Why Growing Yourself Matters

In the very first chapter of his classic book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, John Maxwell stresses the point that personal growth is not natural, nor is it automatic—in fact, personal growth does not happen unless a person becomes intentional about desiring to grow and then makes and follows a plan to grow.

He gives eight specific reasons why people avoid being intentional about growing themselves. The first reason is that they assume that they will automatically grow mentally and spiritually inside as they have grown naturally and physically outside. The second reason is that they don’t know how to grow. The third is that they don’t think that now is the right time to grow. The fourth is that they don’t want to make the mistakes that are part and parcel of growing. The fifth reason is that they want to find the best—the perfect—way to grow. The sixth is they don’t feel like growing. The seventh is that they believe that other people are better than they are; and the eighth reason is that they discover that it’s harder to grow than they realized.

If you use any of these reasons, or others I haven’t mentioned, that keep you from being intentional about your own growth, then you have built yourself a prison from which you will never escape—you will forever keep yourself from all that God has created you to be, do and have in this life. When you allow any reason to control you, you can never move beyond being stuck where you are, doing what you do now, and having only what you have now—or even less than you have now. Because if you’re not expanding, you’re setting yourself up for contracting.

Being intentional matters because without it you will stay stuck, dooming yourself to a life of mediocrity without any hope for living the life you were created to live.

Here are some serious questions that you should ask yourself right now: Where do you want to go in life? What direction do you want to go in? What’s the farthest you can imagine going? How long will it take? If you haven’t spent time with yourself to wrestle with these questions before, I can guarantee you that the experience will give you a headache, but it will be the best headache you ever had!

This is because asking yourself these questions will help you raise your sights on living a more fulfilled and satisfied life on the one hand, while raising to the surface the five fears you must face and overcome on the other. These fears include fear of failure; fear of trading security for the unknown; fear of being overextended financially; fear of what people you know will think and say to you about what you’re doing; and fear of rejection by the people you value most—your friends and family.

You alone must decide which emotion is stronger: your desire to change, grow and reach your potential, or your fears that are there to keep you stuck and forever afraid to move forward and become your highest and best self.