“Do you have a plan for your personal growth?”
The beginning of this might be a bit confusing but bear with me.
This is the first chapter of the book I mentioned in my last post. “The 15 invaluable laws of growth” by John C. Maxwell.
Don’t get it wrong. You have goals you want to achieve, you have achieved some and still in the process of achieving others. How do you get better at the things you want to do? Do you just keep doing it over and over again hoping that it gets better? Hope isn’t a strategy.
If you are focused on your goals, you will hit them but that doesn’t guarantee growth. If you are focused on growing, you will definitely achieve your goals. Growth has to be intentional. You shouldn’t expect that you grow with time or as you keep doing something over and over again, you will grow. All these targets you want to hit, you will get there but you first have to build yourself.
Using myself as an example. I want to be a data scientist. But to get there, I need to learn constantly things that are not taught in class. I need to get a routine and stick to it(discipline). I need to set timely goals to measure how well I’m doing and most importantly, I need to work on the way I think about the whole journey. Sometimes I think I will just do one or two projects , get myself in the job and by doing it over and over again, I will get better.
I know what I want to do and I’ve decided on it. But there’s a big difference here. I’ve decided but I’ve not done anything about it. I just go about telling people I want to be a data scientist. I think “oh lemme just graduate and focus fully”. In my first year in the university, I was introduced to web development. I would watch tutorials for a while and tell myself I will continue when I go home for vacation. Then when I get home, I will again promise myself to continue when I’m in school. I’ve told myself these things every time and now I’m in my final year. Even now, I’ve been thinking that I should just focus on making the grades and starting the journey after my final exams. But after that, there will be NSS, then I will probably tell myself to learn during weekends and on the weekends, I will choose to rest after a stressful week. Then throughout this period, I will be worried about not getting enough time to learn what I want to.
The right time will never come for me to start because there are going to be new challenges daily that I have to crush but by just living and crushing these daily challenges, it’s not going to make me who I want to be. Everybody believes they will get there someday but what are they doing to get there? They are just living daily with hope.
“ what would you intend to do if you knew you wouldn’t fail?” - Robert H. Schiller
I believe you should write that answer down before you continue.
If someone asks me if I can code, I would mostly say no or I will say that I can print “Hello World “. I do this because I don’t want the person thinking highly of me but mostly because I don’t want to be tasked to do something and I’m unable to. I can’t stand the thought of making a mistake and most of the time, it has led me to saying I can’t do it.
But how do we grow if we are scared of making mistakes? Because of this problem, I’ve been stuck at the same place for a really long time. I’m not willing to do anything that will make me feel I’m wrong. But in order to grow, you would have to make mistakes daily in order to learn. If we are constantly doing something over and over again and we become almost perfect in it, it doesn’t show in anyway that we’ve grown because we have not learnt anything new.
Another reason I say I don’t know how to do stuff is because I think I need to get to a certain level before I bring myself out. Using an instance from the book, imagine traveling on an unfamiliar road at night. You will only see further once you take a step. You will only figure out the right way if you start moving now. You can’t expect to stand at one place, have everything figured out and then start to move.
Then there comes lack of motivation. I’m not doing it because I don’t feel like it. Everyday I don’t go to class to study just because I don’t feel like it. I need something to motivate me. That’s the reason I only study when there’s a force pushing me like mid semester exams or end of semester exams. I just found out that motivation is a by product of constantly doing something. Nothing is going to motivate you to start doing something. You just have to start and as you get used to the process of doing it, then motivation sets in cause by then you would have started to notice some difference and excited to see more.
Then comes comparison. I look at all others around me. They are doing so well. People I sit in the same class with are making money out of the thing I’m still struggling to learn. There is intimidation everywhere and it makes you scared to step out of where you are. I have one or two people that know I can write a few lines of code and often praise me. But if I step out, there are so many others doing bigger things that I know I can’t even comprehend. This has led me to staying in my comfort zone where I am constantly praised even though I’m not doing anything.
Another thing keeping me from making progress is because I didn’t think it would be this hard. I didn’t think I needed to learn this wide to be able to do what they do. I look at a project and it doesn’t have so much code. Then I think “oh I can do this too” but then I later learn that, to be able to write these few lines, there’s so much I need to understand before I can come to the conclusion of such few codes. Then I see that it’s hard and I start getting lazy.
The book has highlighted ways to overcome these challenges:
- ask yourself the big question
- do it now
Another thing you can do is that, when you think of something important to do, say “do it now” 5 times and start doing it. Saying it prepares your mind for it and gives you the zeal to start.
- face the fear factor
We all have fears but we have faith as well. Yours is to make make sure your faith outweighs all your fears. You should starve your fears and constantly feed your faith. When you intend to do something and a fear crosses your mind. Ask yourself “would I be able to achieve it if this fear didn’t exist?“ if yes, then go ahead and do it. “Would I be able to do this is if I’m not afraid of failing, would I be able to do this if I’m not afraid of what people think, would I be able to achieve it if it won’t take me away from my peers?” The questions could go on but I believe the answer should remain yes and therefore, should be a solid reason to go ahead and do it.
- change from accidental growth to intentional growth.
Make efforts to build yourself and by so doing, exploring and stepping out of your comfort zone and not just mastering it because you happen to always find yourself doing it.
Here is how to know the difference
The chapter basically talks about the law of intentionality. You have to do things intentionally and not just because it comes along.
Dedicate an hour daily to what ever you want to achieve. Get up an hour early or stay an hour late, but find a way to factor in this extra hour dedicated to improving yourself in whatever ever area you choose to. Do not wait for something to push you to do it. Just do it.
Growth only happens when you go after it.
all pictures are taken from the book “The 15 invaluable laws of growth“ with my phone.