The beautiful thing about growth is that it looks different for everyone. The difficult thing about growth is that it looks different for everyone.
One question I generally ask my clients at the start of a coaching call is “What feels like the best use of the time we have together today?” While I often know what a client may want to discuss, especially if it’s a continuation of a conversation around a larger goal, I think it’s important to seek that input in the moment. This is especially true for clients who may have several plates spinning from different facets of their lives. For example, they may be working on goals related to their professional lives, a health goal, and something related to their family all at the same time. And while that’s perfectly fine and definitely “doable,” they can’t do all the things all the time…and working on multiple goals simultaneously require making decisions around where to focus when. Because at the end of the day, we have to focus our time, attention, and energy in order to create growth, which means we have to be constantly making decisions about what is most important or what resonates with us most in a particular moment.
Years ago I had my professional path pretty well mapped out…yet my life now looks NOTHING like what I had envisioned, and for that, I am so grateful! You see, some massive shifts took place in my life in a relatively short period of time, and I just knew that the growth trajectory I was on was no longer for me…so I left it. Much to the shock and confusion of those around me (and with some comments being made along the way), I abandoned my well-laid out plans and decided to take a very different path. And while I’m not sure that very many people around me understood my decision, I knew where and how I needed to grow…and my certainty in decision-making helped others to trust my choices, even if they didn’t necessarily understand them. And while I don’t subscribe to the idea that others always get to weigh in on the decisions we make for our lives, I think the very fact that my deciding what path my growth journey was going to take and committing to it helped me to avoid a lot of unnecessary drama around other people’s ideas and opinions…which just goes to show how powerful we become when we make confident decisions for ourselves and our lives.
Deciding where you want to grow is an important decision…but it’s NOT a finite one. You see, we can’t grow in all ways at all times (because really, who has the energy for that?!)…but we CAN grow in all the ways we want to OVERTIME if we take a thoughtful approach to what growth looks like in our lives. Part of this is recognizing that since we can’t accomplish things all at once, we need to take the time to look at our overall growth picture and decide what’s most important, where we want to begin, and what we want our journey to look like over time. Do you struggle to set these kinds of priorities and create the action plans to do it all? If so, I can help. My inbox is always open!
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