2 Kinds of Growth

growth arrowI have a question for you.  How have you GROWN in the last year?  In either your personal life, your professional life, or both, how have you IMPROVED?  Be specific.

This can be growth in knowledge, in skill, in wisdom, in an area of your physical health, in a character quality such as patience, integrity, courage, etc.

Perhaps you’ve increased your ability to do something.  Or, maybe you’ve reached a milestone or an important goal, or even strengthened a relationship.

Next question:  if you have grown (as I know you have), HOW did you make that growth happen?   What did you DO to advance and get better?

By the way, growth is incremental, little by little, step-by-step.  If you’re only looking for some area of huge, remarkable growth, you’ll miss noticing many of the smaller ways you’re growing and improving—they’ll be off your radar.  Notice these small ways you’re progressing, and feel good about them!  Big growth always starts as small growth.

This brings us to our main idea for today.

There are two kinds of growth:  PROACTIVE growth and REACTIVE growth.  There are many similarities between the two, but I’m interested in looking at the basic difference.

Understand this difference, and you’ll see your growth take off and soar.

Many times we grow and improve because we’re faced with difficult, challenging situations that demand more of us than we’ve been used to giving—we need to “step up our game” and enlarge our capacity in some way.

Too often, though, people realize this need early on, but do nothing about it.

I’m calling this Reactive Growth, which is really “pressured” growth--we need to get better at something ASAP.  There’s usually some urgency to these situations.

For example, if you’re in a job where you’re underperforming, and your boss tells you to improve “or else”, then you won’t have the luxury of improving at a slow pace.

In these scenarios, we have a relatively “short runway” to launch and get airborne.

This brings us to our second kind of growth—Proactive Growth.

With Proactive Growth, we recognize the benefit of getting better at something long before it becomes an issue.  We clearly see the gap between where we are and where we need to be, and we see this early enough to get on top of it.  And then we DO get on top of it.

For example, if my doctor tells me I need to lose 100 lbs and completely revamp my diet because I have high blood pressure, and I’m a high risk for diabetes, then I’m facing Reactive Growth.  I need to make some big changes ASAP.

If, however, my doctor tells me I only need to lose 10 lbs, and that I’m inching my way into some pre-hypertension, but that I’m generally healthy and in decent shape, then I’m facing Proactive Growth—I’ve “seen the light” early enough, and have plenty of time to make adjustments and get back on track before problems develop.

I have a “longer runway” to get airborne—in this case, to get my physical health to a slightly better place.

Of course, the advantage of Proactive Growth is that we have less pressure and more time to grow and improve, whereas with Reactive Growth, we have more pressure and less time.

By the way, I don’t mean to imply that Reactive Growth is “bad”.  Not at all.  Whatever it takes to make growth happen, GREAT!  All growth is good growth.  It’s just that Reactive Growth tends to be more stressful than Proactive Growth.

So take a look at your life from various angles—personally, professionally, relationally.

SEE CLEARLY where you need to improve and grow, and get on top of it.  Get into that Proactive Growth NOW so that you can avoid Reactive Growth LATER.

Now go forth and grow . . . and then conquer.

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