How does one improve in areas that are important to them? Here is a practical overview.
Decide what you want to improve. Begin by writing down three to five areas. Then, recognize that there are two critical ingredients without which you will not get better. They are time and intention.
- Time. Without daily or near daily time, we simply cannot improve. Fifteen minutes to one hour a day—as long as it’s daily, or near daily—will generate significant progress.
- Intention. Intention means that you give your strategy planned, focused, calm thinking to discover and determine how you want to grow. If you enter into your time each day blindly, you may miss progress altogether because you haven’t been intentional.
Finally, there are three fundamental sources of knowledge that will raise your lid:
- Content. Books, audiobooks, podcasts, articles, conferences, etc. The common mistake people make here is to be satisfied with highlighting or underlining what they want to apply or think about. To grow, select key lessons, principles, or ideas that you think on and apply. Reread them. Write about them. Talk about them. Meditate on them. Only then will you start applying them, and that leads to real change.
- Experience. Say yes to experiences that push you to grow. This is where lessons get seared into your brain. Crucial learning occurs during experience that cannot be obtained merely from content sources. Experience builds confidence. Go on. Say yes!
- Others. Mentors, coaches, and others can offer indispensable feedback and alert us to our blind spots. When we don’t invite important people in our lives to push hard on us and give us difficult feedback, we will likely be blinded by glaring limitations.
Breaking through your growth lid is often mistaken as one step, one relationship, one nugget. I say no. Breaking through requires changing direction and developing new habits. When it comes to growth, seek a path, not a miracle.
May the Lord guide our steps in the areas in which He wants us to grow, and may He reveal wisdom. May our first and biggest desire for growth be in the knowledge of and obedience to the Almighty.
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