From Non-Growth to Rapid Growth; 10 Steps to Awaken the Soul
Free Relationship Advice, from Relationship-Oneness.com
Audio
I was sitting in my (9-5) today and I had a quick idea to write ten steps to possibly help guide someone who is either unfamiliar with the idea of personal growth, or has been “inactive” and wants to get back on track. This list came about as I was reflecting on my own path for growth – when I started and as I made progress. It is not a reflection of how I might do things differently, even though I would. But then it would only be speculation and not really based on what I experienced.
With these ten steps that I’ll go over, as with any article I write, it’s not the end all and be all. See it as only a guide if it resonates with your heart. I know for myself and reflecting on my own growth path, I think it has been somewhat unique and I couldn’t say that I followed anybody else advice to the “T,” I had to figure out what worked for me and then go from there.
But in the process, I was always open to learning new ideas about how one might move forward, so think of these steps as just ideas that might possibly help.
1. Decide to Grow
Without actually making a solid decision to grow, one might find the idea of growth as being nothing more than just cute, and a good idea. For myself, the decision to grow wasn’t made because I thought it was cute and might kill some time, it was made out of necessity. I felt like I was being tossed around in someone else’s ocean and I was mentally exhausted from guessing what might happen next, when honestly I had no clue.
Do you ever feel like this? Where life seems to be moving rapidly around you, and you’re the pin ball rolling wildly with no solid direction of your own choosing. Well, that was definitely me. I think for anybody who desires to grow, it’s more that just a casual decision. How do you know if you’re decision was a serious one… lol, well keep moving forward and you’ll find out. If you find it wasn’t, then make another one and learn from your last “almost decision.”
2. Take 100% Responsibility
After you made the decision to grow, it would be a good idea to learn how to take 100% responsibility of your life, specifically to stop blaming anything external for how you feel, live, or exist. Blame is a tool used by those who are not willing to create change. If that is you, then that’s okay, just recognize you’re the one not creating change and it’s nobody else’s fault.
What I love about fast growth or just growth in general, is that regardless if we are good at making progress, the first step is to just admit to yourself and say “hey, it’s only my own doing, and I accept the truth that I’m responsible and currently I’m choosing not to address this area in my life.” This statement is much more powerful than any statement you could make that is consistent with blame. No matter what the area in your life, take responsibility for it, and be okay with the idea that it is less than what you desire.
3. Take Self Inventory
Get in touch with reality, or your current belief structure. Some might get excited about growth and decide tomorrow they are going to change the world. That’s super, except the fact that you know that’s not going to happen. Hyping yourself up to create change is cool and all, but don’t hype yourself up beyond what you believe is realistic. Take time to honestly discover what it is you are good at, and be honest in there areas you know you are weak. Write a list of your strengths, and weaknesses.
Again, it’s about honesty. That’s part of the initial decision, and taking responsibility; if we desire to grow then we need to be centered in a place of true perception. Maybe the honesty is hard to face, but that’s not the point. Big deal. If worldly perfection was the goal, then growth would be irrelevant; not to mention life would be pretty boring. The perfection is, that you have weaknesses. So get over any idea that it’s not okay to be where you are. Picture yourself using a map to get to where you want to go, without knowing your honest starting point, it’s impossible to get to where you want to be.
4. Establish a Purpose
I remember doing this many many many times, I still do it to this day. To regain my focus and to remind myself why I’m doing what I do, it’s important I stay true to my purpose. If I don’t, I know I will wonder (like I have many times) and get lost in the world of illusion and begin to think what I’m doing is about something totally off from what’s most important to me. I’ve written out many purposes for my life, and they have changed dramatically; this will happen naturally as you grow, but take time now to understand what the hell it is you are trying to do.
It doesn’t have to be super complicated. One of my visions of the past was, “In all that I do, I do it with the intent to help others.” I’ve also written some that were two pages long. The point is, to just do it. Don’t get caught up in thinking about it for days. That would be a great excuse to never get it done, the cool part is that as the week progresses you will get ideas to add to your purpose or to make changes, just start with something. The point is not for it to be right, it’s to get you moving forward. Make a commitment to review this statement once a day, more if you can.
5. Grow Your Strengths
It’s very common that we are taught to work on our weaknesses before our strengths. That could be the worst advice I’ve ever received. The idea that I “have to be” well rounded makes me want to puke. Why? Because there are so many things I naturally suck at. For example, in school I hated to read and write, absolutely hated it. To add salt to the wound, the one semester I spent in college I remember making a serious effort to write a story and my teacher read it out loud and laughed about it.
After making the decision to grow, I focused on my strengths, what I was good at, doing so built up my confidence and self discipline to take on new challenges I never thought were possible. Now I’m writing everyday and getting wonderful comments about how people enjoy my writing. The point is, don’t worry so much about your weaknesses if they are not relevant to sustaining your livelihood, focus on what you enjoy and grow in those areas, the rest will grow in its appropriate time; providing you are consciously growing in your strengths. (quick note, I dropped out of high school because I failed a literature class and refused to back and finish.)
6. Create a Book List
This is another area that makes a terrific impact in my own growth; Read. I remember when I started to get serious about growing, I sought after others who might be able to teach me something, if I met them in my local town, they almost always recommended books to read. At first I hated reading. It was not a strong suite, however, I was committed and I just did what I could. I remember one of the first books I read was given to me by an aunt I highly admired, it took me like 3 months to finish and I did it in such a way where I didn’t fight my weakness of not being a good reader.
I did this by only reading for short amounts of time. Even if it was for only five minutes. The key was being consistent with what I could do. Make an effort every week to take time and fill your mind with positive material. The reason this is so powerful, is because you begin to regain control of what goes into your mind. Rather than all the noise that surrounds our everyday life which can be seriously bent in a negative direction. After my initial book or two, I realized how much I loved to read, when it’s not being shoved down my throat from some authoritarian figure. The point here, is to be proactive with what you put in your mind – books, audio, etc. This site of course is a great starting point with its Relationship Blogs and Podcasts.
7. Make a List of What You Can Do
This can become very helpful in times when you get a little lost on what to do. I actually just wrote a little bit about this in Hopelessly Hopeful; 3 Steps Beyond Hopelessness. This is a great exercise to prove to yourself that “yes, there is something I can do.” Even if you honestly don’t feel like doing anything, and choose not to, at least you do it consciously and not lying to yourself with the excuse “I don’t know what to do.”
Currently I do this all through out the week. I carry a sheet of paper around with me that is folded up into twelve sections between both sides. It’s somewhat of my weekly map. Each block represents a category, such as ‘day of the week,’ – ‘topic ideas,’ – ‘to dos,’ – ‘goals,’ – ‘wish list,’ – etc. However having a paper like this would be pointless if you didn’t have some sort of purpose in your life. You might find yourself writing things like, ’stare at the sun,’ – ‘feed sparky,’ – etc. Let your action items be focused in love bringing you closer towards what you desire.
8. Write Yourself a Letter
Wow, I can’t even count how many letters I’ve written to myself. Some of them while I was in tears. In hindsight, I’ve found this to be pretty powerful. It’s somewhat of a reminder, of “why all the effort.” Especially after going through the last 8 steps, you should be in a good place to write yourself a letter that truly inspires and reminds you why you are doing what you’re doing.
In your letter be realistic and honest. If you have a big vision for your life, then that is truly awesome, but understand the time is “right now,” not five or ten years down the road. Let your reason for doing what you do, be because it’s something you desire for yourself now, not ten years from now. From my own experience, trying to grow because I want something in return 20 years from now was never a good enough reason to press through the failures, because I could very easily change that distant desire to something else. If it is about now, it’s much more personal, since “now” is the only time which will ever exist, so you might as well play here.
9. Build Slowly on Daily Habits
Nothing happens overnight, if it did, then there would be no growth. Growth is the point, the point is not a big house, or a shiny car, the point is growth; this is what your soul desires most. I’m not going to tell you to not desire nice things or those things that excite you, mainly because when I starting my own growth path about 7 years ago, those things were what kick started my desire to move forward. I will say that over time I have discovered that growth in itself was reason enough to grow. Being able to operate my life with an increase of ease is a beautiful thing, more beautiful to me than any material possession or flashy facade.
Appreciate the small things you can do, for it is the small things that all big events are built on. It’s easy to get distracted because society is a world of quick fix, and most of what you see is only an end result. We don’t see the hours of small incremental changes, we only see what came out on the other end. Build slow by doing what you know you can do consistently, and occasionally challenge yourself to see where your limits are. As you increase your understanding of what you are honestly capable of, without selling yourself short, you will be amazed at how your life can change over time.
10. Have Fun
To me, the whole point of this experience called life is to grow and have fun 
. If we are doing anything other than that, we might want to take a breather and reevaluate our experience. Yes, it can get stressful at times, and it seems like bad things happen, but maybe the point is to understand and to grow through them so we can continue to experience peace on a deeper level. For myself, as I continue to grow, I find it more and more difficult to take myself so seriously. As you increase the honesty you have with yourself, you begin to realize, “wow, there is so much more I could grow in, worldly perfection is kinda a lost cause.”
Enjoy yourself by growing in your areas of strength, do what you enjoy doing. If you are not creatively expressing yourself, or trying to understand what you can do to express yourself, then do that. Do it in a way that is fun, not stressful, and adds value to you and to mankind. Before you begin making any excuses, go back to step 2. 
Awakening the Soul?
How does all this tie into awakening your soul. It’s about living consciously, where you are fully present of the decisions you make and do so with the intent of creating more love. As we walk about in our life, most of us do so with a knee jerk reaction, responding in fear by getting defensive or puffing up or ego, it’s not really a natural way to live, it is very resistant to life.
Living with the intent of growth, puts us in a place where we have to open our eyes, if we truly desire to live with more ease and excitement, doing so in front of the TV might not be the best way to go about it. A good way to think about it is, think about all your daily activities and how much of the what goes into your being, is just recycled and repeated information. Whether it’s a tv program, an argument, or a boring and dead end job. It’s not living consciously, no wonder if feels dull and broken. Your soul wants to be alive, it doesn’t want to be subject to other peoples input without the conscious decision to do so. Your soul is unique, it carries with it a unique purpose, and to discover this uniqueness one might want to live as thought the mundane we experience, is not a requirement but a choice.
Conclusion
I zipped through this list really fast, I’m at about 2,500 words in less than 90 minutes, this is probably the fastest article I’ve ever written (I really enjoyed it). My intent was to just give you some things to think about, don’t feel like this is the only way, because even after writing it my ideas want to change a bit.
If you have any questions or insights (which I love to hear), please feel free to write them in the comment box below, or get in touch with me.
Oh yeah… remember – the point is growth. Let it be joyous.
Here’s a quick overview of the list.
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