GROWTH ENVIRONMENT MASTERY

To create your own growth, you must master your environment first.

Key Concept #7: Internal Growth Environment

Your internal growth environment refers to how you think, reason, and perceive yourself and the world around you. This includes your self-talk, which is influenced by your external environment.

We explored your external growth environment first because of its impact on your internal growth environment. Your internal growth environment is strongly influenced by your external surroundings—what you've heard, seen, and experienced up until now.

It's important to recognize that if your external growth environment isn't conducive to progress, you can leverage your internal growth environment to counterbalance it, preventing complacency or stagnation in your overall development.

By now, you should have completed 24 core durable skills courses, covering foundational aspects such as self-awareness, self-appreciation, and self-acceptance. In this lesson, we'll focus on key concepts that will continue to enhance your internal growth environment.

We can either see ourselves through the eyes of others or through our own. We can allow the world to shape our self-image, or we can actively shape how we see ourselves. What are you doing?

In either case, the choice is ours: to use a lens that may be distorted by external influences or one that we consciously define and refine.

For a positive internal growth environment, it’s essential to separate who we are from the negative influences or circumstances around us.

Two Lenses, One You

Building Foundational Traits

As mentioned, your journey of self-growth and improvement begins with **self-awareness**. Without this foundational trait, it will be nearly impossible to recognize the need for growth. You must take an honest, thoughtful look at yourself, which can be facilitated through self-reflection and observation.
Next, **self-appreciation** helps you acknowledge all the good in who you are and what you do. It allows you to feel positive about yourself and your potential.
Finally, **self-acceptance** enables you to recognize that, alongside your strengths, you also have weaknesses or areas for growth. Together, these three traits provide the confidence needed to work on your areas of improvement.
Do you have a balanced view of yourself? If not, what steps can you take to improve?

What You Tell Yourself: Self-Talk and Tail-Enders

When you talk to yourself, does your language reflect the mindset and attitude of the people and situations around you? If you find yourself in a negative environment with critical people, do you start thinking the same negative thoughts about yourself? **If so, your external environment may be poisoning your internal growth environment.** In this case, you may need to revisit and work on the three foundational durable skills.
If it's not immediately clear, you can often identify whether you have positive or negative self-talk by paying attention to your "tail-enders." Tail-enders are the thoughts that follow statements made about you.
Below are several statements: three are negative, and four are positive. Pay attention to what you tell yourself mentally after reading each statement. Do you readily agree, or does your mind resist?

You have all the potential in the world.
You will be successful.
You are manager material.
You are smart and capable.
You are stupid.
You are a failure.
You won't amount to much.

You can either accept and reflect others' opinions about you, or create your own perspective—or lens—seeing in yourself all that you are and can become. Here’s the difference:

Reflection: What Happens

An individual in a social situation imagines how they appear to others.
That individual imagines or hears others' judgments of that appearance.
The individual develops feelings about and responds to those perceived judgments, accepting them as true, and begins to reflect those judgments.

Lens: What Happens

An individual in a social situation is self-confident and doesn’t worry about how they appear to others.
With healthy self-esteem, that individual does not imagine or seek judgment from others.
Even if there is judgment or criticism, that individual does not develop feelings about or respond to those perceived judgments. They see themselves as they are, with strengths and weaknesses, and accept both.

Looking at yourself through a magnifying glass may seem negative, but when it comes to self-perception, it’s beneficial. Using metacognition is similar to using a looking glass to view yourself. Metacognition allows you to see every detail of who you are—both positive and negative, strengths and weaknesses. This up-close view helps you understand your true potential more realistically.

Looking Glass or Mirror

Self-Perception: See Your Potential

Take a moment to reflect on how you view yourself and how you feel about who you are. Try the following exercises:

Write a paragraph describing yourself as if you're introducing a character in a book or explaining who you are to someone you've never met. Then, ask a friend or relative to read your description and share whether they agree with it.
Choose three famous people you identify with or feel you share similarities with. Think about what traits, values, or experiences you have in common with them.

Metacognitive Goal

For this lesson and over the next few days, we want you to become more aware of your resilience when facing setbacks or obstacles. Reflect on and write about times when you bounced back after experiencing a difficult situation or challenge.

Can you stay positive and keep moving forward, even in the face of adversity?