Self-growth and improvement can be a rewarding journey. Our team of therapists are ready to walk alongside you.
If you’re here, you’re ready to become the best you. Congratulations! Taking the leap to engage in self-growth and improvement can open many doors in your life. It can lead to a fresh, energized you. No matter whether your self-growth and improvement are targeted to one area of your life or many. However, self-growth and improvement can certainly be a challenge. If you’ve tried to accomplish your goals on your own before, you may wonder how you can master them now.
It doesn’t matter if the self-growth and improvement you’re searching for are new to you or something you’ve attempted before. Our team of therapists is here to support you – all the way.
We will always celebrate your successes with you. We also know that learning from failure and clearing the way for alternative paths are important too. True self-growth and improvement come from the steps you take towards your goals AND what you learn along the way. If your journey with improvement has harmed your self-esteem in the past, we will work towards building it back up so you have no doubts about your capabilities or ability to handle setbacks as they happen.
How you look at your improvement makes a huge difference in how you proceed.
Perhaps you need a break from self-growth and improvement to preserve your mental or physical well-being and need some help adjusting to a lifestyle unfamiliar to you. We will help you learn how to set healthy limits for yourself and how to determine which goals to focus on. Transitioning to a new way of life can be disorienting, but it doesn’t have to be.
It’s also possible that your goals are a little more complicated than meets the eye and involve developing a deep understanding of how you and your partner function together in a relationship. We are here for you then too.
When you commit to self-growth and improvement, you are saying yes to your future. Our team of therapists can help you learn where to take the conversation from there.
Self-Growth and Improvement for Self Esteem
Self-esteem is a major contributor to well-being.
When you don’t feel good about yourself, it can affect all aspects of your life from the job you hold, to the relationships you have, to how you interact with your friends, family, co-workers, and strangers. Most importantly, self-esteem impacts how you communicate with yourself and interact with the world around you.
When you experience self-doubt, you may fail to thrive in certain areas of your life.
You may not feel confident in your current career trajectory, or perhaps you may experience imposter syndrome and feel as though you do not deserve what you have achieved. When you tell yourself that you’re not “good enough,” you may stop seeking out romantic relationships or new friendships due to a fear of rejection. Low self-esteem can even result in anxiety and stress and lead to worrisome thoughts that dominate your thoughts or keep you up at night, resulting in tired days that leave you vulnerable to sickness and feeling irritable.
Negative thoughts about yourself can not only be unproductive but can cause you to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Through this, your insecurities about an aspect of your life become reality through actions brought on by your deepest thoughts. Some of the beliefs you hold about yourself may be unknown to you and may only manifest in how you engage with your environment.
Feelings of shame, doubt, and inadequacy can lead you astray from your dreams and leave you feeling unmotivated or unsuccessful. You may know this but currently feel unable to break through the wall of your low self-esteem.
When you find a therapist who listens to you, you may discover how events from your past have affected your confidence and self-esteem, perhaps in surprising ways. Overcoming ingrained thought processes means learning to treat yourself with kindness.
Over time, therapy can help.
You will learn to:
- Stop automatically blaming yourself for things that happen that aren’t in your control
- Imagine positive situations for yourself rather than the worst-case scenarios
- Accept your positive traits and achievements
- Find productive ways to deal with uncertainty and how to limit worries that small issues may actually be much larger in scope
- Cease polarizing events as “all good” or “all bad”
- Understand when you are projecting your insecurities by assuming neutral interactions are a sign of something negative
- Increase thoughts that boost your self-confidence and self-esteem, and stop rehashing the past
Self-Growth and Improvement for High-Achievers
Are you one who others would describe as “conscientious,” “disciplined,” or “high-achieving?”
If so, you may have been willing to make a lot of sacrifices for your achievements. Perhaps you take a lot of pride in the quality of your work, the strictness of your exercise regimen, your GPA, the prestige of your job title, or the type of car sitting in your driveway. Maybe you recognize your successes but can’t stop striving to do better, causing others to call you a “perfectionist.”
Or maybe you seek to maintain your excellent standards of achievement but have experienced setbacks that have made you feel confused, frustrated, or stressed out. When you have a difficult time managing your goals, your self-esteem can also take a hit, further worsening the problem.
High-achievement comes with perks, but it can also come with many costs.
It’s possible that your high-achieving personality has caused painful rifts in your relationships, physical health concerns, or even financial debt. When you seek to meet or maintain high standards you’ve set for yourself, you are actively engaging in self-improvement. However, when your high standards negatively impact other aspects of your life, it may be time to re-examine your definition of achievement and how you approach success.
If high-achievement is leaving a negative impact on your life or you have hit a wall that’s causing you to feel unhappy, it may help to find a therapist to discuss these concerns with. During our sessions, we will discuss your past achievements, current goals, and lifestyle in order to develop solutions for you, including on how to manage your stress and manage your time. During therapy, we will also help you to:
- Recognize the progress you have made and the milestones you have already achieved
- Learn how to effectively cope with stress related to high-achievement and perfectionism
- Develop new perspectives about your goals, yourself, the achievements of others, and healthy expectation-setting
- Address burnout, if applicable
- Limit worries and fears of failure associated with perfectionism
- Be kind when you speak to yourself, and give yourself grace when you do fail
- Challenge “all or nothing” or “black and white” thoughts so you can appreciate the small successes that add up
Self-Growth and Improvement for Life Transitions
Adjusting to change can be hard, even when life transitions are positive.
When you start a new job, welcome a new child to the family, or get married, you may experience a wide breadth of emotions beyond just happiness and excitement. You may have had to make many changes in your life that can feel overwhelming at times, and working to make everything fit in place once more can be stressful.
Not all life transitions are positive.
When you move to a new location, experience the loss of a loved one, go through a divorce, retire, or become an “empty nester,” for example, you might expect some stress. However, you may also experience a loss of self-identity, depression, or financial struggles on top of it. Even positive life changes can cause conflict from time to time.
It’s normal to have strong feelings during life transitions, and they can certainly feel uncomfortable and tiring regardless of whether the changes are good or bad.
When life transitions cause lasting stress and anxiety and impact other important areas of your life, it may help to find a therapist.
During our time together, we’ll talk about what you’re going through and uncover what is causing you to feel the way you do. The subject of our discussions might include:
- How to positively frame the change that has taken place in your life
- Self-growth and resilience related to change
- How to prepare for future life transitions, as well as how the change you are going through will better prepare you to handle them
- Recognizing when you feel anxious, stressed out, or depressed and how to address negative feelings when they arise
- Time management and expectation-setting
- Self-care – what it is and how it can benefit you
- How to accept or normalize negative feelings associated with major life changes
