journey, this connection between beliefs leading to thoughts, which lead to actions comes to light allowing you to again have more control. When you understand this path, you can start to create change.
You can release the beliefs that no longer serve you. You can also release emotions that no longer serve you, allowing you to move forward and create new beliefs that lead to new actions that align with who you are becoming. I can help you shift your beliefs and emotions through my NLP and timeline therapy work, using the power of our unconscious mind to create lasting change in a very short amount of time!! It truly is magic when we tap into the power of our unconscious mind.
If you want to learn more about this work, please email me at melissa@yourguidedhealthjourney.com
6. Greater Success
One of the best things I’ve learned on my personal growth path is to celebrate the baby steps!! Don’t just look at the end goal and only celebrate when you get there, as you may never get there, your path may shift and a new goal may be set, and then there is no celebration or feeling of ‘success’.
Success is motivating and keeps you going on your path even when things feel hard, so why not celebrate the baby steps. The more you celebrate, the more success you will feel, motivating you to keep going, while also bringing more joy into your life. Who doesn’t love to celebrate?
7. Improved Peace of Mind
Everything I’ve discussed so far leads to greater peace of mind, but even more than that, when you embark on a personal growth journey, you are generally not alone in it, you have support around you, and that brings peace. You may also learn that “everything happens for a reason” as I have, and when you believe in that, you look for what you need to learn as a result, and are more accepting of what has happened, rather than being angry and frustrated with the world because things didn’t go your way.
You may also embark on a spiritual growth journey and in doing so have greater peace of mind. As you trust in God or know that the Universe has your back, ultimately knowing that you are supported in your purpose in life and that the tough lessons are what actually propel you forward at a faster rate.
8. Better Parenting
Lower stress, more peace, improved productivity, and better health will result in you being a better parent, better able to be patient with your kids, to take the time to teach them, not just yell as you rush around trying to get it all done. I know when I first learned the importance of self-care and made my mantra “self-care is the most self-less act as it allows me to show up and give the world the best of me instead of what’s left of me”, and implemented it into my life, I noticed that I wasn’t responding when my kids were pushing my buttons. Instead, I could engage calmly, ask questions, enjoy teaching moments, where before I might have just yelled a command.
As a parent we are also role models, and kids learn more from watching your behaviors than they do from what you tell them. As my kids see me continuing to learn and implement my learning, they are benefiting from it (even when they may also poo poo the idea of doing detoxes!). They also know where they can come to get answers about their health issues when they need to.
9. Greater Resilience
I’ve already said that getting good sleep improves our resilience, but so does having a healthy mindset, lowering our stress, and trusting in a higher power. Those who choose to embark on a personal growth journey will build resilience through that journey.
Developing greater resilience may well be the most important thing anyone can do to improve their overall life satisfaction.
10. Greater Happiness
The changes you implement every step of the way, the celebrations, the likeminded people that you meet all bring you greater joy. I know that is true for me, I enjoyed my career in the corporate world, but I LOVE my life now, living my purpose, surrounding myself with coaches and mentors and likeminded people that lift me up and fill my cup as I do the same for them. It brings me great joy to create these articles and share my knowledge from my own journey as well as share the amazing guests I have on my show, “Don’t Wait For Your Wake Up Call”, so that you can benefit from our journeys!
When our work is joyful, it doesn’t even feel like work, it is with pleasure that I get out of bed every day, grateful for the life I live, the people I get to serve, and every step of the journey that has brought me to where I’m at today. I hope that you too have as much joy in your life, but if you don’t, know that you have the power to change that for yourself. If you aren’t sure where or how to get started, reach out, I’d be happy to help!
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