If you can have a study routine for your regular studies (to get a degree or qualification for a future job/career), why not also have a study routine for your personal growth (the one that is ultimately going to be lifelong)
This blog post is going to be about having a study routine… for your personal growth.
It’s no different to a regular study routine you use for school. The only difference is that it’s for your personal growth and your personal development.
Whether you like study or not, you’re always going to be a lifelong learner. Even if you graduate with a degree, you’re still going to be learning after that. After high school or university, or wherever you have finished your studies, your learning is not going to stop.
And no, I’m not just talking about continuing your studies doing your Masters degree or a PHD. I’m talking about just learning more about life in general through your experiences, and from the content that you still consume.
If we’re going to be learning beyond education, mind as well be intentional with it.
That’s why this blog post is going to outline why you should have a study routine for your personal growth, and how to create one.
The REASONS why you should
have a study routine for
your personal growth
Reason 1 – a study routine gives you consistency, and personal growth requires consistent effort
When you think about studying in general, you know how it’s important to have a study routine that keeps you consistent and on top of things. Because it’s hard to get good grades when everything is unorganized, you don’t have a consistent routine and system set in place.
The same with our personal growth. In order to improve as people every single day, you want to be organized, consistent, and you want everything put in place. If everything is the opposite of that, it’s going to be a lot harder to increase our personal growth.
Reason 2 – personal growth involves a lot of learning
It’s clear that with studying in general, you’re going to be doing a lot of learning. To keep up with everything that you are learning, you need a routine to make sure that not only you’re organized with all your work, but you have a system in place to review that work. So when the time comes to exams and assessments, you’re not too far behind.
I really believe that you never stop learning. The only way you stop learning is when your life ends… you’re always going to be learning something no matter what.
Personal growth requires a lot of learning. That learning may come from personal development books, podcasts, YouTube videos, or seminars, or even real life experiences such as lessons from losses, failures, or setbacks.
No matter where you learn it from, you’re going to need to have a routine set in place. You want to study how to grow yourself through books, audio books. podcasts, or seminars, and you also want to study your own personal experiences as well.
Reason 3 – having a study routine allows you to plan your time effectively
As a law student… well, as a lifelong student since kindergarten, the best benefit you get from having any sort of study routine is that you plan your time effectively.
You know exactly what you need to work on and how much time you need to allocate for everything. That’s what having a study routine in general is for, is that you set a time to do it every day, and you set tasks that will bring you closer to the grades that you want.
With a study routine for personal growth, you get that same benefit, you get to manage and plan your time effectively. You know what you need to work on in your life, whether that’d be your physical health, mental health, your mindset, or your skillsets, and you plan that time for it.
Hopefully, the reasons have convinced you, now let’s actually get into how you can form a study routine for your personal growth … using the analogy from a general study routine.
Typical Study Routine
So what does a typical study routine look like? Well, if you’re in college or university, it may look a bit like this:
- Lectures
- Readings
- Tutorials/Classes
- Assignments.
Typical study tips you get:
- Make the time for it.
- Be consistent.
- Discover your learning style.
- Review and Revise
- Ask for Help
- Stay Motivated
And guess what, a study routine for personal growth is going to be exactly like this… we just revised a few things.
Personal Growth Study Routine
First things first, pick a subject
There are many areas of personal growth and personal development. As much as you want to improve every area of your life, it’s much more effective to work on one area at a time, and then move onto the next.
Just like how you have different subjects when you’re at school, you can have different subject for your personal growth. For example you may have one for mindset, one for your physical health, one for your self-love, and one for improving your people skills.
Instead of having those things combined together, it may be much easier to just separate it.
Here are some ideas of personal growth “subjects” that you can do:
- Physical Health – eating habits and exercise.
- Mindset
- Self-Care
- Self-Love
- Relationships
- Career
- Finance
- Recreation
Now that you’ve picked your subjects, let’s go to the various tasks in your study routine:
LECTURES
The “lectures” in your study routine for personal growth are the videos that you watch that relate to self-improvement and growing yourself.
There are many resources and videos out there with self-improvement content that can help you in every area of your life.
Whether you want to work on your health in general, or focus more on mindset, there is a YouTube video out there, or some sort of video series that you can watch to learn from. You can just search on Google or on YouTube, and there must be something helpful out there.
If you want to take it a step further, potentially invest into online courses.
I used to be a person who hesitated when it came to investing into any sort of educational material. However, at the same time I would spend money on things that wouldn’t even last six months.
But when you’re investing into learning, and educating yourself on something, that will last a lifetime… and that is a much bigger return than if you just got something that would slow down and die out after two years (I’m talking about you, iPhones!!)
Whether it’s an online course to improve your eating and exercise habits, or a online courses to advance your skills for your job, instead of looking at it as a waste of money, look at it as an investment with a bigger return.
It’s understandable, if things are tight financially, at least you have those resources out there. It’s a good consideration to keep in mind for the future, to think of investing into a online course one day.
Nevertheless, you will really benefit from watching valuable videos that provide valuable information to help you grow yourself. Like normal lectures, study them and apply them! Because that’s where you get your learning from.
READINGS
The “readings” in your personal growth study routine are your self-help/personal development books!
Studying obviously includes reading, and studying for personal growth is no exception.
I can list a thousand reasons why you should start reading books related to personal growth, but I’ll give you the most important reason:
It grows your mindset!
Yes, you can listen to audiobooks and podcasts as well, but the experience you get from reading an actual book hits so much more differently.
With audiobooks and podcasts, you just hear a person talking… they’re talking to an audience. However, when you’re reading a book, you actually feel like every line you read is directed towards you.
And when you do start reading personal development books (if you haven’t started yet), start reading books related to what you want to work on!
Whether that’d be a book to help you improve your mindset, or build habits (like Atomic Habits), or a book to help you with your self-talk (like What to Say When You Talk to Yourself), the possibilities are endless!
TUTORIALS
For the “tutorials” for your personal development study routine, we’ll turn them into listening to podcasts that motivate you and uplift you.
Just like how most times, tutorials are compulsory, podcasts are going to be compulsory too!
Here’s why listening to podcasts are good for your personal growth:
It’s important to remember that consuming content come from everything you read, watch, and listen to.
Think about how many hours of a week you commute… doesn’t matter what form of transport you use. What do you listen to during those commutes? Is it the same music you repeat over and over again?
Don’t get me wrong, I love listening to music, HOWEVER the exact reason why you should be mindful of the music you listen to, is because what you consume will eventually subconsciously get in your mind.
For example, how many songs have you got a song stuck in your head? How many times did you mean for it to get stuck in your head?
So if a song that we don’t want to get stuck in our head can get stuck in our head, why don’t we put into our mind something that will benefit us and help us grow?
There are a whole range of motivational, inspirational, and educational podcasts that you can listen to. You can listen to them on top of the books you’re reading and the YouTube videos you want.
ASSIGNMENTS
Your “assignments” for your personal growth study routine is going to a bit revised here too.
This is where you work on one area that needs the most work, and work on that until you feel like you got to the stage where you’ve completely improved.
Once you improved in one area, you can move onto your next “assignment” where you work on another area. Here are a few examples of some “assignments” you can do for your personal growth study routine:
1. Build New Habits
I have a whole bunch of blog posts on habits, but this one big assignment that you should definitely consider from the very start. Just like assignments, it takes time to complete them. It’s the same with habits, it takes some time for something to become a habit. Whether that’d be 30 days, 60 days or 90 days.
Think of the habits that you want to build. Think of the habits that will bring you closer to your goals. For example, if your goal is to have a healthier body, your habits may be to exercise and be mindful of what you eat. The possibilities are endless.
You may even think of good habits that you think would make your life better such as reading, or doing deep breathing exercises in the morning. Regardless, since it takes time to build any sort of habit, approach this like an assignment that will take time.
2. Break Bad Habits
Just like how we have good habits we want to build, it’s also worth wanting to break bad habits that are holding us back. When it comes to starting any goal, the first easy thing to do is to break some habits.
For example, a goal to have better grades starts with breaking bad study habits.
Think of any habits that are not bring you any benefit whatsoever and is actually detrimental to your personal growth. Make it an assignment to break that habit. Like what has been mentioned before, it takes time to also break a habit.
3. 30 Day Challenges
I absolutely love 30 day challenges!
When you put a focus for 30 days, you give yourself an opportunity to give it your all to improve in an area.
There are many 30 day challenges that you can do! From self-care challenges, to exercise challenges, to mindset challenges.
Whatever area of your life you think needs the most work, do a 30 day challenge on improving it! Treat that 30 day challenge as an important assignment that needs to get done no matter what.
When you give it your all to work on a particular assignment, what you get from that is a good grade. But when you give it all to work on a particular area of your life, what you get from that is MAJOR improvement. Let me just say, that sounds way better than just good grade (good grades last a moment, but self improvement lasts way longer)
Overall…
You can use your “lectures”, “readings”, and your “tutorials” (aka your podcasts) to give you an extra hand to help you with these above “assignments”.
Personal Growth
Study Tips
Just like a general study routine, we can also apply general study tips to our personal growth study routine.
Make the Time for It
It’s quite an obvious one. When you’re studying in general, you need to make the time for it.
It’s no different with personal growth. You need to make time for it and you need to commit to it.
Even if it’s just for one hour a day.
And honestly, a personal growth study routine is a lot easier to make time for than a regular study routine… and why’s that?
Well, unlike a study routine where you have to study for a few hours in a row, your personal growth study routine can be broken up into various parts of the day.
For example, you can do your readings in the morning, watch your “lectures” in the afternoon, and listening to your “tutorials” (aka your podcasts) while you’re commuting in your car.
And at the end of the night, you can work on your “assignments” such as your 30 day challenges.
There’s many ways that you can fit in your personal growth no matter how busy you are. Just think about it, if you have a job or just studying where it’s going to require long hours from you, the best thing you can do for yourself is prioritise your personal growth and personal development.
Be consistent
This is an obvious one too. For the most effective study routines, you need to have consistency. You can’t just do your study routine one day and expect good grades. You need to do your study routine consistently, even daily so that you can get the grades that you want.
Of course, it’s no different with your personal growth study routine. Personal growth is a daily thing. It needs consistency. You can’t just work on yourself one day and then that’s it. You need to work on yourself every day.
You’ve got to be consistent with your readings and your listening. You’ve got to be consistent with all the little tasks that will help your personal growth. Just like how staying healthy and maintaining your health is going to require you to consistently have good eating habits and exercise, growing yourself is going to require you to consistently do your good habits and make time for it.
Discover your learning style
With any type of studying, many people learn differently. Some people learn best through visuals, some learn through listening… everyone’s learning styles are different.
This also applies to a personal growth study routine as well, there may be some forms of learning that you work best with than others. You may find that reading is more effective than listening to podcasts. Or you may even find that watching YouTube videos is more effective than reading.
Whatever it may be, whatever works for you best, aim to do more of it. Of course, you still want to do your best to do all of those methods, but ultimately you want to do more of what works best for you. For example, you may learn more effectively when you’re reading, so you do more of reading but you still listen to your podcasts and watch YouTube videos.
It’s the same with the general study routine. You want to do more of creating visuals on your notes if you’re a visual learner, but you still listen to the lectures and tutorials.
Review and Revise
It’s so important to review your work and continuously revise it when you’re studying.
With your personal growth study routine, you want to review what you learn – what you have read, listened to, and watched.
Most times, you need to review what you learn more than once for you to really remember it. You need to revise your key takeaways and what you need to improve on the most.
Most importantly, you need to apply what you have learn, because that’s where you’re actually going to learn how to do anything. You may find yourself needing to go back to what you have read or listened to. Because when you read or listen without actually applying anything, you’re not going to feel the difference with your growth.
Ask for Help
You’re always encouraged to ask questions in your lectures and in your classes. I’ve never met one professor or unit convenor who discouraged questions. All my professors I’ve had in my years of university had always encouraged all students to ask questions for anything they are unsure about … and that there are no stupid questions.
You can even ask for help among your classmates who are doing the same classes as you. You may even have study groups together so that you can help each other out with the material.
And guess what, if you haven’t already picked it up…. you are encouraged to ask for help when you need it during your journey of personal growth. While it is personal growth meaning that it is personal and it just involves you, you are still encouraged to ask for help when you need it.
Whether they are close trusted friends or family, if you’re going through something that you’re struggling with, don’t be in the dark about it, ask for help when you need it.
That’s why it’s also important to have a good support group and circle of people that you trust, people that you can go to during challenging times. That’s where you also have a “study group” for personal growth. When you have other people who are also on the same personal growth journey as you, it’s a great way to build each other up.
You want to surround yourself with people who uplift you, motivate you, and encourage you to become a better person and move closer towards your goals. You want people who are going to push you forward and not distract you from your personal growth, maybe making you do things that made you feel bad about yourself.
Ultimately, you’re not in this alone, ask for help when you need it… there are no stupid questions when it comes to personal growth.
Stay Motivated
I’ll be honest that when I saw this study tip I rolled my eyes. This is because you can’t always rely on motivation to keep going.
Motivation is sometimes there, but then sometimes it doesn’t appear at all.
The best thing you can do is to just surround yourself with inspiration… with a content diet. Your diet is not just want you eat you know.
What this means is that you want to surround yourself with a lot of positive and inspirational material that will motivate and uplift you, rather than drain you.
How have you felt after reading the news? Scrolling through social media for an hour?
It’s just like how you don’t feel your best after you’ve eaten junk food, you don’t feel your best after you’ve read, watched, or listened to “junk” content”.
So if you’re not putting in material that is motivational or educational on a daily basis, consider doing so. Consuming uplifting material will allow yourself to feel motivated and recharge yourself when you feel a bit drained. When you’re feeling depleted and drained by everything else that’s been happening, uplifting content can help.
Funny enough, your personal growth study routine will contain all those things. The books you read, podcasts you listen to, and motivational YouTube you watch will fill up that tank of inspiration and motivation. The most important part is to not let the negative content control us and take over our life. Take control over the content you consume.
You have nothing to lose by intentionally becoming a lifelong learner
No matter where you end up after you’ve finished high school or university, you’re always going to be learning. Learning is going to be a lifelong thing, whether you intend to or not.
When you intend to be a lifelong learner beyond your life experiences, you honestly have nothing to lose. When you intend to be a lifelong learner by consuming content to help you grow yourself, you have nothing to lose.
You have nothing to lose by reading books that will help you grow and improve yourself.
You have nothing to lose by listening to podcasts that will allow you to learn as you commute.
The investment you make for yourself with online courses or the books that you purchase will have a higher return than a lot of tangible products.
When you invest in yourself and in your personal growth, your future self will thank you for it.
-Lauren 😊
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, this is Lauren! I’m a law grad from Melbourne, Australia. On laurenbarri.com, I create content on all things personal development, productivity, self-care, and habits! I am super passionate about these topics because of how they helped me in all areas of my life, and I want to share it with others!
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