Are You Ready for Growth?

Are you ready for growth? Here are 7 things you need to know when you’re about to embark on a voyage of change.

Life is a journey, not a destination.Unknown

1: Know Your Starting Point

You’re not really ready for growth until you’ve thought about the level you’re on at the moment.

There are two main reasons why this is important:

It helps with planning. You can’t plan a route unless you know your starting point. In the same way, you’re not ready to grow until you know what needs to be changed.
It provides motivation. When you see the difference between where you are now and where you want to be, you experience tension, and that tension can fuel your desire to move forwards.
It helps you see progress. There are two ways to measure progress. One is to see how far you have come, and the other is to see how far you have yet to go. To work out how far you have already travelled, you need to know where you started from.

So, if you’re heading out on a journey of personal growth, it would be well worth pausing to reflect on your current:

finances
relationships
fitness
values
emotions
skills
limitations
personality
strengths
dreams
knowledge
beliefs
weaknesses
talents

2: Know Your Direction

You’re not ready for growth if you don’t know which are of your life you want to grow in. As someone once said, if you’re headed nowhere in particular, you’re likely to end up there!

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.Carl Rogers

So, what does your ideal direction look like? To narrow it down, ask yourselves these questions:

How do you enjoy spending your time?
What kind of people do you enjoy meeting?
What contribution do you want to make?
How healthy do you want to be?
What do you want to achieve in life?
What sort of environment do you like to be in?

One of the problems in choosing a heading is that we can be overwhelmed by the options. Know what matters to you most about where you want to go, as this may help you choose between the options available to you. Then, if you still have more than one possibility open to you, choose the one that looks like it will be most fun!

Of course, not everything will work out they way you expect. So be prepared:

To compromise. None of us can have everything we want. But we can have the most important things.
To change direction as you travel. It is wise to revise your travel plans as you go, to take into account the things you learn along the way.

3: Know Who is Travelling With You

Sometimes we travel alone, but at other times we have company along the way. Either way, you’re not ready for growth until you have at least some idea of who you’re taking with you.

Who is travelling with you at the moment?
Who else who should be travelling with you?
Do you need to revise your commitments to people who are already your travelling companions?
Are there certain kinds of people you need to hook up with along the way?
Are there others you need to avoid?

And when you consider these people:

What are they looking for in a destination? It may not be the same as you.
What are their limitations? Not everyone can travel as fast as you, for example.
What are their resources? Sometimes they’ll bring things that you can’t bring.
What you can offer to them? Sometimes you’ll bring things that they can’t carry.

Sometimes the journey is hard. But, no matter what you’re going through, someone else has been through something similar before. Seeking out those people and learning from them can make the rigours of travel a lot easier to bear. Indeed, personally, I take great in this verse from the Bible:

Don’t panic. I’m with you. There’s no need to fear for I’m your God. I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you.Isaiah 41:10 – The Message

4: Know Your Travel Options

There is usually more than one way to make a journey: by boat, aircraft, train, or on foot, for example. The happiest travellers assess their options before chosing their mode of transport. You’re not ready for growth until you’ve explored at least a one of your options.
So, what are your options for closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to go? What are the pros and cons of each?
When you’re considering your options:

You don’t need to over-analyze. You don’t need to evaluate every detail of each option – stick to the main features such as cost, speed and comfort.
If you can’t see how to get from here to there, you may need to seek help, either from someone who has travelled that way before, or from a professional travel guide.
Sometimes you find that your destination is unreachable from where you are now. If that is the case, you’re going to have to pick a more realistic destination.

5: Know Your Route

You’re certainly not ready for growth until you have a growth plan. So, once you know where you are going, who is going with you and how you are going to travel, you can begin to plan your route. You don’t need to plan it all in detail. After all, you can’t know everything that will happen on the journey, so you are likely to have to make course adjustments as you go. Nevertheless, you can plain in the main waypoints, and you can plan the first leg of the journey in some detail.

6: Know How To Take Your First Steps

You’re ready for growth when you know what to do next and how you need to do it.
Once you’re ready… just do it!

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.Carl Rogers

7: Know What You’ve Learned So Far

Once you’ve been on the road for a while, you’re likely to have learned a few things about travelling. So, make the most of your experience. To make yourself even more ready for growth, reflect on the journey so far:

What have you learned?
What will you do differently on the next leg of your journey?
What will you do more of?
Or less of?
Do you need to adjust your course?
Or alter your destination?
Are you ready to pick up a new travelling companion?
Or let go of an old one?
Are you slowing others down?
Are others holding you back?
Is your mode of transport still appropriate?
How can you help others on their journey?
How can they help you?

Bonus: Remeber Why You’re Travelling

Whenever you set out on a journey, you have a reason for going. When the road gets tough, it can be helpful to remember what made you go in the first place. Similarly, personal growth can sometimes be hard. You may get tired, bored, lonely… Keep your spirits up by reflecting on the reasons you started out, and you’ll always be ready to take the next step on your voyage of change.
Thank you for travelling through this article with me. I hope you have enjoyed the trip, and I wish you a very pleasant onward journey.

Acknowledgements

Image by Doris Antony, Berlin (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.