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Someone gave me a beautiful small plant in a lovely small white pot 4 ½ inches in diameter. It grew twice as many leaves with my regular watering with soluble Miracle-Gro, until the small pot was dwarfed by the overwhelming foliage above it. It was time to be transferred to a larger pot. I took this picture after transplanting it to a 10-inch pot – It’s hard to imagine the same plant used to be confined to a tiny 4-inch environment before. In no time, it will outgrow its pot again into a little shrub, for a 20-inch pot!
I heard that when you put a goldfish in a small bowl, the fish remains a small fish. But after the same fish is transferred to a larger bowl, the fish grows in proportion to the larger bowl.
Isn’t that true for ourselves as well?
Recently I went to a holiday charity party where I saw a couple of people I met 8 years ago. Amazingly they are still doing exactly what they were doing 8 years ago, at the same firms, holding the same titles, doing the same work. They asked me what I have been doing since we last met, to which I replied that what I was doing 8 years ago only counted for 1% of what my firm and I are doing today, since I have evolved into a brand coach for executives, board members, and a brand strategist for growth companies. My firm, 10 Plus Brand, Inc., has become a full service brand building and digital agency. When they asked me where I am going next, I said: “I am writing a book on business branding and personal branding, and will get more speaking gigs nationally and globally.”
We looked at each other in mutual amazement, albeit about the total opposites: they seemed to be amazed at how much I have expanded, and I was genuinely bewildered at how one could possibly be doing the same thing for so long. I assume that they have enjoyed doing the same things as much as I have enjoyed exponentially expanding.
It seems to me that life is either a process of addition or subtraction. There is no such thing as staying in the same place since the world does not stay in the same place. You are either moving with the changing world, or ahead of it, or behind it. You are either expanding and growing, or stagnating and shrinking.
Some Universes are forever expanding, even when they die, they expand into supernova explosions.
There are ”3 Cs” that lead to growth: curiosity, courage, and commitment – for learning, evolving, and growing.
There are “3 Ss” that lead to degression: self, satisfaction, stagnation – one who is self satisfied and complacent is unconcerned about learning and improving oneself and the world, leading to stagnation and falling behind.
If you believe that the world is your oyster, your life becomes what you believe it to be. You can either live a small life restricted by your own limiting beliefs, or become larger than life upon overcoming limiting beliefs.
To keep growing does not mean endless ambition or greed for more money, power, status, but a forever journey of self improvement and refinement. It is in falling in love all over again with the simplest things in life and the new wonders in discovering them.
Growing and expanding does not necessarily lead to more complexity, but often into simplifying, distilling, and clarifying the purpose of one’s life. A bigger life is free from the weight of unresolved baggage. A joyful life is unburdened spiritually, not loaded with worldly possessions.
As long as your heart grows, your soul expands, your mind extends, you are adding new meaning and joy to your life wherever you are on your journey, no matter your age and circumstances.
Would you prefer an expansive life into a glorious super nova, to a life rapidly collapsing into itself, like that of a black hole?
Consider giving yourself a gift that only you can give: Take yourself out of the smallness of thinking; transplant yourself into a bigger pot; get out of your complacency with your career; and leave behind your confining environment and limiting beliefs about life and living.
I wish you all a happier, fuller, and more joyful life, each and every precious day.
Happy New Year.
©Joanne Z. Tan all rights reserved.
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