Curious about Growth: How Do You Manage It and/or Is It Important?

Definition: The process of growing; the gradual increase of an animal or a vegetable body; the development from a seed, germ, or root, to full size or maturity; increase in size, number, frequency, strength, etc.; augmentation; advancement; production; prevalence or influence; as, the growth of trade; the growth of power; the growth of intemperance.

“I think that our fundamental belief is that for us growth is a way of life and we have to grow at all times.” - Mukesh Ambani

This is the time of year - the beginning of September - that I almost consider as a mini-New-Year. It is the time for “re-booting” so to speak. Children start back to school, students that haven’t been coming to my fitness classes in the summer start showing up again, and I re-evaluate my business/life and set the plans, goals, and intentions for the rest of the year.

It is an exciting time for growth in many areas!

William Butler Yeats wrote, “Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.

How about you? Do you have new subjects and skills to learn? New intentions to achieve? New relationships to establish?

I do feel that one of the biggest challenges today is to fit it all in. I received a thought provoking e-mail yesterday from the brilliant businessman, Rich Schefren. He suggested that we cut down on our “Input to Increase Our Output.” He pointed out - and rightly so - that we are so bombarded with information (and, it is good and useful information) that we don’t have enough time or energy to devote to what we are trying to create - our output.

I am in total agreement, and starting today - because I have set important growth intentions for the next four months - I will cut back on thoroughly reading every e-newsletter and print magazine I receive daily, weekly and monthly. I will also forego the many, many, many teleseminars I attend. The majority are recorded and can be downloaded - then listened to as I fix dinner and do other chores. I am not saying that I haven’t and don’t learn and grow from this input, but something has to give.

Now for a few of the great quotations. You can imagine the plethora that are concerned with and applaud “growth.” I had a real challenge picking some to share with you.

• “Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” - Leo Tolstoy
• “Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.” - Morihei Ueshiba
• “Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness.” - Jean Vanier
• “The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.” - Lao Tzu
• “Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.” - Oscar Wilde

A few other takes on growth:

• “With each passage of human growth we must shed a protective structure like a hardy crustacean. We are left exposed and vulnerable - but also yeasty and embryonic again, capable of stretching in ways we hadn't known before.” - Gail Sheehy
• “Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.” - Ronald Reagan
• “Adversity precedes growth.” - Rosemarie Rossetti
• “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” - Virginia Satir

Three more to think about this coming week:

• “Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself.” - John Dewey
• “Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.” - James Cash Penney
• “The companies that survive longest are the one's that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.” - Charles Handy

So, do you have a strategy for your growth? I would love to hear about it.