Jeff’s Journal
By Jeff Whitaker
I was thinking recently about the similarities between our physical world and our mental and emotional worlds. Maybe this will help explain my train of thought. You wake up to a sunny, warm morning. The weather is just perfect and it sets you up for the best day. It’s true that no matter what is going on in your mind, most of the time if you wake up to sun as opposed to a rain, you’re more likely to be headed in a better direction.
John Maxwell calls it The Law of Environment which says that our growth thrives in conducive surroundings. That’s not only true physically but mentally and emotionally as well. So let me ask you a couple of questions to consider. What nourishes you? What sustains you? Remember I’m not talking about food in this case (although that’s essential too). I mean the people who surround you personally and professionally, the work environment where you find yourself and what steps you take to grow yourself to reach your potential. The reality is that you can’t achieve all you want to become (the best version of you) by not examining where you are now and where you want to be in the future. Ask yourself this question. “Do I want to lead an average life? Am I content remaining where I am right now? If we are honest, most of us would say no to both of those questions. We all have within us something that tells us there’s more, we can do better, we can reach higher. But here’s the thing, if we want to grow to our full potential, we have to examine the environment where we find ourselves and see if that is contributing to our growth or causing us to stagnate or regress.
As the end of 2022 approaches, take that self examination of your environment and ask if it’s conducive to growth. It may be and if that’s the case, great. But if you sense an internal discontent, then it may be time to make a shift. You and I also need to be strategic to maintain the tension between where we are and where we could be by continually resetting our intermediate-range goals for ourselves. Here is a key, if the goals are too immediate you lose the tension when you achieve them quickly. If the goals are too lofty, they can seem to be too difficult and become discouraging.
Learn to find that perfect tension that keeps you grounded where you are but stretch you toward where you want to be. Until next time, let’s go out and make a difference.
