Now I am 21 years old. So I’m not surprised if you’re rolling your eyes wondering what the heck do I know about growth.
Now bearing my age in mind it is no surprise that the topic of growth is one I encounter the most in parts of my life. “You need to grow up”, “you wouldn’t know what you are talking about!”, “leave it to the grown ups” So it is no surprise that I find myself obsessed with needing to grow up, with knowing it all.
But, what does that actually mean? Because one may be old, it doesn’t necessarily mean, you have grown up. I remember my great grandma who is 96 years old say “My love, I am still growing.”
But, what does that actually mean? Because one may be old, it doesn’t necessarily mean, you have grown up. I remember my great grandma who is 96 years old say “My love, I am still growing.”
And if you actually take the time to listen to those who are wise, to those who have experienced a lot, you will find a theme: you never stop growing, nor should you want to, because you will never know it all.
For some this might be a discouraging thing. Always learning?
Which brings me to the first point I discovered. You have to be hungry for knowledge, to be hungry to learn and grow. You need to ask yourself if you are tired of making the same mistakes over and over? Do you realize that you can be better than who you are, better at doing what you do? Because the degree of how much you want to learn influences how much you actually grow.
The other thing to remember is to not be comfortable. It is human nature to grow comfortable with what is familiar. Whatever it might be and however good or bad it is. Change is scary. However, to grow you have to be willing to venture into the unknown. To accept that you don’t know it all, to accept and open up to new experiences. It is inevitable that you will realise that you are wrong and are not doing things the right way. You might even realise that you are actually better than you actually thought you were and that can be scary in it own right. So the only thing I think you should be comfortable with is being comfortable with the unknown.
Which brings me to how important courage is to the process of growth. Courage propels you into this unknown, it propels to let go. Let go of what you thought was right and it isn’t. What you thought worked but doesn’t, however this requires a certain degree of strength. Which comes from that hunger I talked about. The hunger to learn, to improve. Courage does not come to play when things are easy. And that is a reality.