489 | Developing Your Personal Growth Plan

Chris Locurto 0:10
Welcome to the Chris Locurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Chris Locurto 0:22
Welcome to the show, folks, I hope you're having a fabulous day, wherever you are. So listen, there are some great speakers, some great websites, some great tools out there on the topic of creating a personal action plan. getting on with your life is always a great idea. You've probably heard some formulas that are kind of like step one, define your goal. Step two, write down the steps Step three, prioritize tasks and actions. Step four, set milestones to celebrate. And step five, identify the resources needed. And while those are great steps, they can be very helpful. That's not what we're talking about today. So we're digging deeper under the surface to discover what's holding you back from getting to one of your core needs as a human being. That core need in order to thrive as a human as God intended, is personal growth. So no matter how many steps you have, if you aren't actually getting to the root of what's holding you back, those steps can be helpful, but they're never going to be the best they can possibly be. So here's the core concept. You were created to grow, you were created to flourish, you were created to thrive, mankind was not created in a closed sterile Laboratory. He was created in a garden. And he was meant to grow. He was not created to just maintain the status quo. So I spend time each week on our farm, we call it the rich, and it's part of what God has called us to do. I am blessed to be able to take a day or two and work on the stuff that we've got going up here preparing for our business to move up here for people to get greater healing, all kinds of fun stuff. So if you haven't heard about that, we think it's a blessing. We look forward to what God already has planned. And what we're trying to get done to prepare this place, we got a team up here as well. That's trying to prepare this place. I can tell you though, that the gardens are full of dirt, they have smells great smells, some interesting ones. They have worms they have well, blood, sweat and tears. And it's in this environment. Not the one at the rich. But it's this environment that God created man. He placed mankind in a garden and called it Eden No, we say garden but really it's a farm right? What God play some and he didn't play some and just plants. He placed them in with all kinds of animals and everything right? So he put them in this place. And this is where God came down, took a lump of clay formed it. And then he breathed on it. Now this was pre COVID. There was light, there was darkness. There were animals, insects, there was work to do. God did not put Adam and Eve in the garden, say Hey, relax. He said, bust your butt, get to work, start taking care of things, right start making things happen. But there was even threats to avoid even you know, some of the animals are gold, the serpent would be one of those things. This was and is the real world. And it's here that real growth takes place. It's about putting things into practice, not just imagination, and theory. So growing as part of your intended design, people think about that. God does not want you to stay right where you are. He loves you exactly right where you are. He just doesn't want to keep you there. As John Maxwell said, growth is the only guarantee that tomorrow is going to get better. Or at least what's guaranteed is that if we don't grow, then nothing at all will get better, right? If it didn't just happen. But if we are focusing on our growth, then tomorrow can be a better day. So today we're talking about how to develop a strategy for your own personal growth. Because like all good things in life, it doesn't just happen on its own. So when we come back, digging down to the core of human existence, growth as it pertains to our individual significance, and word.

Chris Locurto 4:41
Freedom it's so powerful. I felt rejuvenated, almost renewed. I just felt so welcomed and loved and accepted for who I am and not an ounce of judgment. So I was very comfortable there that had a really big impact on me. That's going to be worth it. It's going to be hard

Chris Locurto 5:00
It was going to be even better on the other side. For me, it was just, it was just very refreshing. And I want to say lifegiving. For me, it really was, you know, I would go through next level life again, and probably again, and probably again, because it's so powerful, I want you to ask yourself a question, Could you hear the sense of hope and freedom and their voice is just that I want you to know, that could be you. Look, it's easy to get trapped in old habits, negative thought patterns and unhealthy relationships, it's gonna take some work. But yes, there is hope for you. If you want to experience the same kind of life transformation, this same kind of self awareness and freedom that they have, or maybe you're just curious what the process would look like for you, then head on over to Chris accardo.com/next level life.

Chris Locurto 5:55
Okay, growth, let's talk about growth, growth is a part of life and existence. It's, it's part of our design, it's, it's from the garden onwards, if we look all the way back to, you know, the beginning of our time here on Earth, right growth is the one way that we connect with our significance, and worth as a person, right? self worth, or feeling valuable, is a core human need. That's why we talk so much about worth and significance on the show. We all struggle with this at some point in our lives, but fundamentally, a person's value gets assigned to them, not by what they do, not by man's opinions, not by your, you know, controlling parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles, whatever, but by your Creator.

Chris Locurto 6:50
But it's one word growing into that person that he has intended and created us to be that we start to recognize that value, that we start to realize our God given potential.

Unknown Speaker 7:05
So developing ourselves as a created being is one of the highest achievements we can pursue.

Chris Locurto 7:12
It's also a form of, of praise and worship back to the one who has created us, it's like saying, I believe that you're playing for me is good. And it's worth cooperating with. Listen.

Chris Locurto 7:26
It's so much more than that, when you recognize that he is the king of the universe. There is nothing that he plans, there is nothing that he does, that is not a bajillion times better than our ways. His ways are always better than our ways. The least we could do is recognize that he wants us to grow into the person he wants us to be. So when I'm talking about developing a personal growth plan, we got to begin with what his end in mind is. Who is it that God created me to be?

Chris Locurto 8:02
What do I know? What is His scripture? Tell me? Not man's doctrine. Don't go by that. Not by bad opinions. Don't go by that. What does God's word tell you? He created you to be? How can I cooperate with his plan. And by the way, if you don't know that, go dig in and find out remove every bit of men's doctrine that you have learned your whole life.

Chris Locurto 8:28
I praise God that when I became a believer, when I finally received the salvation process, that I went through God's word without man's doctrine, I did it by myself sitting on my floor, in an apartment.

Chris Locurto 8:46
Very young, and you know, in my early 20s, mid 20s,

Chris Locurto 8:50
and just poured through before I before I started getting bombarded with man's doctrine was able to see a lot of God's true word without man's opinion on it yet. And praise God, that's something that has been a constant for man. It's something that God has brought me back to, I should say, that way of looking at what he says and consistently removing a lot of men's opinions of my life, or even man's ways of jacking up God's word, right. So when I look to cooperate with God's plan, I have to know his plan.

Chris Locurto 9:25
I have to be able to see what his plan is, I have to see how much he loves me and cares for me and has gotten me closer to him and direct me closer to him. And then I have to ask, How do I cooperate with that plan? Right, well, what's the biggest way to cooperate with your Father's plan?

Chris Locurto 9:42
Quit making your own. Quit going after your own doesn't mean you don't get to do amazing things doesn't mean you don't get to have an amazing life and means ask him what he wants you to do. Dig into his word and see what he wants you to do. And then go after those things. You cooperate by removing selfish ways.

Chris Locurto 10:00
Right, you quote, If I had it my own way, I've told people this for years, if I, if I was doing my thing, if I wasn't following what I believe is God's plan, man, I would have a vineyard and Sonoma with a restaurant on it. And I would be making wine and making food and, and teaching people from there.

Unknown Speaker 10:24
But that's not where I believe God has called me to.

Chris Locurto 10:28
That's a fun, amazing thought. But I don't believe that's the plan that God has for my life. I believe it is consistently pouring into people, whether it be clients or our teams to keep helping people through next level life through strap plans through our mastermind programs, our leadership programs, helping people to get healing, to get hope, taking proceeds of this in helping people who can't put food on their table, I believe these are things that he's called me to do. What I absolutely enjoy sitting on top of a vineyard with a restaurant on it. Of course I would.

Unknown Speaker 11:07
And if he called me to that, I would be there in about, you know, point three seconds. But that's not where I believe he's called me. So you got to dig in and find out what he's created you to be and then cooperate with his plan. And then how do you take that and make his plan your plan? What does that look like? God doesn't want you to just sit back and throw your feet up on the table and go, you know, I'm going to expect you to do everything, Lord, no, he wants you to work. Funny thing is people don't realize what's one of the first thing he told Adam need to do get to work, make babies and get working,

Chris Locurto 11:41
tend to the garden, take care of the animals work, get stuff done, right. So put it to work, put his plan to work. So if you really want to take a deep dive into this on your own, then download our free workbook online. It's called the Healthy vineyard, you can find it at Chris mcardle.com. Now if you decide you want help with this, we got folks through a two day event that helps them to get past what's holding them back from living their next level life. So check that out at Chris liccardo.com/next level life. Now that being said, I want to give you a few steps that you can follow to make sure that you're growing and developing as a person. And step one of that being remove the obstacles to growth. Folks to stick with this garden analogy. There are weeds in your garden, do not ignore them. Do not get stuck with all of these distractions that you have in life. It blows me away. You know, it's one thing to see all of the young folks being absolutely addicted, yes, I'm going to say addicted to their cell phones, because they are.

Chris Locurto 12:50
There's so many young people. And that's a generalization if you have some young folks who are not praise God, great job, parents. But when you look at it, people are freaking addicted to their cell phones. It's sad to see how many older folks have become addicted to their cell phones. And when I say older, I'm not talking about senior citizens, you know, just talking about 40s 50s. You know, people that are that are still so stuck to this distraction that they can't let go of right? Yeah, gotta get rid of distractions. That's just one of them. What are the other distractions that you have in your life? Right? Is it? Is it TV? Is it YouTube?

Chris Locurto 13:32
Is it creating problems and creating fires so that you can put out fires? What what are the things? Is it? Is it negative people? Is it negative sources? Right? What about, you know, a lot of folks listen to crappy news that is constant. And maybe it's accurate news, but it's pumping out negativity and fear. Now, I wouldn't say it was good news if it's pumping out fear. But if it's creating negative feelings and thoughts and ruining your day, get rid of that crap. You got to place healthy boundaries. To keep all of this crap away. Proverbs 423 says guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Another version says Keep your heart with all vigilance. For from it flow the springs of life. So folks, first thing you got to do is get rid of those obstacles. Right? If you're not experiencing real life, if you're not heading in the direction that you want to go, and if you don't have clear sense of purpose, then ask yourself the self assessment questions. Where has the soil of my heart become polluted?

Unknown Speaker 14:42
Where get in there, find out, dig through it, fix it. Where are the corrupting influences in my life right now who are the corrupting influences in my life right now it might be family might be friends, it might be co workers a boss. It could be the infant

Chris Locurto 15:00
answers that you listen to on TV, music, movies, social stinking media, right? Take a look and see if you've got corrupting influences on social media. Also, how am I combating the negativity in setting healthy boundaries up? Right? Am I facing the negativity in my life that's affecting me and holding me back? And am I putting healthy boundaries in place? Right. So these are things that we have to ask ourselves when we come back, cultivating your heart like a garden, and owning your personal growth.

Chris Locurto 15:37
Books, folks, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, then you know, the number one issue when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high quality communication, to make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life. It all starts with having great communication, the best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style, and to understand the personality style of the folks that you're spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home, the best way to do that is to go to Chris accredo.com/store. And get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team to day, get it for your family members. Today. As you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate, go to Chris accredo.com/store today.

Unknown Speaker 16:36
Step number two, cultivating your heart like a garden. Now, there are life giving habits, hobbies, activities that you can be doing, do not ignore them. Get out of your own head. Get out of the things that you're stuck in, get out of negativity, get out of negative self talk, get out of self abuse, get out of self hate, whatever it is, make sure that you start fixing the crap in your mind, start finding out what is lies and start telling yourself truths.

Chris Locurto 17:14
Find the negative self talk, shut it down. Take it captive, and start shoving truth into your brain. Right? Help yourself. By the way, don't be isolated. Make sure that you're not leaving yourself to just your own thoughts. Because that can be pretty crappy at times, right? But make sure you're pumping good quality thoughts and truths into your brain. Another thing is get out of your comfort zone. So many people get stuck in their comfort zone and they're afraid of conflict or they're afraid of, you know, change or these love being where they are, you know, being comfortable. And they don't realize that there's better things ahead, there's better personal growth, when you get out of your comfort zone. Sometimes you need to stretch yourself. Even if you don't have an intention to grow in that area. Right? Sometimes it's good just to let me push myself in this area and see what happens. And if the worst thing that happens is is you get a little stretched out there. And now you can do that thing, whatever it is great if it doesn't end up in a, you know, career changing decision or a life changing decision. So what did you grow? Did you stretch so get out of your comfort zone. Another thing is invest attention to self awareness. Spend time learning you

Unknown Speaker 18:40
one of the biggest struggles that I try to help people through and sometimes we make it through and sometimes they don't is being aware of how they act, how they react, how they make decisions, how they communicate, when they're being victims, when they're being controlling when they're being manipulative. When they're not even aware of anything that they're doing. You have to spend time paying attention to who you are and what you do.

Chris Locurto 19:10
This is a tough thing to do. You have to be cognizant one of the things that I asked myself all the time is why did I just do that? Why did I say that? What am I struggling with? You know, there's a lot of times that I will see myself do something or hear myself say something or act in a certain way. And I go to Whoa, what was that? Why did I do that? am I struggling with something? Am I feeling insecure right now? My feeling the need to control the situation and I will go through this check down of questions in my head to try and discover what's my problem. I don't sit there being a victim going well, it doesn't matter because here's the situation instead I go whoa, what's up? Did I need to respond that way? Did I need to act that way? Am I in the right? Am I in the wrong? You know, make sure that you're paying attention to yourself. Now Larry Boschetti once said that self awareness gives you the capacity to learn if

Unknown Speaker 20:00
from your mistakes as well as your success, and enables you to keep growing. Self awareness is defined as how an individual knows and understands their own character, feelings, motives, and desires. In fact, we did a whole podcast recently on the subject of character, and I highly encourage you to check it out. It's episode 487. Some of the self assessment questions are, how isolated Are you? Are others speaking into your life? Are you stuck in a rut? Is your routine keeping you from risking? What are you doing that's giving you insight into your life and mentality? So take a look at what books podcasts, seminars, discussions, mastermind groups? Are any of these helping you?

Chris Locurto 20:54
Because many of these if chosen correctly, done right you choose healthy versions of these, they can help you understand your habits, they can help you understand your behavior, they can help you understand your emotions. Well, what do you do with all that understanding? If you are somebody who likes to implement, you change, you do things differently? You make changes. Why? Because our goal is to grow. So make sure you take a look at where is all the influence coming from and if you don't have quality, healthy influence in your life. Let me say this.

Chris Locurto 21:34
For those of you listening to the show, I know that most of you are listening to the show because you actually desire quality influence you desire to implement things into your life. I know a lot of folks hate conflict and hate change. But here's what I want you to really ruminate on right now to use a farm common. Here's what I want you to ruminate on.

Chris Locurto 21:56
Do you have healthy influences? Not just in one area? Obviously, you're listening to the show, I hope that we're being a healthy influence to you. But are you a part of any mastermind groups? Are you part of any great live events seminars? Are you reading good quality books that is helping you in a great way to understand you?

Chris Locurto 22:19
If not, what are we going to do about that? Now step three, develop your personal growth plan. So here's what we want you to focus on, we want you to focus on nurturing the soil of your heart, adding the things that will encourage growth. Now if that sounds scary to you, let it let it be something you grab onto. It's okay to have heart change to have heart growth, right? The key is not just going after change for change purposes. What do we do to nurture the soil listen to your heart, feed your heart develop a reading and journaling plan I can tell you that it's something that helps so many people to you know first thing in the morning when you get up. start journaling, whatever's in your mind, get stuff out of your head. I know a lot of you artistic people, a lot of you aesthetic people. It is so helpful that when you wake up first thing in the morning to pick up a pen and paper or a computer and just dump do a brain dump 15 minutes of getting the stuff out of your head no matter what it is because then it gives you a clear head to move forward. For a lot of us it helps us to just write down things that we've experienced and you know, ways that we've experienced things and things that have happened I know for me, gratitude is a great thing being able to mark down what's happened and and how thankful I am and how amazing it is and how blessed I am by God. So develop a reading and journaling plan and reading Oh my gosh. I highly suggest the Bible is the book you read more than anything that is me.

Unknown Speaker 23:54
You're gonna learn a heck of a lot more from your focus with God and asking for his wisdom than reading man's opinions. I'm not saying don't read men's opinions. I'm just saying make scripture a top priority. Also determine what a healthy lifestyle is for you. What does it look like to have a healthy lifestyle? What does it look like to have

Chris Locurto 24:18
you know, time alone

Unknown Speaker 24:21
time to think by yourself what does it like to have healthy people in your life? What does it like to not have unhealthy people take up so much of your time. What is it like to actually have proper self care not the crap that's being spewed nowadays that the whole world is on your shoulders and you deserve so much taking care of yourself? No, I'm talking about when you need rest you get rest when you need to eat you eat healthy properly. When you need time away you take time away when you need to be focused on serving and helping and working and driving things and you know busting your butt you do those things. Alright, what does a healthy lifestyle

Chris Locurto 25:00
For you, are you able to sit quietly alone and think about your life? If if not, why not? Are you one of those people that can't stand the silence?

Chris Locurto 25:11
I've known many people in my life that can't stand the silence. They can't stand their own thoughts. They hate their own thoughts, right? Well, not being silent doesn't solve that problem. It just numbs it. What we're looking for is how do we overcome it? How do we solve it? So, self assessment questions? Are you spending time listening to your own heart? Are you spending enough time reading and journaling? And what do you need to change about sleep? You're probably not getting enough. I can tell you that exercise. Probably not good enough. And I hate the word diet, but it's the one that lands in people's minds because I don't live I don't die it I changed my eating habits a long time ago.

Unknown Speaker 25:58
It's a lifestyle change, right? I eat healthy why a big part of what we're doing up here at the ridge is to create healthy food for people so that they are eating something that is not toxic.

Chris Locurto 26:13
There is oh, there's a great video a great movie out that you need to see. It's called dark waters. It's got Mark Ruffalo, it's about the DuPont Teflon crap that they believe 99% of all human beings now have in the PFOA that they have in their bodies and what it's been doing to people for the longest time. Go rent that I think is like four bucks to rent that movie. Dark Waters, Mark Ruffalo, DuPont.

Chris Locurto26:40
You know, that's one of the things we haven't used Teflon in ages. Because we back in the early days when this was coming about we we learned about it and made decision to do healthier stuff.

Chris Locurto 26:52
So what does it look like to have a healthier diet, get rid of sodas, get rid of sugar, you know, get rid of a ton of crap, processed foods. Thinking that something is healthy, because it has the word healthier, natural on the box doesn't mean that it's healthy becomes an Xbox, it's not healthy.

Chris Locurto 27:09
So making good quality choices when you do these things and get your butt again, to sleep. Get plenty of sleep, that will help your emotions dramatically. Getting rid of sugar will help your emotions dramatically getting rid of processed carbs, bad fats. If you have not learned about seed oils, go learn about seagulls and what they're doing to you and how they're in just about everything and how insanely toxic they are. making these changes will help you What is it gonna help you do? It'll help you nourish yourself to make great change. So remember that you were created in a garden, or a farm. It's called the Garden in, in Scripture, but really, there's animals. And you were created to grow you. Along with God. God is your greatest gardener, right? But you are a gardener take up the role for your personal life and growth and own it. Again, if you want help with this, we have a free resource on our website. It's called the Healthy vineyard. You can download it at Chris liccardo.com. And I'm telling you that's that is something you want to do. That's a great tool. So if you want to be personally guided through this process, then you're ready for a next level life experience on site here in Nashville, Tennessee. Someday we'll be doing them up the ridge hopefully someday soon. Check that out online at Crystal crystal.com/next level life. Well folks, that's all the time we have for today. As always, I pray that this has helped you. Take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.