This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.
Staying Humble through Personal Development
Throughout the past few years, I’ve been on a journey of personal development. I think it’s so important to continue to learn and grow in order to live your best life. With that comes learning about your own strengths and weaknesses.
Personal development and self improvement can teach us a lot about ourselves and also about how we show up in the world. Do we understand ourselves and others? Are we tolerant of ourselves and others? Do we live life with humility, knowing that we may make mistakes along the way?
When we think about it, nothing good comes without humility. Knowing and accepting that you aren’t always the greatest or smartest or richest person in the room can help keep you grounded. And when you do start to feel like you are better, it’s important to remember we can always improve and everyone is coming from a different spot.
Why It’s Important to Stay Humble
There’s a great quote I read, but I’m not sure who wrote it. You may have seen it circulating around Pinterest or other social platforms.
“You can always tell who the strong women are. They’re the ones building other women up instead of tearing them down.”
How powerful is that?! I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a few moments in life where I feel jealous or resentful of other women who may be achieving more or who may seem to have their life more put-together. But I have to stop myself. I shouldn’t be jealous of these women! I should be modeling my life after the aspects of them that I admire. And I should also be reminding myself of all that I have accomplished.
When we talk about personal growth, a first step to take is self-empowerment, and doing everything we can to get better. Feeling self-empowered means being self-reflective and acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses so that you can harness your whole self to be better moving forward.
To that point, remember that staying humble is so important to be your best self. You may be at the top of your game and have everything you ever hoped for, but there are still ways you can grow and develop, even at your peak.
Tips to Stay Humble, Even When at Your Peak
Know You Can Always Improve
There will always, always, always be areas where you can improve. There might be bad habits you need to tweak or thought patterns you can change.
You might also need to reframe the ways you think about your career or business. Are there things you can do differently? Are you keeping up with the latest trends in your industry? An example would be utilizing an IT consulting firm like Frontline to stay up-to-date on the latest tech trends.
Keeping an open mind to areas that need improvement will help you stay humble throughout your personal development journey.
Keep Your Standards High
Knowing that you can always improve means that you should be setting high standards for yourself and others. When you start setting goals for yourself, I think it’s good to aim high. Knowing what you’ve accomplished in the past and where you want to go in the future, can help set expectations for your goals.
Keeping your standards high can also push you to the next level. Sometimes, we can limit ourselves based on fear of failing. I do this all the time. Asking the question, “What if I fail?” has held me back so many times. But the question should be, “what if I succeed?” You can still stay humble, while also having high standards if you believe in your own success, even if you don’t know what that success will look like yet.
Use Success Wisely
Success will come if you follow your ambitions and care for your results. What matters is how you use that success. Do you work to build yourself up while also lifting others? Does your success encourage you to set new goals to follow?
Remember that success is subjective. For some, success may mean completing your goal, checking off the box and moving on to the next thing. For others, success may mean taking the steps to try to reach the goal, even if you never get there.
For instance, think about college. In college, we may pick a major based on a dream job we think we want. Then we graduate and get a job in a completely different field. Does this mean we failed or aren’t successful? No! Just because the path has led us somewhere different than we originally imagined doesn’t mean we aren’t successful.
Pick Others Up Along the Way
Going back to the quote I used earlier, one of the best ways to stay humble is to lift up others. We cannot be our best selves if we are forgetting about those around us. This could mean mentoring someone who is new in your field, volunteering for those less fortunate or calling up your best friend and asking about her day.
If everyone remembers to lift someone else up, we will always have a support system when we need it most. By thinking of others, and remembering that we all have bad days, we can stay humble throughout life.
Final Thoughts
Humility is an interesting virtue to think about in the conversation of personal development. It’s so important to stay humble throughout your journey to truly be your best self.
I’m sure we all have stories where we felt embarrassed or downtrodden or jealous. These are normal human emotions, but they should not hold us back. And sometimes feeling down on ourselves or resentful of others can hold us back from accomplishing our goals.
The important lesson here is to remember we can keep moving forward and keep fulfilling our goals by practicing humility. Knowing there is always room for improvement, keeping our standards high, using success wisely and lifting others up as we go are just some of the ways to stay humble throughout life.
Being our best self doesn’t mean reaching some metaphorical “peak” and thinking we’re done growing and improving. Personal development and self-improvement are ongoing practices to be carried throughout life.
What are some ways you stay humble in life? Let me know in the comments below.