I write about personal growth and in the process of coming up with ideas to write about, it's allowed me to personally grow. Let's get meta!
Past, Present and future
I mainly write personal stories with lessons learned, aiming to help the reader increase their self-awareness, learn to love themselves, and improve their relationships.
During the past 3.5 years of blogging, writing about personal growth has made me grow. I am what I consume and I am what I write.
Coming up with ideas to write is one of the most challenging parts of being a writer. What has worked for me is to reflect on my past, mindfully document my present, and visualize my future.
And doing that has allowed me to discover parts of myself I never thought I would see and parts I didn’t want to uncover, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Here’s how I come up with writing ideas about personal growth.
Reflect on your personal history
The past is the past. What’s happened has happened. Don’t hold on to the past like there’s no tomorrow. I am a big believer in not dwelling on things I cannot change. Your regrets do not define your future.
However, there’s a difference between suppressing your memories and embracing your history. Every moment before this moment has led you here.
Your past shaped who you are. So it’s important to understand how certain experiences influenced you today because that determines how you react to adversity, pain, failures, and success.
So when reflecting on your past, you can think about each year of your life that you’ve existed thus far.
What stood out for you?
Who was in your life when you were 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30? How did they influence you? How were your interactions with them like? How have you changed in the way you are with similar people? Authority figures, romantic partners, peers, acquaintances, strangers, friends, family members…etc
What were the toughest decisions you’ve made in each area of your life? Health, friendships, romantic relationships, finances, career, family etc. How did those decisions pan out?
It can be empowering to know you have a choice whether you want to approach future challenges in the way you were conditioned to or to change your behaviour and approach it in a way that you want to approach it. And that opportunity to choose gives you ideas to write about personal growth.
Reflect on the conversations you’ve had with others
When thinking about conversations you’ve had with friends, family, strangers, etc.
What are/were their problems?
What do you see others struggle with that you don’t?
What do you struggle with that others don’t?
Often, when people have an issue, They just want to be heard and validated instead of being told what to do. Try to listen more than talk when folks share their struggles with you.
The benefit of listening and asking questions instead of offering advice immediately is that you get to really understand someone’s issue, diving deep into their paradigm. It gives you an opportunity to practise empathy, seeing it from their perspective instead of projecting your biased lens on the matter.
Once you have a decent understanding of people’s struggles, it can give you ideas to write about solutions.
How did they overcome their issues? What did they try? What worked or didn’t work for them?
What advice would I give them?
What has worked for you?
What didn’t work for you, and why?
Do you still struggle with this? Why? How do you cope?
What do you want to try?
Reflect on things you’ve written
Like many writers, I’ve kept a diary since I was a child. Digging up an old entry can be a great way to see how you’ve grown and changed, sparking writing ideas. I like to choose ones that are similar in month and day.
“Wow, I was indecisive back in February 2001.”
The benefit of blogging is that it’s easy to document what’s been going on in your life, it’s date and time-stamped. Then it’s a matter of updating the post with lessons learned and providing tangible advice to the reader about how you were able to grow.
Speaking of documenting…
Record emotional triggers
During my day, if there is a moment where you feel emotionally charged, write it down.
Maybe it was something your family said or something you watched or read that day?
Take a moment and think through why that made you feel angry or happy or sad or bad. Striving for that point of vulnerability where you don’t want to talk about it but you manage to ask yourself why is where you can discover the best personal growth ideas to write about.
Document your process with the intention of value-added
I wear many hats during the day. I’m a writer, a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, an aunt, a mentor, a student etc.
Think about how you’re working on each of the roles you play in people’s lives.
What are you working on at the moment?
This could be something related to your writing, podcast, videos, health, my finances, relationships. How are you progressing towards those goals?
What are some trials and tribulations in your day to day life you can write about that your readers would find value in?
Aim for at least 2 of the value-added trifecta. Readers want to be entertained, inspired and/or educated.
Skim current headlines
I try to create more than consume because it can be a slippery slope when I start reading and surfing the net (Do people still say that?). Before I know it, I’ve spent an hour scrolling through dog and cat memes and watched about a dozen food videos.
When you’re reading other writers’ work, do a quick peruse through personal growth publications that you value and follow. Usually, this can give you ideas to write about without reading the article.
If the headline is enticing for you to read the whole thing, it’s a hint that it’ll be something that you’ll also want to write about. Then do some additional research on the topic to gain your own perspective on the matter. It’s time to put those critical thinking skills to work, reflecting on the issue rather than merely accepting another writer’s thoughts and opinions.
Visualize your future
Time is a moving construct and you can’t predict what’s going to happen in the future. I don’t like to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I’d rather prepare for the best and anticipate the worst.
So visualizing about how you’re preparing and anticipating will help you generate ideas about how you want to personally grow (even if you have yet to experience yet).
Have lofty dreams and realistic goals. It’s pie in the sky when it comes to how you want your life to be decades from now. However, in order to reach your dreams, you need to do the daily grunt work of achieving your goals.
Without dreams, you won’t want to move forward. Without goals, you won’t be moving at all. Therefore, visualize the years of your life that you have yet to live.
Who do you want in your life when you’re 35, 45, 55, 65 and so on…?
How do you want your life to look like in the future?
Once you have an idea what that looks like, ask yourself:
What are you going to do about it? What can you do today, this week, this month to reach that outlook?
What can you learn more now so that the future you dream of can happen?
Then write about how and what you’re going to do to get there.
I’ve just grown from writing this
Jumping from the past, present and future, coming full circle is how I like to come up with writing ideas about personal growth . As I finish off this article, I realize I will be referring back to it time and time again to see how I’ve changed, finding new methods to generate ideas to write about and revamping old ones.
And in a few years, I might just come back to this and write another article titled, “How Writing About Personal Growth Made Me Personally Grow”. I’m kidding.
So Readers, how do you find topics to write about? How has that process allowed you to personally grow?
