Why Growth Feels Messy

Yo, yo, yo, welcome back to the Further Your Lifestyle Podcast Conversations on Lifestyle, Passions, and Hustles. My name's Chris. I am your host, and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 254 today, and we're talking with a core idea today. Yeah, we're talking about a core idea today, which is how I deal with the journey of growth. Now, this is this is a very personal conversation. When I say it's a personal conversation, it's it's a conversation you need to have with yourself to understand what growth looks like. And it's going to look different for everyone simply because we define success differently. All right. And and it sounds great when we talk about growth. You know, everyone's excited, you want to be next level, want to be doing this, want to achieve that. But sometimes when we live through growth, it's it's messy, it's uncomfortable, and it can be very, very, very, very frustrating. I can speak from my own experience on that one. But I think sometimes growth can kind of get romanticized and it can be spoken about. And look, I probably do this myself where I talk about it and it becomes a bit too sounds too exciting or like it's inspiring or it's an amazing transformation. But I think the reality is it is an amazing transformation, but it's it's all relevant to your own journey. And most of the time growth just feels like uncertainty, it feels like doubt, it feels like frustration, and you know, you got to show up anyway. So there's about six things that I want to take you through today, talking about how I've dealt with the journey of growth and how that can be an ugly truth, but a bittersweet experience. And hopefully it can inspire and motivate you to just look at it from a different perspective, but also remember that it is a commitment. It is a if you want something, it's not as simple as just going and getting it. Yeah, you have to go get it, but there's a big, big obstacle path in between. And I think it's a really important conversation to have. Maybe you're during a journey already of growth and you're struggling. So maybe there's something here that's just gonna give you a nice little pick-me-up. I feel like we're always on this journey of growth. Sometimes we just don't know it, and sometimes we, you know, we're very aware of it, and that's why we get more frustrated because we just want the end results. So it's gonna be a big one today. If you do enjoy these episodes, you can like, subscribe, comment, let me know down in the comments if you want to continue the conversation. Otherwise, if you think someone else needs to hear this and get a little bit of inspiration or motivation, share it with them. That would mean the absolute world to me. Let's roll the intro and let's get into it. So, the first thing that I want to talk about is how growth means outgrowing your older self. Now, we did an episode about this a few bit back, and I think one of the weirdest things about growth is that, you know, the person that you were yesterday isn't always going to be equipped for the person that you want to be becoming tomorrow or in your future. Growth forces you to question your beliefs, change your habits, step up into uncomfortable situations to become a leader of yourself and leave your old versions behind. And sometimes that that creates an ugly truth of tensions, frustrations, annoyances, and a lot of hard decisions. Because part of you still wants that comfort. Part of you still wants that comfort. Excuse me. And uh you're used to having that comfort, you're used to being you. So to break free of that, it's it's not something you normally know. So it is a bit of a catch 22 because you have to reteach your brain to be happy to be something else that you've never been before, not knowing if it's going to work out the way that you want it to be in the first place. So that's why it can become frustrating, frustrating. But you cannot, if you want to grow, you cannot expect to be the same person and grow. It just doesn't happen. You need to level up, you become a better version of yourself. You just may not know what that better version looks like. I think number two is then I like to try and play the long game. I like to try and look at everything from a delayed gratification standpoint. I like to look at everything from, you know, okay, if I'm gonna do this, I want to make sure I'm doing it with the sense and idea that I want to commit to this long term. Because long term is where you see the exponential results and you know, you can play on that return on investment. But I think one thing that helped me deal with playing the long game is being able to always zoom out. Having data points or having information that reminds me of the journey to date, but also the journey of where I'm going and where I am in that journey. This is obviously very relevant to business, but also when I've done my running journeys and things like that. Now, at the moment, I'm back at zero with my running because I had an injury for a year and a half, and now we're back to starting the grind again. And that's that's scary, but I know that if I want to play the long game again, I I need to be willing to commit to something that isn't just, you know, one, two, three, five months, and we're back at full capacity. But, you know, it could take me five years to get back up to where I want to be simply because, you know, there was a lot of things that I did wrong in that last period of running. And if I want to do better, I can't just do the same thing. Again, outgrowing yourself. So I think, yes, we need to be looking at the week to week, but it's not about looking at the week to week. It's looking at, well, where will this take me in the next five years and what does consistency look like over that period? Now, this mindset comes from me, as I said, from you know, I've have a previous background in running ultra marathons, marathons, half marathons, building a business and creating content for a long-term perspective. Now, I've been creating content for a long time. Now, people might think, oh, well, why aren't I bigger? That's a very good question. But my intention behind creating content has always been document first over create for entertainment and for the purposes of, you know, a business mentality. You know, I'm not trying to do it for a business, I'm trying to do it because I want people to realize that, you know, sometimes sometimes things don't go as planned. And the journey of life has all these challenges. And I don't like to highlight reels. I don't like to create highlight reels of a journey which doesn't really speak the whole journey itself. And that's why I've always documented, you know, when it's been the running and when it's been the business, the highs, the lows, the ins and outs, everything down to the most of the detail to show that transparency that if you are going to play the long game, it is a long, hard game. But I think the growth really then happens, not in big dramatic moments, it happens through thousands of small decisions stacked over time from doing the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly reps. And that's why playing the long game really works out because the time's gonna pass anyway. But that's that's my approach, that's how I've dealt with it. I think then number three is accepting that discomfort is gonna be part of it. This this is still a hard pill to swallow because you know there's moments where you go through new levels of growth where you've never experienced before, so therefore you don't know how to manage this. And that's when you have frustrations, confusion, pressure, fear, doubt. But all those feelings aren't signs that you're actually failing. They're all signs that you're stretching, you're growing, you're in a new area of unknown, uncharted waters, and we've spoken about that as well. And if you're always feeling like everything's comfortable, you're probably not growing. It's that simple. It is that simple. Now, to counter that, number four, is I like to try and stay curious instead of critical. When something goes wrong, it's easy to kind of like blame it on someone else or blame yourself that you're not good enough or this isn't working, or maybe just say, look, I should just quit. However, the way I look at it, because I'm looking at this from a long-term perspective, I try to ask, well, what can I learn from this? What am I missing? What problem do we need to solve? What would happen if we looked at this differently? And the curiosity turns growth from punishment into, I guess, exploration. And that's why I, you know, really thrive through problem solving because there's a lot of people that have done what I've done, and then they hit a they hit a brick wall, they get back into a corner and they stop, they back away, they disappear, never see them again. Because it gets too hard. And that's also relevant to one's journey. Like it might not have been their original intention, or maybe it was too hard, and maybe they want to go find their own heart. That is okay. But if this is the thing you want and you're doubting that you have the ability to do what it is that you want to do, well, you've got to be asking yourself, you know, what am I missing? What am I what do I need to learn? What skill set do I need to grow with? What would happen if I try something a little different? They're all relevant questions we should be asking. Number five is then making sure you focus on actually showing up, but also putting in the reps, right? This is this is the most important thing. If you ain't doing, if you ain't getting, a lot of people think you know, growth comes from just motivation. No, no, no, no, no, no. It doesn't work that way. Motivation is unreliable. There's gonna be things that motivate you for a reason of why you started this in the first place. But what actually matters is actually showing up consistently, regardless if you feel motivated or not. When you don't feel ready, you've got to show up. When you're unsure, you gotta show up. When the results aren't obvious yet, you still gotta show up. Showing up builds the momentum, builds the habit, and it builds the confidence of you being able to deploy the decisions and the execution quickly and swiftly. That's it. And when you do that, confidence builds growth. If you're confident in the decisions that you're making and you're executing and you're getting results, that is how you see growth constantly through repetition. Right? So put in those reps. And number six is the main thing that I like to remind myself that you know, growth is personal. I'm building a business that suits my lifestyle. I'm building something that is created for me and everything in my own entity. I think a trap we fall into is comparing to other people in a growth game. The growth that you're seeking and the growth that I'm seeking, we're not trying to grow the same ways. What I want to get out of it isn't going to be the same way that you get out of it. I think there's a huge misconception and misunderstanding of, especially documenting on YouTube, you know, there's a lot of backlash that I receive because, you know, here I am doing an episode of furthering your lifestyle and talking about encouraging you to go after it what it is that you want. And I've got people thinking that I can't even achieve things that I want to achieve. And this is where I get really surprised because one person is trying to redefine my area of where I want to be, my growth, my journey, my dreams, my goals, based on their limited beliefs, based on their own, I guess, restrictions in their own life or the inability to be able to do what I'm doing. Now, just because they can't do what I'm doing doesn't mean they can't go achieve the things that they want to achieve. But for someone to step on my toes on my journey, it it actually doesn't make sense. So if you're if you're watching this and you're one of those people, you know, you can you can move along, keep walking. But the reality is it is going to be different. It's not going to look the same. Other people might think it's easier if they did it themselves and things like that, but that's great. We'll we'll go go do it. You know, that's okay. You know, but everyone is playing a different game. We all have different timelines, different experiences, different goals, different priorities. And it's not a race, it's a race against ourselves, but it's not a race against anyone else. It's a relationship you build with yourself and you build that over time. So, yeah, if you feel like what are people going to think about you and all that, and I struggle with this, don't get me wrong, it's not easy. But stuff them because they're not walking your shoes. They're not walking your path, they're walking their own. So, what if who who do they get to define and who do they get to say when it's not even got anything to do with them? They're probably either jealous, they're insecure, or they have no idea what they're talking about. Or maybe they just want to be feel included, right, in someone else's journey because they can't put their own journey in in sense. So they, you know, they attach themselves to someone else's journey. That happens, but again, you've got to leave them behind and let them worry about their own problems, then them trying to solve your problems because they're your problems to solve. So, a couple of things that I want to ask you before we wrap up is where in your life are you currently growing? Where are you resisting growth because it feels uncomfortable? That's that's a tough one. And what would happen if you simply committed to the journey instead of just worrying about the outcome? That's a tough one to swallow, even for myself. You know, growth isn't about becoming perfect, it's it's about becoming more aware, it's about becoming more capable, it's about becoming more aligned, it's about, you know, building a life that you want and bringing that awareness, that capability, and the alignment all together for it. It gives you purpose. And the truth is, none of us are ever going to finish the journey because when you get to your destination of where you want to be today, there's always going to be something else. And that's your journey, that's your growth. I mean, we are naturally people that are seeking that next thing, that next growth, that next level. Whether we can see it tangibly or not, that's just in our roots. So you need to bring that into your favor, take ownership of that, help control that, and you know, go after it. You've got dreams, aspirations. Let me know down in the comments below. What are you working towards? What's your journey? What's your growth look like? How have you seen your growth over the last year or six months? And that's why I do these episodes, is because if you go back, if you've been listening to this podcast for the last 250 episodes prior to this, you know, let me know where you were back at, you know, episode 10 compared to where you are now. And if you go look at some of the guests that I had back in my first year, we did all guests that year, and see where they're what they're doing now. Some of them have gone on to do bigger and better things that we could ever have thought they would have been able to do. And there's others that have, you know, changed their approach and moved in different directions, and that's fine. But the story is that you get to define what your story is, but you have to also go do the action and the reps and the work and all the problem solving to get that growth. It all comes back on to you. That's it from me, folks. We're gonna wrap it up there. We'll jump into another episode next week. But if you did have any questions or any comments, more than happy to continue the conversation, jump down below. You can share this with someone else if you think they need to get a little kick up the butt with some growth. Otherwise, I really appreciate you being here, and I'll see you when I'm looking at you. Ciao