Before looking at today’s quote, it’s time to check in on a previous assignment. How are you doing with your Reality Check Day assignment from Day 257? Your assignment was to initiate Reality Check Day once a week for two months and find out if it helped inspire you to push harder and strive to give just a little bit more than average effort. Did this assignment affect your output? Did you find yourself pushing harder than usual toward success? Write about the results in your journal.
Now, let’s turn to today’s quote. It actually coincides with Reality Check Day. The reality is you have to do your own growing. No one can take on that assignment for you. It doesn’t matter if you were born into wealth and privilege. You can’t rely on what has been given to you or the work completed by someone else who came before you. Anyone can give you money or things, but you have to develop knowledge and respect and compassion and all of the things that come together to make a successful person on your own. Success is not something you can outsource. It grows from the inside out.
Are you growing? Or are you leaning on the reputation of your father, mother, grandparent, boss, coworker, or friend? Take responsibility for your success today. It’s time for you to grow.
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When a plant becomes weak, it needs something to regain its strength—usually water or sunlight. Can you imagine what would happen if a plant didn’t accept water or if it hid from the sun? It would wither and die. A plant needs those things in order to grow. When it takes them in—when it accepts them—it thrives.
What do you need in order to grow and achieve success? Have you developed a list? Your weaknesses should be on that list. Weaknesses are not shortcomings. They are opportunities for growth. Develop a list today of the things you need to grow and achieve your dreams.
Is education an area where you are weak? Great! Put it on the list and start to consider your options for education, so that you can grow and build your strength in that area.
What about your health? Is it a challenge for you to eat right and exercise? Write that down. Then look for a solution that will help you to turn around your bad habits and incorporate diet and exercise into your life.
Are connections a weakness? Do you feel like you just don’t know the right people in your desired field? Put it on the list. Then brainstorm about clubs or associations you can join that will help you meet the appropriate mentors to guide you on your path.
Pinpoint your weaknesses, and then use them as opportunities to grow.
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Guess what? Good news! There are absolutely no limits to your growth potential. You can be a giant in the area of success, and your growth only stops when you say so. Growth is not rationed out to each individual like a morsel of food in a soup kitchen. You can be a complete glutton when it comes to growth opportunities. Eat them up. Consume everything you can get your hands on.
You will never reach a point where you are done learning, where you have sopped up all of the intelligence in the universe, and there is nothing left that you don’t know. Thank goodness! That means life will never be boring, unless you shut yourself off to growth opportunities. Your capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder is infinite.
Your assignment today is to respect the infinite human capacity for growth. Take some time out to learn something new. Study an interesting tidbit of history on the Internet. Learn a new phrase in a foreign language. Work a crossword puzzle. Look up at the stars and wonder about the universe. Use your imagination to create a new bedtime story for your children. Expand your growth potential in some way, and revel in the knowledge that you can do this a million different ways for the rest of your life, and you will never reach capacity.
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Ty moved from a small town in Wyoming to a suburb of Boston with his family. He was a junior in high school,
