Learn, Grow, and Change…

“Every single day is filled with lessons.  Face each new

day with your eyes, ears, heart, and mind open to those

lessons or you will be presented with them again and again.”

~Noelle Picozzi

As long as I can remember, my motto has been, “Learn, grow, and change.”  I’m not sure of the specifics of when I started saying it or how I developed it, but I still say it and believe it with all my heart and soul today, all these years later!  In fact, I am much surer of the fact that it makes sense for a happy and productive life today than I was 25-30 years ago when I started saying it.  One thing that is certain in life is change.  If you do not intentionally learn, grow, and change, working to be better today than you were yesterday, you will feel stuck and life’s changes will blow you in whatever direction they want to. 

“The world is a university and everyone in it is a teacher.

Make sure when you wake up in the morning, you go to school.”

~T. D. Jakes

Learn.  If we are to succeed beyond what we are doing and know today, we must be open to learning, to feeding and developing our mind; we must be like a dry sponge in a water puddle every single day.  No one knows everything, so don’t feel pressured to know all you could.  The good news is the opportunities available to us to learn today are endless.  There are so many ways in which we can learn, especially in the information age we are in!  There really is no reason to stay stuck where we are and not learn more than we currently know.  We have so many amazing resources available to us: books, more books on every topic imaginable than ever before; audio books, so if you don’t like to or don’t feel like reading you have an option not an excuse; websites and blogs; the ability to Google any topic known to man and a plethora of information from multiple sources almost immediately pops up; TED Talks; professional journals; Pinterest; Podcasts; sermons from contemporary pastors that are all about growth and overcoming any problems we may face (Levi Lusko, Craig Groeschel, Steven Furtick,  Joyce Meyer, Robert Morris, Jeremy Foster, Christine Cain, and Robert Madu are some of my personal favorites); YouTube; the publicized successes and mistakes of others around us and throughout the world; and the list goes on and on. 

“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill;

the willingness to learn is a choice.

~Brian Herbert

We only have so much knowledge from our personal experiences and education, then we have the amazing ability to seek as much additional information as we choose to.  I am always baffled when individuals get defensive when someone offers them constructive feedback or advice; it is impossible to know everything, so instead we should say, “Thank you for giving me something new to think about.”  Embrace new information, consider it, and then use it only if you choose to do so.    Don’t stop learning after high school or college; learning is a life skill, not a school skill, one we must continue to use throughout our lives to be the best that we are capable of being on any given day and in any given role.  Let’s say you get a new job or have a baby, don’t be satisfied with the minimal on-the-job training from your new employer or from listening to the advice of relatives and friends.  Those options are great…great starting places.  The more additional information you seek in any role you are in, the better off you will be, for you will be farther along than the many who remain satisfied with the basic information they are given.  There is no limit to the amount you can learn, except the limits you place on yourself by believing you know enough or worse yet, you know it all.  Be deliberate about learning all you can, you will NEVER run out of new and exciting information to learn or resources to explore.  Always remember, NOONE knows everything, but everyone can learn anything they choose to!

“Develop a passion for learning.  If you do, you will never cease to grow.”

~Anthony J. D’Angelo

Grow.  The more you learn with an open mind, the more you will grow.  Notice I said, with an open mind.  We can passively or actively learn.  Assess how you learn; are you being fed information that you are memorizing or are you seeking it vivaciously like you are hungry for it and need it to be the best version of you?  Don’t just hear new information, instead, write it down, think about it, let it lead you to additional resources, use it, apply it, and reflect on how it could change various parts of your life for the better.  Think of yourself as a plant and knowledge as Miracle Grow.  The more you become an active participant in your learning and in your life, the more you will grow!

“Growth is the great separator between those who succeed

and those who do not.  When I see a person beginning to separate

from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.”

~John C. Maxwell

Along with learning and growing comes responsibility.  You must take responsibility for all your mistakes, both big and small, and reflect on what you could have done differently and on what you will do differently the next time a similar situation presents itself.  Apologize where and when you need to, so you do not carry around unnecessary guilt, burning bridges in the process.  And forgive yourself and others so you are not bound by shame and resentment.  Please listen carefully…everyone makes mistakes!  There is no need to let yours knock you down, make you feel worthless, or cause you to get defensive.  Our mistakes may come with unpleasant consequences, and that is an unfortunate fact, but they do not need to keep us down or cause us to feel stuck, unless we allow them to do so.  Mistakes are vital, they are a necessary means to learning and growing.  Choose differently NOW so history does not repeat itself, learn something from every one of your mistakes, choose to view them differently, view them as rich learning opportunities.

“Every success story is a tale of constant adaptation, revision and change.”

~Richard Branson

Change.  Then, take the new knowledge you have acquired and the growth you have made and use them to change your future.  This is done through a different “C” word…choices.  If you keep making similar choices, you will keep getting similar results; nothing will change unless you take responsibility and change the choices you have been making!  Change is another concept that requires deliberate effort on your part, it requires you to think about the choices you are going to make before making them.  Do they align with your goals?  How about your values?  What are their consequences?  You must keep your daily, weekly, monthly, and long-term goals in the forefront of your mind as you make choices, in order to achieve those goals.  That is why it is so helpful to write down your goals and the steps you must take to reach each of them in a planner or journal and then return to them often to assess your progress and make revisions as needed.  Goals are a work in progress, until they are achieved!

“We are the creative force of our life, and through our own

decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn

to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.”

~Steven Covey

You must take the time to carefully consider the consequences of the choices you make.  If your choice does not keep you on the path toward your goals, then you’ll want to reconsider not only your choice, but why you are making that choice.  Take some time to reflect on what drives your choices.  Are there old habits that have you chained and stuck?  It is easy to slip back into old habits, until new neuropathways are created through consistent new behaviors.  Choices lead to habits and eventually become part of your nature.

By having a vision of your goals and understanding the patterns in the choices you tend to make, you can begin to make different choices, choices that lead you down the life path you truly desire.  We all have a past, and that familiar path usually guides the decisions we make, until we know better and deliberately make new and better choices.  Once we increase our understanding and our knowledgebase, we have greater freedom to make new choices.  At first, doing so will be like breaking an old habit.  Each new choice must be made thoughtfully with your end-goals in mind.  Do not get discouraged if you fall back into old habits, just get right back up and begin again, continue to learn from your mistakes.  Eventually your new choices will become your habits and will become much easier to make automatically.  You will have retrained your brain and made the new neural connections stronger than the old ones, which will become weaker and weaker over time.  You did not get to the place you are in life overnight; it took time, and so will the journey to a new, better, and stronger you!  Each step you take brings you closer to your goals…so get started NOW and just keep moving forward.

“Change is a process.  It comes little by little.”

~Joyce Meyer

Life Applications:

>Pick one new thing to learn TODAY and then passionately go after it!  Write down what you are curious about and then all you have learned about it.  

*Even if you seek to learn just one new thing a week, you will have learned 52 new things in one year and 104 in two years.  Those years will pass (quickly) whether you are making the most of them or not.  Keep a running list of things you want to learn in your planner or journal; jot down a few notes after you make the time to learn each.  This will allow you to see your progress on paper!

>>Take time to reflect on and jot down old patterns, thoughts, and habits that are keeping you stuck.  Why do you think you continue to revert to them whether or not they work?  They usually serve a purpose, healthy or not, if we keep repeating them.

>>>What can you replace them with that would help push you toward your goals?