I must admit that I am very late to this party. Was too busy to attend to this weekly featured content. But nonetheless, I made an attempt to beat the clock.

In this week’s edition of the featured content, I will be sharing my personal growth with you all. As a young adult, it is a good one to evaluate how I have been doing so far? So, let’s begin!

In Comparison to my 5-10 years past

I have truly grown over time, both in knowledge, in experience and physically as well. In fact, my weight has nearly doubled. The funny thing about growing is that for the most part, we are not always intentional about every part of our growth, but we could always look back and see where things went South and how it could have been better.

Steps I took to Grow

I was not really intentional about all stages of my growth, but I was keen to influence the different stages of my personal growth as I saw how things unfolded.

First, my Academic Growth

While in school as a student, I came to realize that schooling in Nigeria seems too basic, especially when you are not taking on a professional career. My course of study was really basic to me, so I realized that dedicating as much time and effort as other students to my academics may not be in my best interest, so I adjusted my academics. I took on two jobs while schooling full-time, and this will go a long way to influence the next stage of my growth.

Financial Growth

Money does not always come as planned, but as early as 16, the concept of being a man and being capable of fending for myself has been ingrained deeply in me. I only took this up a notch while in school. So, having two jobs (one personal, and the other employed), earned me some level of financial advantage that most individuals of my age and socioeconomic status could not boast of. I am not rich by any stretch of it, I even still stay with my parents at almost 26, but with my financial status, my parents at least, do not always see me as a boy. I am financially sound and able to make good financial decisions. However, my parents giving me respect and some accolades were not just a product of my financial standing. My mental growth according to many has been impressive, let’s talk about it.

Cognitive Growth

I have always taken seriously the learning opportunities provided to me. While seeing movies is by no means wrong, and highly recommended, I seem less interested in most movies as once I can’t make points out of it or I am able to predict the outcome I lose interest.
I have grown cognitively sound and boast of a fair wealth of experience. This is mostly a result of numerous factors, including my spirituality, academics, and self-learning.

All these milestones in personal indices of growth and development did not come by chance, they required some measure of effort which I highlighted already, but let me succinctly spell most of them out:

Things I do for Growth

Most aspects of individual growth require conscious efforts if you want your growth to go towards the desired destination. Here are a few things I have done to help myself:

• Even if I wasn’t a regular student, I took academics seriously. School is a scam some may say, but it doesn’t mean that we can rule out entirely the value of the experiences, knowledge and skills schooling affords us.
• I befriended e-learning portals to learn more outside school. Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, Great Learning and SimpliLearn became my home outside the school at some point.
• I worked hard, really hard. I know working smart is a thing, but for most people, you have to work hard first before you can now be able to work smart. You can ask Elon! I did academic research and assignments for my fellow student, wrote textbooks for lecturers, help PhD students in their academics, and worked as a content curator, all simultaneously.
• I kept few friends. Very few. It wasn’t really necessary to, but it just naturally happened that you will be attracted to people like you and my kind of person. There are few of us, yet plenty of us.

Finale

My growth so far has been a pleasing one, though there is a lot to be desired. I have other ways I’ve grown and like everyone else, my growth never stops. Did I tell you I almost got married? That’s a story for another day (relationship growth things). For now, peace out!