Growth

I asked for growth this year. Around January of this past year, when I had gotten my feet back under me, I asked for growth. I knew it wasn’t going to be necessarily pleasant, but I underestimated what it would entail.

And perhaps that’s why the vast majority of the world’s people exist as they do. Whether in jobs they dislike, relationships they’ve settled for, and letting themselves go to seed to exist in a state of comfort, rather than seeking their potential.

And to be frank, I can’t even fault them for it. Growth is hard man. Not only hard in a physical sense, but hard on an emotional and psychological level as well. Growing demands discipline and consistency. It demands waking up early so you can work out or meditate before a long work day.

It requires taking time to work out and grocery shop for healthy foods to nourish your body. It requires distancing yourself from toxic things in your information diet such as too much social media, TV or porn. It requires you to do a life audit and take stock of what you’re doing wrong, right now, that you could be doing better.

The good thing about all of the things I’ve mentioned above, is they’re all habits. So once you muster enough willpower to exchange your bad habits for good habits, the sky's the limit for what you can do.

And here’s where growth can get messy, nonlinear and painful. Once you’ve mastered the things you can do in your physical reality, you have to start addressing things in your mental and emotional reality.

Just like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, once you master your physical needs, you turn to your more esoteric emotional needs. Physical and sexual intimacy. Respect and prestige at work and among your peer group. Purpose and self actualization.

And as you set goals to attain these things, you start to run up against your subconscious limiting beliefs. The deep seated beliefs that have been programmed into you since childhood. The quiet little demons that only surface when you begin this journey to better your life.

Everyone has different limiting beliefs about themselves, depending on how they were wounded as children. Some people have limiting beliefs about how much money they can make. Some about how much they can be loved or if they deserve a partner of a certain caliber that treats them with respect. Some might have a limiting belief on what they can accomplish in their lives and what kind of contribution they can actually make to the world.

And the nefarious thing about these limiting beliefs, is they are generally not conscious. If you are still engaging in limiting self talk, the kind of talk in which your inner voice berates you in a way you’d never let a friend do, then that’s the first thing you have to address. Mindfulness and journaling can be helpful.

No, the limiting beliefs I’m talking about are the subconscious programs of the ego that were written long ago to “protect you”. Maybe you grew up without a lot of money, maybe you had experiences of abandonment, emotional or otherwise, as a child. Maybe you were bullied by your peers. Maybe you were broken up with on a significant day, or because your partner didn’t want to buy you gifts during the holiday season.

Whatever your trauma, your ego has evolved defense mechanisms to prevent that situation from ever happening again. The problem with these defenses is that it is very difficult to invite people over for tea when there is a moat and drawbridge at the front of your castle.

Perhaps consciously you are attempting to create an online business to achieve financial freedom, or find that person to have a deeply fulfilling relationship with. But here’s where the limiting beliefs can bubble up to the surface.

And it's at this point the next stage of growth can occur. It's at this stage you have to engage with your shadow self, the ego that’s trying to control the show and protect you, and heal that trauma so you can let the thing you actually want into your life.

Maybe you really want a deeply fulfilling relationship, but when you find someone who could fit the criteria, you start to nit pick and look for flaws, and convince yourself they aren’t the one before even giving them a real chance. Maybe you self-sabotage in nefarious ways. Perhaps an investor messages you about your online company and sets up a meeting, and the night before to “celebrate” you go out for drinks, get trashed and the next morning blow the meeting.

That’s what limiting beliefs are and that’s how they sabotage you as you attain your goals. Since they come from the subconscious, the decision is already made in your psyche, and your conscious mind finds a way to justify the decision.

Therefore, “staying safe” means getting drunk the night before your big meeting to “celebrate”, when in actuality you are sabotaging the situation because it's easier and safer to stay where you are. At least here you know what to expect. You’ve carved out a niche for yourself. Why rock the boat?

I’ll tell you why, because you’re worth it. You deserve to be living your best life on your highest timeline. But in order to do so you have to do the inner work. You have to do the work. And let me tell you it is messy.

Oftentimes you do the work, you try to address your issues, and you feel ready to take on the challenges you’ve set your mind to. And life will send you a test to see if you are ready. And oftentimes in the healing and growth process, you will find you are not ready.

Your limiting beliefs bubble back up to the surface, you stop practicing the good habits that got you to where you were in the first place, and perhaps even start practicing the bad habits you left behind again as you try to cope with the anxiety as your goal approaches.

And oftentimes you do fail and you do flop. Or worse, you self-sabotage and realize what you did only later. But that’s the growth process. It's trial and error and you have to be gentle with yourself as you move forward.

Because there is growth. Consistency is the path forward to greatness. And failure is an integral part of it. You need to have a positive relationship with failure. Failure is where all the lessons are. That’s what going to the gym is, its consistent failure. You have to live at the edge of your capabilities.

At the gym you can’t lift that, you can’t run a mile, you can’t push that, until you keep trying, every day, making incremental progress. And then one day your body makes the adjustment and you realize you can do it. You can lift plates on the bench press. You can run a 10 minute mile. You can max out a smith machine.

And the same is true for whatever your goals are. Each day you have to try to make incremental progress toward your goal and you are going to fail a lot. A whole lot. And nowhere is this more painful than in romantic relationships where there are two people trying to achieve a common goal, but with different trauma, baggage, and limiting beliefs that they bring to the table.

But there is perhaps nothing more fulfilling in life than having a life partner, a family, and a future with someone. There are things you can do with a partner you can’t do with anyone else. Experiences you can share and support you can give and receive.

So that’s the caveat when it comes to growth. You can ask for it. You can want it. You can desire things and set goals. But you have to be willing to put in the work. You have to be willing to see it through to the end. Life is going to throw you curve ball after curve ball to see where you’re at.

But as long as you have a firm bedrock of healthy habits, and a strong why, you can bear almost any struggle.

And it's so worth it in the end when you actually achieve what you set out to achieve. When you look back at your previous journal entries and you're grateful for the lessons that, at the time, were experiences you’d rather not repeat.

And then you keep growing. It never ends. But each time you grow, you level up, and each time you level up, your life gets better. And each time your life gets better, you compound your healthy habits. And in no time at all, you’ve already surpassed the person you wanted to be when you started this journey, and you’re hungry for more.

googleedf239d52e06c2ab.html