Analyzing the Reflective Essay

Self-Growth Taking the self-development path is imperative in order to excel in life. This is true for all social life encounters careers, disciplines or even academics. We must take full responsibility of our lives if we wish to progress. Improving ourselves is a central determiner for improving other area of our lives (Simuyemba, 2013).

According to Hibbert (2016) Personal development entails constantly trying to become a better person in terms of personality, knowledge and skills. The process involves recognition of one's weaknesses and developing self-love. One must abandon the pursuit of the illusion of perfection and stopping to begrudge yourself and others. Learn to see the world through the windows of faith rather than fear. It may involve coming to terms with reality by reconciling experiences and even pain and letting it pass.

Growing personality is a direct effect of life (Puddicombe, 2013) in a continuous learning curve; through meditation and mindfulness. Growth is naturally evolving. One cannot possibly master it in one hit. It provides for a systematic progress; step-by-step.

Growth allows us to lay down burdens of the past and future in pursuit of an open and unlimited creativity and potential. Major idea with the potential to shift the way the world operates arises from this point.

Personal/Self-growth and Self-Actualization

Self-actualization accompanies self-growth. Self-actualization is used in psychology to refer to the process of reaching one's full potential by seeking love and mentorship from others (Hibbert, 2016). Self-actualization and growth take place in five key areas, i.e. Emotional, mental/intellectual, social and spiritual. Whenever we feel weak in a particular area, we concentrate our energies in that area and work to improve on it. The process is interactive; as we work on one area, we also tend to improve another. Social relationships improve when we develop emotionally. The odds for developing physically also improve with strengthening of mental abilities. Personal growth, therefore, entails identifying physical, mental, social and spiritual transformations we yearn for and working to achieve our full potential in each of the areas; that is the place we achieve self-actualization (Hibbert, 2016).

Conclusion

According to Hibbert (2016), it is not easy to choose growth. If we are to follow the path of growth, one must overcome the temptation for complacency. Indeed, the process of growth scares people. It instills fear because it often involves trials, trauma, and other crises. We can, actually choose to grow in this way ever hour, every day and every week of the month. One can actually elect to ignore the present challenges and focus on growing using what has been learnt in such experiences. It also means that one can decide to pursue the path of growth soberly even if life is flowing smoothly.

Essay Evaluation

Introduction

Self-growth draws a lot of currency because it is pivotal in various aspects of the life of a human being. The essay starts by defining the process of self-growth. It establishes and explains the link self-growth has with self-actualization. Finally, the essay highlights the challenges that people meet in the process of self-growth.

The Essay Body

The subject was highlighted wing to its crucial role in the daily interactions of humans among themselves and their environment. The essay has applied explorative/explanatory and descriptive research method. The research options were applied in this essay because there was a need to explain and explore the various aspects of the subject of self-growth. I was able to describe the process of growth in much more detail because of the explorative approach. Through the approach, I expanded the general understanding of the process of self-growth and point out the details of what really transpires in the process.

I applied a research approach that entailed retrieval of information from online sources including academic databases and websites owned by individuals with an interest in the subject. I also read blogs, articles, and organization-based websites that delve into the subject. The effort notwithstanding, it was a major challenge to collect all the information I needed for the topic. One of the challenges involved the circular and annoying process of search engines displaying related information; but not precisely addressing the subject. I often got such results as self-improvement and self-evaluation. It was easy to get lost in the myriad information that closely resembles the topic of focus.