What is your growth plan?

What are you doing to better yourself? You will only get better if you do things that make you better.  Sounds simple, but that truth holds extreme implications.  Everyone wants to get better, but few are willing to pay the price to get better.  It is a sad truth, but only those that intentionally pursue growth are the ones that will truly grow.

I once had a mentor ask me, “John, what would happen if you stopped eating and drinking?”

I answered, “I would probably die.”

He said, “Do you think you would automatically grow without eating and drinking?”

I said, “No.”

He then began to teach me about the importance of having a growth plan.  I realized that if I didn’t feed my mind and my thoughts my dreams would die.  The same principle applies to you, if you don’t feed your development you will not develop.  Just like your body would shut down if not fed, so your dreams shut down if not fed.

We have all heard the statement…if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  Unless you are intentional about your growth you will not grow.  You may GO through life, but you won’t GROW through life.  We don’t Go to our destiny as though it is waiting for us somewhere, we GROW into our destiny.  The only way to become who you’ve always wanted to be is to grow into who you’ve always wanted to be.  You do not wake up one day arriving in a bliss of success, you grow into success step by step.  Growth happens daily not in a day.  The only way to become successful in life is to practice successful growth habits.  You are what you habitually do.  Habits shape us, good or bad.  So what habits does it take to grow?

1. Learn from READING

You will never grow to your maximum potential without reading.  Reading great books, stories, biographies, articles, blogs, etc… is one of the fastest ways to grow on your journey.  To take the wisdom and insight from others and apply it to your situation.  The mind needs stimulation if order to have inspiration, the only way to stimulate the mind is to read.  Soar on the wings of other people’s great ideas and insight.  Leaders are readers.  If you want to lead your life in the right direction you have to read from those who have gone before.  What is your growth plan for reading? How often are you putting seeds of greatness in you from the writing of great people?

2. Learn from EDUCATED EXPERIENCES

Experience is not the best teacher, however educated experiences are.  What I mean by educated experiences is learning through what has happened.  It is not enough to go through something.  Just because you go through something or experience something does not necessarily mean you learned something from it.  Experience will give you an experience but educating yourself as to what you learned through it will give you insight.  Unless we take time to reflect from our experiences we are destined to repeat them or worse forget them.  When we learn from our experiences we become better as a result of them.  Don’t waste an experience, learn from it and alway use it.

3. Learn from OTHER PEOPLE

By getting around the right people you can learn most everything you need in life.  Finding mentors who will lift you to a higher level is vital.  It has been said you will become the average of your 5 closest friends.  Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.  You WILL become like who you hang out with.  What kind of people are you surrounding yourself with? Are you surrounding yourself with faster, stronger, better people than yourself? If so, then you are in the right place.  If you are at the head of your class then you are in the wrong place.  Better to be around those that are further ahead and going somewhere than to be the one who is being dragged down.  Now understand I am talking about your inner circle of friends.  I am not saying to isolate yourself from people who need help, rather to insulate yourself from the wrong crowd.  We should be ones that are inspiring others along and helping lift them up, but your inner circle of friends need to lift you to a higher level.

Feed your dreams everyday so they don’t die!