I enjoy gardening and watching things ripen especially when it means I’ll be able to enjoy them at my dinner table. As an example, watching tomatoes go from green, to orange, and then bright red means they’ll be part of a tasty salad. Conversely, if I miss the time to harvest and a tomato is over ripe or rotten, it’s on its way to the compost.
This is a great metaphor for personal and professional development too. When we’re “green”, everything is new, hard work and a challenge. As we mature and “ripen”, we’re in our prime, at our best and most effective. Unfortunately if we’re not paying attention we can become the equivalent of soft, mushy or at worst, “rotten”. If this happens in nature it can also happen to us by virtue of neglect, arrogance and over confidence.
We must work hard to stay relevant, current and produce in abundance. We can again look to nature to learn. In the same manner we prune weak branches or dead wood off a tree, we must do the same to our attitudes, beliefs and outdated practices to create fresh space for growth and renewal. We can fertilize our minds to encourage growth and increase the yield of fruitful and rich ideas.
As we approach the end of another year, it is a good time to look back and identify what can be cut or eliminated to lighten the load moving forward while claiming new practices and activities that will make us more effective and successful in 2017.
Food for thought:
“Today, I find so many people struggling, often working harder, simply because they cling to old ideas. They want things to be the way they were; they resist change. I know people who are losing their jobs or their houses, and they blame technology or the economy or their boss. Sadly they fail to realize that they might be the problem. Old ideas are their biggest liability. It is a liability simply because they fail to realize that while that idea or way of doing something was an asset yesterday, yesterday is gone.”
Robert Kiyosaki – Rich Dad, Poor Dad
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