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It’s the 22nd of December, just 3 days away from Christmas and just one week left in this year, 2013.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve given the best of yourself this year to the things you are committed to; relationships, your work, your spiritual practice and your passions and hobbies.
After twelve months of the continous pursuit of achievement and giving, it’s easy to see why at this time of the year we tend to feel exhausted and with very little left in the tank to give to the world.
This is completely normal! Congratulations! You have lived a full life and shared your gifts and talents with the world.
Now, despite our best intentions, despite the goals and aspirations we set for ourselves at any given January, it’s almost certain that life hasn’t turned out exactly as we might have hoped or expected this year. It’s likely that there have been plenty of setbacks, disappointments and so-called “failures”.
Over the last couple of weeks I have bumped into friends and colleagues and asked them how they are and shared my best wishes for their holiday period and for the year to come, 2014. It’s surprised me how many people have said that they can’t wait to see the back of 2013! For many, 2013 has been scattered with unexpected moments of loss, pain, suffering and unhappiness.
One thing to remember is that the annual calendar; our twenty-four hour clock and all of these systems that we measure time with are arbitrary human inventions. They are systems that have been invented by us humans and have gained significance over the years due to our collective investment in them as being “real”. But they’re only “real” because we give value to them. In the first instance we shaped them but now they shape us.
The point to this is that we don’t need to wait until the New Year or any particular turning of time to make change or reinvent ourselves. However the collective value that we invest in these systems of measurement mean that they become significant and this gives us a great opportunity to harness this invented significance to our advantage.
The illusion works! And there is therefore no better time to harness this end of year exhaustion, disappointment and unhappiness by letting go and welcoming the sense of renewal that comes with the commencement of a New Year.
So…my first piece of advice is for us all to take a holiday!
That’s a pretty obvious idea I realise, but this is really easier said than done this time of year. There can be so much pressure to consume, to please and to satisfy others.
But I say, let’s all give ourselves permission right here and right now to take a personal growth holiday!
That’s right. You don’t have to be anything special over this holiday period. You don’t need to challenge yourself. You don’t need to push outside of your comfort zone. You don’t need to be any better than you are right now. You have total permission to just be.
And as we approach a New Year and start to contemplate a new set of goals and aspirations for the next twelve months of our life on this planet, I want to share a little realisation that I’ve had recently around the notion of growth.
If you’re invested in personal growth or have been involved in any way with making a choice to consciously better yourself, you may like me, have at one point been caught up in the illusion of ideal personal growth as a continually upward trend.
A few weeks ago, I shared amongst the men’s group I’m a part of, my frustration with my current lack of personal growth. For some reason, I’ve felt for the last few months that I’ve been on the verge of a big life “breakthrough” that would push me out of my current situation and set me on a trajectory of some kind of higher level of life success.
This “breakthrough” fascination is common in personal growth circles I think. There is talk of “full immersion” in environments that allow us to continually and rapidly transform, constantly growing upwards.
If I compare this idea to the business world, it’s like looking at the “perpetual growth” business model; what many in the business world refer to as the “hockey stick” growth trend.
However, in nature and in the universe in general there are always limits to growth. When I shared the story of my frustrated lack of growth with my men’s group, my good friend Eddie offered a great sense of calm and clarity in response. He said, “that’s fine, it’s natural to always be expanding and contracting.”
In 1798, the economist Thomas Malthus pointed out that if the world population kept growing, people would die. Why? Because of resource scarcity. The resources that we all require to pursue life are finite. The economy can’t always keep growing because our planet only has a finite amount of resources to support a finite amount of life.
Therefore there is always a limit to growth and there is always a tipping point to the kind of “hockey stick” exponential growth that we see above. If we continue to grow like this, there inevitably must be a crash.
And so it must be with our own growth. There are only certain finite resources that we can use to grow. Our health, our time, the support of our peers and friends and the money we might invest in these kinds of activities. Is the “hockey stick” approach sustainable? I don’t believe so.
When Casey Sheahan, the CEO of sustainable adventure clothing company Patagonia was asked last year at the Better By Design conference about his company’s strategy for growth, he shared a very different model to that of the hockey stick.
If you get a chance, I highly recommend watching the full video of Casey’s presentation above. Casey talked about Patagonia’s business model as being like the “growth rings on a tree”. In prosperous times, they allowed themselves to expand, taking on new resources to support a growth spurt. However, they are never too greedy or inflexible to allow their business to contract in leaner times.
I love this way of viewing growth. Our lives, if we choose to be in harmony with nature, can be like the growth rings on a tree; expanding in moments of prosperity and gently contracting in leaner times. This, to me at least, is how nature intended things to be. And this is a sustainable way to live.
So, over the next few days as you approach the New Year, and you no doubt face certain pressures to consume, please or be something “more”, I encourage you to just take it easy. Grow slow. There is no pressure to expand. There is no pressure to be more than what you are right now.
Accept yourself for who you are and who you have been this year. Love yourself unconditionally and share that love with the people who matter the most to you in the world. It is these people who already love you unconditionally whether you are a hockey stick or rings on a tree.
Next week will be my last weekly blog post for Be Awesome. It will signal the completion of the challenge I’ve set for myself this year and I will be immensely proud of myself for honouring this committment and the journey it has taken me on! It definitely is not the end of Be Awesome though and I’m looking forward to what kinds of new growth 2014 might offer for me. Thank you all for reading, following and supporting this challenge over the past twelve months.
I wish everybody a Christmas full of peace, love and connection with the special people in your life.
Til next week, Be Awesome!
Christian.
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