Academic Background
Hello! I’m so glad you found me. My name is Krisstal Clayton, and I am a personal growth strategist, academic, and author.
I earned my doctorate in social psychology at New Mexico State University. During graduate school, I taught courses, worked for three years as an academic advisor to undergraduate students, and wrote my dissertation on people’s decisions while thinking about their belief systems. Graduate school was a phenomenal experience, but there were also many challenges. I experienced significant loss and trauma and was the target of a stalker. I learned as a young adult that the world didn’t function as I was raised to believe it did. Instead, life threw bricks at me, and I was not prepared.
I wasn’t going to let myself get knocked out and buried by those bricks. So, I decided to stand up, grab those bricks, and gradually use them to build my house. Using my trials and tribulations, I started searching for new meaning and focused on how to trust myself and embrace change. My search led me to therapy, yoga, and much practice honoring my boundaries. I had to learn how to say “no” so I could have room in my life to say “yes” to what mattered. Helping people become their best selves was what mattered, and so I became a professor of psychology with expertise in educating adults.
Why I Became a Personal Growth Strategist
My experiences and time as an academic have empowered me to mentor countless university students and faculty members of all backgrounds and ages. As someone who felt tremendous joy when my mentees succeeded, I began focusing on my reach beyond my university campus. In 2018, I signed a contract with Sage Publications to co-author a psychology textbook. This inspired me to create a wellness bullet journal assignment to support my students’ self-discovery. Their feedback was astounding! Students shared that they had no idea how vital reflection and mindfulness were to their development. They were collecting data on themselves and presenting it to me for feedback, and in doing so, they were motivated to make a change for the better.
They were an n of 1, and I was their data analyst. And so, my workshops on mindfulness through bullet journaling began.
Before I knew it, I was hosting psychology-based workshops in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and at yoga retreats with Good Vibes Yoga Studio. From there, people contacted me, requesting I work one-on-one with them! I was both thrilled and honored that something so precious would be asked of me. So, I decided to dedicate myself to honing my skills. I completed intensive seminars, courses, and training in motivational interviewing, empathic listening, neurodiversity, conflict management, inclusive leadership, disparities in the workplace, and workload management.
Today, I am still an academic and author with one more role—personal growth strategist. Oh! I have one more role that is very worthy of mention. I am settling into my second year as a spouse. And wouldn’t you know it? We met through yoga after both of us had lived very fulfilling lives as single people who had never been married or were looking to tie the knot. To care for my loved ones and those who have entrusted their personal growth to me, I regularly practice hot yoga, write, spoil my dogs, feverishly read books and research articles on psychology, and make time to play. (Play is so important! Why do so many of us stop making time to play when we become adults?) My play includes hosting dinner parties, attending as many concerts as possible, roller skating, and throwing karaoke parties with the help of two old friends and some vintage equipment— a dusty PS3, RockBand, and DJ Hero.
Granted, it took a lot of life lessons and tremendous work to become a person who has never felt more like her authentic self than she does today. I am incredibly grateful for it all. But I will never stop learning, working, and growing.
Now, that’s enough about me. Please introduce yourself so I can learn about you!