4 Types of Personal Growth: How To Get Started

Personal growth gets talked about like it’s one big thing. As in you’re either ‘growing’ or you’re not. But real growth doesn’t work like that. It’s more like a garden. Look at any garden and you can see this in action. Some shoots are driven to emerge, while others wither. Some growth is quick and seasonal. Some takes years. If you’ve been wondering how to jumpstart your own personal growth in this season of life, start with the 4 types of personal growth as a framework. Our Growth Series will help you figure out what kind of growth you need most right now.

Why growth can be such a challenge

Anyone who’s tried to ‘grow’ in some way, whether it’s tangible, as in career or a talent, spiritual, psychological, or any other way, learns this: Growth isn’t always easy. Our energy is not unlimited, and momentum doesn’t come from saying yes to everything.

Growth comes from making clear decisions about what deserves our time, and giving attention to the foundations that’ll support that growth. The Growth Series is about approaching Growth with intention rather than pressure. It’s about preparing where we can, so we give ourselves the best chance for success. It’s also about choosing what we focus on based on reality, not seasonal expectation.

The Series starts from a different assumption: personal growth is not automatic, and it is not always upward. It requires selection.

Growth is a decision, not a default

When we’re young, growth often feels like accumulation. We say ‘yes’ more than we say ‘no.’ We build careers, families, routines, identities. Momentum carries us forward, sometimes without much reflection.

At some point, that equation changes for us. It can happen in our 20s, 30s, 40s, or even later. But it happens. And when it does, we begin to realize time is finite. And our energy is precious.

Once we’re past the ‘accumulation years,’ we’re no longer building from scratch. Instead, we’re managing what already exists. Personal growth, at this point, is less about adding and more about deciding what is worth continuing to invest in.

A better way to think about growth: like a garden

If you’ve ever tried to grow anything, even one sad basil plant in a kitchen window, you already know something important: Growth isn’t just about what you plant. It’s about the conditions you create.

You can buy the healthiest plants in the world. But if the soil is depleted, the light is wrong, and you forget to water for a week, things don’t thrive.

The same is true for personal growth.

You can want change. You can make plans. You can buy the journal, download the habit tracker, start the new routine . . .

But if the foundation underneath your life is exhausted, if your time, energy, boundaries, environment, and emotional bandwidth are stretched thin, growth becomes one more thing you ‘fail at.

And that’s not a character flaw. That’s just biology and reality.

The beginnings of living with intention

The shift in how infinite time feels, matters. Without it, continued growth starts to feel wasteful. With it, growth becomes strategic. Once we’re living with intention, our decisions, what’s actually important to us, what we’ve truly examined, becomes our focus.

This series is not about self-improvement in the motivational sense. It’s about learning to direct our effort where it actually produces returns. Emotionally, practically, and over time.

The beginnings of all growth

There’s a particular moment at the end of winter that doesn’t look like much. The ground is still hard. Trees are still bare. Most days still feel gray, and spring, real spring, feels far away. Look outside, it may be the way today feels to you.

But this is the season when growth actually begins.

Not the visible kind. Not the blooming, flowering, Instagrammable kind. The quieter kind. The kind that happens underground. Inside roots. Inside bulbs. Inside systems that look dormant from the outside but are anything but.

Plants don’t rush this part. They don’t bloom before their roots are ready. And they don’t apologize for the pause. They simply prepare.

As we move toward March, we start thinking about our own growth. Winter may have felt slow, even heavy, but the idea of spring makes everything feel possible again. It may not be about forcing change in our lives. Instead, we may be more interested in building something that can actually last. That could be a routine, a pursuit, a relationship, or even a skill.

Over the next month here on Lifeticity, we’ll be sharing a four-part spring Growth Series rooted (quite literally) in plants: Annuals. Perennials. Herbs, and the soil that supports them.

But this isn’t a gardening Series (although you may feel inspired to plant something). It’s more about how we can take our cues from nature when it comes to personal growth. How we can best grow, what we need to grow, and what plants can teach us.

We’ll use plants as a framework for understanding timing, energy, commitment, and renewal.

Why a plant framework works

Plants don’t grow because the calendar tells them to. They respond to conditions. It’s light, soil, water, space, and timing that determine what plants thrive and what fail.

This can be a good framework for our own patterns. Not as a metaphor for personal transformation, but as a way to think concretely about resource allocation in our lives.

Some of the things we do are designed for short bursts of effort and quick payoff. Think: going to a Pilates class and feeling great afterwards.

Other pursuits only make sense if we’re willing to commit to them for years. Think oil painting or learning a new language.

And some things exist simply to make everything else easier. Maybe you decide to begin using AI to help you simplify a complicated weekly chore, like menu planning and shopping.

When we lump all of that under the vague banner of “growth,” we lose clarity. When we separate it, our decisions get easier.

The four types of growth this series will cover

This Growth Series looks at four categories. Not as inspiration, but as tools for evaluation:

Annuals represent short-term investments. Projects, goals, or efforts that bring immediate value but are not meant to last indefinitely.

Perennials represent long-term commitments. These are the parts of life that justify patience, repetition, and sustained attention because they compound over time.

Herbs represent practical habits. Useful, everyday behaviors that improve life when used consistently, and decline when ignored.

Groundcover represents support systems. Structures, routines, or environments that reduce friction and protect your energy so other things can grow more easily.

None of these is any more important than the others. But problems arise when we expect one category to behave like another, such as when we expect permanence from something temporary, or novelty from something meant to be stable. Or, when we fail to plan, or to prepare.

What this series is meant to do

The goal of this series is not to motivate you to do more this spring. It’s to help you think more clearly about what you’re already doing and whether it makes sense. To you.

Each post will focus on one category of growth and ask practical questions:

• Is this worth the effort it requires?
• Is this the right season for it?
• Does it need expansion, maintenance, or removal?

Final thought

If you take nothing else from this, take this:

Personal growth isn’t one thing.
It’s habits. It’s resilience. It’s skills. It’s boundaries. It’s the foundation underneath your life.

And the reason so many of us feel stuck isn’t because we lack motivation. It’s because we’re trying to grow in the wrong place. Because when life feels heavy, the fastest way to feel more like yourself again isn’t a huge reinvention. It’s one small thing that helps.

In next week’s post, we’ll start with the most immediately doable kind of growth: Annuals. The habits and routines that make your days run better right now.