Growth: How Tall Will Your Grow?
I know everyone reading this post has experienced change. Yet change doesn’t mean growth. I thought I was growing because I was experiencing change. Yet, I had truly faked myself out. My attitudes, thoughts and the methods I used for approaching things did not change.
Growth Is A Choice
One of the greatest incubators for growth is becoming a self-employed small business owner. First, the amount of change you go through to start a small business and bring it to success is incredible.
You have to grow when change comes to you. If you don’t very often you can become irrelevant in the market place. For many small business owners they don’t have a choice. They have to grow. Small business success is predicated on your ability to grow in terms of not just sales, but systems, hiring, marketing and other areas.
Growth Must Be A 360 Degree Endeavor
But for many small business owners the growth process starts and stops with their business. As a personal business coach I have many types of clients from corporate executives to doctors to small business owners and all of them are successful financially.
They have embraced change and growth in their businesses. Yet, in their personal lives they may be stuck where they were 20 years ago. And when successful people are stuck it takes the joy and enthusiasm out of their lives.
It may have a negative impact on their business but in many cases it doesn’t. But, in their personal lives they have not embraced growth. I had one business owner and as we collaborated together one of his assignments was to take a vacation.
He had completed all the other assignments on business as we had developed our coaching relationship. Yet, on this one he came back to me and told me that he couldn’t figure it out.
Growth Is About Personal Growth
He couldn’t figure it out because his business was his life and his life was his business. The last time I checked business was just a part of life. He was stuck because he had not grown himself in his personal life.
He had not taken a real vacation in 20 years. He didn’t need to be at his business. If we stop to think about this for a moment what I am about to say is true for all of us. Our world and growth gets no bigger than the thinking between our ears.
Growth is about seeing yourself and a better future. As Napoleon Hill said, “What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” But the only way to take the steps to growth is to “let go” of the thinking that is holding us back.
Growth Is About Letting Go
Until we let go of old thinking, old ways of spending our private time and old ways of doing things it will not be possible to have the personal development to enjoy life to the fullest.
After all, work is supposed to make life sweet, purposeful and fruitful. But you have to construct a vision of a personal life to where you can experience the rewards of your good work.
Growth is a choice. Growth is optional. Choose growth as you have in business. When you choose growth in your personal life you will start experiencing life instead of existing through it. Choose growth and you will experience significance in your life.
