Growth is Optional

One of the most potent lessons I have learnt along my journey of intentional living is that change is inevitable but growth is optional. Change, being life's one constant, happens whether I am aware of it or not. It does not necessarily require conscious engagement on my part. Growth, however, is  all my call. The extent and rate of growth that I experience throughout my lifetime is entirely up to me.

The challenge for those of us interested in personal growth is, therefore, ensuring that change doesn't simply happen to us, around us, before us, in spite of us. Change must be designed by us, and that change must be easily identifiable as growth. The important thing for us to recognize is that every day that goes by that is not directly linked to life goals ( and strategies to achieve those goals) is a day which will result in change, but never growth.

 Obviously, all growth is change, but not all change is growth, and we need to make those distinctions personally and early in or life experience. What is important then is that, much the same way we would plan a company's growth strategy, we design our own strategy for personal growth. Important to this decision is the recognition, however, that some growth is structured and can be easily planned. The other, probably more important element of growth, is derived and far less structured. Structured and planned growth occurs with each book we read, each class we take, every goal achieved, every increase in competence levels. Growth that is derived, on the other hand, is that which we become as a result of the experiences we have. The maturity we experience, the courage we gain, increases in levels of persistence and patience, the willingness to try until......the ways in which our characters develop as we deliberately pursue and achieve the goals we set ourselves...the more valuable, greater intangibles obtained from the pursuit of the tangible.

Whether the growth that we experience results from the trinkets we achieve or the treasures we become, one thing is certain.....neither will occur without a deliberate attempt to change our current circumstance. Obviously then,  personal growth demands that we wholeheartedly embrace the maxim "if it's going to be, it's up to me" and move boldly to change our world.