My 3 Steps Growth Process

Contrary to what some people who are acquainted with me may think, I am not special in any way. I don’t have the highest IQ, nor am I the best among the best. I am just that one person who takes his time to grow. 

A lot of people know me because of writing than any other thing that may be attributed to me. Truth is when we see people learning and building in public, we tend to think or assume they are special or unique. More often than not, we all are just like you. We struggle daily and don’t always do what we set out to do.

So why the story?

The very writing that I am known for today is something that I’ve been doing for about 6 years. I have taken my time to grow into this. Although I’ve been hard on myself sometimes, you can tell that I’ve not been hard enough for the journey to have taken me 6 years. Well, that’s the point I want to make here. That on many skills, you can take your time and grow only on the pace to which you need the skill.

Not until 2019, I didn’t start taking writing seriously. And even then, I could barely write one article in a month. Now, I write every day.

How did I grow to this?

Thinking about the journey that got me here, 3 things emerged as a process. Start, “not stopping” and consistency.

I’ve always known that consistency is the goal for me in anything. It is what gives an unfair advantage. Doing hard things, things that others won’t do because it’s hard to do will always give you an unfair advantage. Consistency is hard and not a lot of people will do it. That’s why you have stopped writing, you have abandoned your side hustle, you have given up on that YouTube channel and given up on learning that skill. So I knew if I can only be consistent, if I can show up every day and be present, I will have an advantage that others won’t have. Without a shred of doubt, I was right.

But getting to be consistent was very hard for me as well. So I introduced a new step between starting and being consistent. I call it “not stopping”.

Start

The first step to growth is starting. Many people fail at this initial point. They take the advice of “keeping the end in mind” to the extreme and the thought of that “expected end” scares them away from starting. They can’t possibly imagine waking up every day and thinking about what to write on or how to finish a book or how to master a skill. It’s just scary. And they just abandon the whole thing. They refuse to start.

Starting is the most important thing and that’s what you should focus on when you are on to doing something new. Forget at first the process that will take you to mastery. Just start. A lot of people, just like you have refused to start, starting alone put you a step ahead. So start whatever that thing is. Like, start anyhow.

You should also read – Do

Not stopping

Once you start, the goal is to aim for consistency. Consistency is what brings mastery and maximum leverage. If you can achieve it immediately, congratulations to you, you have done what the majority of us can’t do.

However, if you are like me, and you struggle with getting consistent with something new, I have a trick for you. It’s called “not stopping”.

Not stopping is simply a layer between the journey from starting to consistency that says even if you struggle with getting consistent, even if you fail and suck at it, even if doing it is always like a herculean task, don’t stop. Every time you can do it again, pick it up again.

By implication, it means don’t beat yourself up if the last time you attempted it was 3 months ago. Now that you remember it again, carry it and do it. At this stage, the goal is “not stopping”. It’s not about mastery, it’s about the little incremental growth that happens every time you attempt it again.

In 2015, when I attempted my first writing, I thought it was good. But I didn’t write one more thing until after a year or so. Between the intervening months, I always wished I wrote more. But I didn’t. It was difficult and certainly, I couldn’t be consistent with it. The natural tendency was for me to stop and conclude that maybe writing isn’t for me. Then I used to think it’s the domain of those who studied English. I was wrong. More importantly, though, the next time I remembered I could write again, I wrote. I was never consistent at it. I do it only on the whims of “felt like”. But I never stopped.

That’s it, whatever it is, don’t stop.

Consistency

If you do the “not stopping” long enough, you will realize if indeed this thing is for you or not. If you recognize that it’s for you, I assure you that one day, you will arrive at consistency. As long as you do not stop. That’s just the way it works. Hang around a barbershop long enough, and you will also get your haircut. It’s the way of the world. It’s an order that can’t be overturned.

And as I’ve said before, consistency gives you the maximum leverage. That’s like your destination but ensure you take the journey down to that. 

I have never been a consistent writer until this year 2021 as I am trying to write every day this year. Such an ambitious goal. However, even with the “not stopping”, I’ve gotten a great dividend for my writing. The world is full of people who would rather wish their way into mastery than walk into it. So even for your little effort beyond what everyone else would do, the universe will reward you. Writing got me every job that I’ve done so far (directly and indirectly), writing gave me a name, writing is the reason why you all know me, with writing I’ve created a good network for myself, I can go on. And this is despite the fact that I’m not a master of the craft yet and neither have I been consistent until now.

That’s what I mean, the universe will reward your little steps above what everyone else will do.

So that skill that you abandoned, carry it up again, the one you are afraid to start because you can’t imagine being consistent, start it immediately. And even if you aren’t consistent yet, make sure you don’t stop. That’s how I’ve grown so far, I hope you find this helpful for your growth as well.

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