Personal Growth Tool: a Lawn Mower
How To Keep Your Grass Green and Your Mind Open for Change
It’s another terrific Continental European winter: Rain, wind and grey skies all over the place for weeks. I noticed that my lawn at home however flourishes this winter. Yesterday, I mowed the grass and this morning I fertilised it as the rain intensified. While being on the task yesterday, I thought how my front yard lawn told me a story about personal growth and motivation.
Keep Fit
Personal growth does not come without investing time. Like the effort of cutting the grass at the right length regularly, personal growth is all about investing regular time in yourself and cutting away hours in your busy schedule to learn, explore, read or to exercise. Whether it is sports, technical knowledge required for the job, or reading material that is outside of your day-to-day comfort zone. It helps you to get inspired and to be creative about the future that could be.
Rain
A lawn does not grow beautifully green by getting sun all the time. It is as important that it gets regular irrigation. Although it could have been a lot less rain for me personally last months, it has definitely helped my lawn lately. Personal growth does not come without hardship. Growth is not only about reaching your great successes, it is about the power you get by making mistakes, learning, exploring uncomfortable situations and overcoming hurdles. Seeing that hurdle as a challenge to get better is probably the most difficult thing. After realising and acknowledging this, that is when you can start finding options to work the challenge.
The Lawn Next Door
Hey, we’re human, right? We tend to compare our lawn with the ones of the neighbours in our street. I’d need to admit, I have done the same. Until I started noticing that one of them had artificial grass. Instead comparing yourself with others, and their alleged success, try to focus that energy in finding ways to act and using the good qualities already present. Maybe, your lawn is perfectly situated and gets the right amount of sun and shade. What can you do to leverage your strengths, rather than focusing on your weaknesses? I am a big believer that you get the best out of people by enabling them to play their powerful personal specific characteristics.
Fertilise
If sun and rain don’t get you where you want to be: give them a helping hand. Just like you need to fertilise your lawn once in a while, make sure you understand the signals when it would be good to get a helping hand in a situation you have not been in before, or a challenge that is a big personal effort for you. Ask for feedback, ideally to people with different perspectives to the situation you see yourself challenged by.
As I look outside my window, I am satisfied how the lawn looks today. Having a green lawn seems possible, I notice now. Let’s see how I will have done after another hot Continental Europe summer. Like in personal growth, motivation comes from within. You need to cope and adapt to external factors, which are constantly changing. As long as you keep the faith and motivation, you’re a big step closer in getting that personal growth you aspire.
