Five Tips to Nurture Growth in Your Life

How to Cultivate Success  

With March bearing spring, there is a general feeling of renewal and growth. 

Here are five tips for nurturing growth in your life:

1. Prepare yourself for growth

Whether you’re looking for personal or professional growth, knowing where you’re going is best. When you plant a garden, you don’t throw a random assortment of seeds on the ground and hope for the best; you consider what to plant and what each plant needs to thrive and make a plan for the most fruitful outcome. 

Think about your goals the same way. Your goals are the plants that will bloom in your garden, but you must have space, nourishment and proper timing for them to survive. If you haven’t planned for what you’ll need to reach your goals, you’ll end up with a garden full of hopes and dreams that never bloomed.

2. Plant the seeds of growth.

Planting a garden isn’t a one-step process, nor is reaching your goals; you must put in a constant effort to have a flourishing garden. Just as plants need soil, sunlight and water to grow, you need the proper space, tools and support to reach your goals. In addition, you must be willing to put in the time, discipline and restraint to achieve your goals.

To plant the seeds of growth, you must be committed to doing the work and effort to achieve your goals. Brian Tracy, the bestselling author of The Psychology of Achievement, says, “You must feel ownership and be sincere about taking on the short-term goals and long-term goals you are working towards.” You must genuinely believe in your goals and take ownership of them to achieve them.

3. Nurture your garden

Nurturing a garden is about caring for it while it grows and develops. You also have to care for yourself and your goals while they are growing and developing. You can nurture your goals by rewarding yourself along the way. 

Rewarding yourself as you work towards your goal allows you to celebrate your minor accomplishments. When you reward yourself, your brain receives a surge of dopamine. Therefore rewarding yourself more often will train your brain to associate working on your goals with feeling happy. 

4. Protect your plants

While gardens can be beautiful with the proper care, you’ll still run into the occasional weed or pest. Even when you’re doing everything right, little problems can spring up. The same is true for reaching your goals. Not everything will go according to plan, and that’s okay. 

Remember, you can combat anything if you know what to do when a problem arises. Start by identifying what might become a problem and make a plan to react. For example, if you live in a dryer climate, you know you might need extra water to keep your garden growing. Similarly, if you know you quickly lose motivation, you’ll need to find little ways to keep yourself motivated to reach your goals.

5. Reap the rewards

Having a successful garden is about having a bountiful harvest to show for all your hard work. The same can be said for achieving your goals. When you’ve put in care and effort towards your goals, achieving them is a much sweeter victory.

Once you’ve achieved your goals, don’t forget to celebrate that achievement. And never forget to share it with others. After all, as John Assaraf put it, “Success tastes that much sweeter when you have people to share it with.”