Hi you! Yes you! Do you know what growth really is? Let’s figure it out shall we?
Let me tell you a short story. My friend just got a new job. She is pretty good at her work and she’s also well aware of the set of skills she hasn’t tapped. Luckily she and her colleague balance out each other’s skills, so the work one can’t do, the other works best in that. So they were complementary in work. But once, her colleague went for a one week leave, only she could take up that work. Now what? She didn’t know how to do that work…
So, she tried to ask around if there are any references of previous works so that she could try to understand what is to be done. She tried to understand a bit and apply whatever she understood.
Later her boss came up. She took the courage to ask her boss on how to do this task. Though her request might have caused a brief inconvenience, he sat down and helped her understand step by step what is to be done.
She gave it a try herself and she just realized how she successfully learned a new skill! That…is growth!
Every tiny bit we learn, every tiny effort we put in to learn, every tiny thing we do that we thought we could never do… every tiny effort of courage to “ask” to know something you haven’t known before…Each of them would be steps to grow.
Not just learning skills for a career. Every single time you successfully get over a negative emotion, every time you get back healthier after a sick day and realize how to treat yourself better, every time you come up with a new idea solely created within your own mind, and every effort you make with courage and determination, to bring that idea of yours to reality despite failures and setbacks, everytime you get better! As a person, or at a subject, or at an activity, sports or behavior or just life itself, everything is growth.
Every moment that is better than the previous moment is growth. So what is navigating growth?
It is to seek ways to learn new things. New things that’ll make you better in all! And then apply your knowledge and everything you are aware of for good and getting better.
In the journey, there may or may not be people who support and help you out, like my friend’s boss in the story. But there will be a lot of obstacles that we can’t imagine.
Navigating growth is all about finding little hints of hope and keep trying your best for what you want, steering through obstacles with whatever resources you have. Sometimes the tools may be right in front of you but you don’t see them, sometimes you have to look for those tools first and then you look for instructions on how to use them. Then you have to build your road yourself. But that’s the advantage! How you draw and build your path is all in your hands only.
Navigating growth is building your path with your own resource you call knowledge. So friends, go hold the steering and drive it right! Drive it with confidence, patience and a positive spirit with will power. Life is all about growing and growing! All the best on your journey!