Like a plant, you’re either growing or dying

I’d like to point out a few details that may be obvi­ous, but it’s imper­a­tive that we are well aware of them.  I hope this will inspire and jump-start your per­sonal evo­lu­tion to help you flow to the best of your ability.

“Life begins at the end of your com­fort zone.”
Neale Don­ald Walsch

Change is the only con­stant.
Her­a­cli­tus said it in many ways: noth­ing endures but change; Every­thing flows, noth­ing stands still; the only con­stant is change.The same way the uni­verse is con­stantly chang­ing, con­stantly trans­form­ing chaos into order, our liv­ing cells are always try­ing to main­tain equi­lib­rium and if they can­not, they die and are bro­ken apart, recy­cled and flushed.  Our bod­ies are refresh­ing, replac­ing and regen­er­at­ing them­selves in many ways, all the time.  I’ve always applied this constantly-changing motif to our bio­log­i­cal processes since there are mil­lions of things hap­pen­ing simul­ta­ne­ously in our bod­ies all the time.  How­ever, it’s even more impor­tant that we apply this con­cept to our per­sonal devel­op­ment and self-education to reach our goals and dreams.

Like a plant, you’re either grow­ing or dying.
When I was 20 years old, I was at a Mil­lion­aire Mind sem­i­nar and the main speaker, T. Harv Ecker told us, “Isn’t it inter­est­ing how a plant seems like it’s either grow­ing or dying?  Just like a plant, you’re either grow­ing or dying as well.”

The state­ment that we’re all either grow­ing or dying is very dra­matic and while cel­lu­lar processes are more com­pli­cated than that, it is very true in the long-term. Our mind, body and spirit are con­stantly adjust­ing to every­thing we’re expe­ri­enc­ing.  Every time we reach a new level of skill in some­thing, that auto­mat­i­cally becomes the new norm.  Con­versely, when we stop learn­ing, exer­cis­ing or prac­tic­ing, given enough time, we sim­ply fall behind.

There is no such thing as main­tain­ing in the long-term.
In a uni­verse of change, you have no choice but to suc­cumb to it.  Since change is the only thing that’s hap­pen­ing all the time, if you don’t try to ramp your­self up to a new level, you’re going to regress. If you’re not going for­ward, you’re going back­wards.  Some­thing must be chang­ing one way or another.  If you’re just try­ing to main­tain, then you’re going backwards. Main­tain­ing is a pas­sive form of regression.

As far as your phys­i­cal health goes, your body is lit­er­ally a sculp­ture in con­stant progress.  If you are exer­cis­ing reg­u­larly but do not vary your work­out rou­tine, your body will adapt and go on cruise con­trol.  Body­builders and ath­letes are very aware of this exer­cise plateau.  They have to con­stantly switch up their rou­tines and attack their mus­cles in dif­fer­ent ways to sur­prise the body and force it to adapt to new lev­els.  If you don’t exer­cise at all, then your mus­cles and bones will invari­ably get weaker.  If you don’t give them any rea­son to grow, then they will waste away.

How­ever, atro­phy is not lim­ited to body parts.  The same goes for your mind and spirit.  If you have a job and you’ve learned every­thing there is to learn in that posi­tion, then even­tu­ally you’re just main­tain­ing that cur­rent posi­tion.  How long will it take before you become a zom­bie to the rou­tine?  If you get sick and tired of a job, you’re prob­a­bly sick and tired of main­tain­ing that posi­tion.  You need to find a way to grow oth­er­wise it becomes a waste of time and your spirit will want noth­ing more than to break up the monotony.

” If we aim for some mid­dle ground or sta­tus quo, it’s an illusion—beneath
the sur­face what’s actu­ally hap­pen­ing is we’re dying, not grow­ing. “
Robert K. Cooper

Stand at the edge of your com­fort zone.

It is quite the chal­lenge to exert one­self to new lev­els at all times.  It’s def­i­nitely try­ing on my soul but it’s the only chal­lenge worth accept­ing (con­sid­er­ing the alter­na­tive).  Research biol­o­gist Albert Szent-Gyoergyi, who was twice awarded the Nobel Prize, called this syn­tropy, a kind of neg­a­tive entropy which he defined as the “innate drive in liv­ing mat­ter to per­fect itself.”

For exam­ple, start­ing this blog is very chal­leng­ing to me in a lot of fresh ways.  When I cre­ate a weather video, it’s gen­er­ally kind of excit­ing because I’m not used to being video­taped and talk­ing to an audi­ence.  Push­ing myself to new bound­aries helps me grow and it makes me feel alive.  I can feel the excite­ment in my heart.  I could feel my brain work­ing in new ways.  Cre­at­ing new con­tent, such as this arti­cle, is push­ing my com­fort zone because I’m lit­er­ally putting my name and image out there directly in front of everyone.

Even if the sta­tus quo you’re sur­rounded with is very pres­ti­gious, like say, you’re a pro­fes­sor at an Ivy league school for decades and you’re cred­ited with many dis­cov­er­ies, that is the norm for you and you can eas­ily branch out and push your­self in new ways from that position.

Embrace change with baby steps.

Embrace the fact that you can instantly turn things around for your ben­e­fit.  All it takes are baby steps.  With baby steps you can get any­where and do any­thing.  It just takes the small­est effort to cre­ate a long-term, pro­gres­sively ori­ented action.  Strive for devel­op­ment and cul­ti­vate who you really are and who you want to be.  When you get those moments of inspi­ra­tion, write them down (or type them in your phone) imme­di­ately.  You never know when those fleet­ing moments of bril­liance will come back.

You will never be the age you are now ever again, so you might as well take advan­tage of your lim­ited time here on Earth.  Don’t just wait around for some­thing to hap­pen because wait­ing will kill your pre­cious time.  There is a grand ver­sion of you that is so great the uni­verse doesn’t even know what to expect.  You know that deep inside.  Every once in a while, maybe in your dreams or while you’re day­dream­ing, you’ll see a glimpse of your dreams turned real; an image of your­self so grand and exquis­ite that you won­der how you’ll ever get there (read: baby steps).

You can have unpar­al­leled con­trol of your health, edu­ca­tion, career and rela­tion­ships if you embrace change.  Allow your life to have a healthy theme of pro­gres­sion built-in to it and every­thing will flow effort­lessly. Don’t be stag­nant!  Stag­na­tion leads to missed oppor­tu­ni­ties, a waste of time, and unre­al­ized dreams. Meet your own expec­ta­tions and attack your goals with great pas­sion to con­tin­u­ally build your­self anew.

I’m really glad I have finally shared this info and I hope this pro­vides some inspi­ra­tion to truly be who you want to be and achieve those long-term ori­ented goals.  I would love to hear what you have to say and add to this.  Please leave your com­ments below and thank you for reading!

Related posts:

1. I am 28 years old and this is how my news­feed has changed
2. Life’s To Do List
3. How to increase con­cen­tra­tion, pro­duc­tiv­ity, and remove distractions
4. All you have is time.
5. [Per­fect] Prac­tice Makes Perfect