The sixth stage of a personal growth plan: fulfillment and great accomplishment.

Stage six of a Seven Stage Personal Growth Plan is Fulfillment, a stage of enjoyment where one is able to reap the rewards of previous growth. In this stage, a person no longer need consciously cultivate personal traits, strengths, boundaries, standards, and relationships. Cultivation and enhancement continues, but at a subconscious level, allowing one to appreciate the joy and fulfillment of daily life. Growth continues, but is natural, subconscious, and automatic.

Personal Growth Stage Six - Fulfillment

This is also a stage where one is able to accomplish great things, building upon the confidence, competence, and abilities of earlier growth stages.

For reference, the reader may want to refer to the earlier stages of Healing, Foundation, Maturity, Expansion, and Values & Strengths.

Living Core Values

The work completed in stage five, Values and Strengths, provides the basis for living with integrity, being true to oneself and one's values. Fully integrating one's values into daily life continuously reinforces the integrity of self, creates life satisfaction, and sets the stage for fulfilling one's dreams.

Utilizing Strengths

A person is at their best, happiest, most productive, and probably healthiest when fully utilizing their core strengths in nearly everything they do. The combination of living one's values and building on one's strengths provides the competency and authenticity for great accomplishments.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. ~Walt Disney

Stage Six, Great Accomplishments

A person living their values and utilizing their strengths, when coupled with supportive relationships and the strength of self esteem, has the confidence and vision to accomplish great things. The fulfillment stage is not the place to sit back on one's laurels, but to take the greatest steps forward.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. ~Martin Luther King Jr.

The dreams one had in earlier stages that seemed too risky or too far beyond one's capabilities, now not only appear reasonable, but compelling. This is a stage of living up to one's potential and accomplishing dreams that in earlier stages may have been too frightening to embrace.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. ~Marianne Williamson

Wendy's International Founder Dave Thomas

Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's International restaurants, is an example of a man who ascended to the stage of great accomplishments. An orphan, Dave began working at age 12, quit school at age 15 - his greatest mistake, he often claimed - but grew to be a well known and loved icon by living his values and strengths and reaching out for great accomplishments.

Dave Thomas lived by five values: Quality is our recipe, do the right thing, treat people with respect, profit is not a dirty word, and giving back.

Dave raised awareness of the cost and difficulties in adopting children, campaigning corporate CEOs and state governors to provide adoption benefits for their employees. His Dave Thomas Foundation provided grants to adoption centers. There is now legislation and tax incentives making adoption easier and less expensive.

Personal Growth Process

It should be noted that personal growth is not a linear process. Growth unfolds through movement forward and back, often repeating cycles of learning and experience, with gradual forward progress. The Seven Stage Personal Growth Plan is presented as a progressive, linear process for clarity.