Grow With Your Nature
Photo credit Paula Tizzard Photography
“You can be anything you want to be,” wise people tell us.
It is meant to encourage us to stretch our wings, move out of our comfort zone, defy the odds and accomplish the seemingly impossible.
What we sometimes forget, however, is that the whole process of growth will go much more fluidly if we grow with our nature, as opposed to against it.
It is okay to grow with your natural inclinations. If you love medicine, you should pursue it as a career and not try to turn yourself into a farmer. If you want to be a police officer, go for it instead of studying accounting.
We seem to have drifted away from this in our quest to prove that we can do anything. It is true that with reasonable intelligence and the 10,000 hour’s practice idea of Malcolm Gladwell’s in Outliers, we can master skills we may have considered impossible.
But that doesn’t mean we should invest such an enormous amount of time and effort into something that does not reflect our nature or our world. Your innate talent is still something to be seriously considered when you look at setting out on a course of making a living in this increasingly complex world.
If you nurture your nature and the gifts you are born with, and you learn to adapt to the environment in which you must grow, it is often amazing what can be accomplished in one lifetime.
Every day I see examples of this especially through our publishing house where we showcase incredible visionaries in our Dreaming BIG Being BOLD book series. These are the trailblazers and the change makers who have riveting stories to tell about their life journeys and what they went through to get to success.
What strikes me many times is that while these outstanding people often took jobs different from their nature and did well at them, when they really decided to shine and be true to themselves, they went towards the work that was most in sync with their character, talent and true nature.
Bruce Lee, the late Chinese-American martial artist, filmmaker and philosopher, talked about his quest to excel and what a difference it made in his life when he accepted that he could go with and not against his true nature.
He came to that realization one day when he was studying water. He wrote of his experience in his book Bruce Lee: Artist of Life:
“Water is so fine that it is impossible to grasp a handful of it; strike it, yet it does not suffer hurt; stab it, and it is not wounded; sever it, yet it is not divided. It has no shape of its own but molds itself to the receptacle that contains it. When heated to the state of steam it is invisible but has enough power to split the earth itself. When frozen it crystallizes into a mighty rock. First it is turbulent like Niagara Falls, and then calm like a still pond, fearful like a torrent, and refreshing like a spring on a hot summer’s day.”
Water, he reasoned, lived by its true nature, and it inspired him to try to do the same.
If you are trying to do things that are foreign to your nature, reconsider if your efforts could be better invested in something that more truly reflects your natural talent.
We are all on occasion forced by circumstance to do things that are foreign to our nature just to make a living and support those who depend on us. But at the first opportunity to right the course and grow further into your nature, let go and slide back to the state of your talents and interests.
You will be happier for it.
Paula Morand is a leadership building, revenue boosting, strategy expanding keynote speaker, author and visionary. This dreaming big and being bold leadership expert and brand strategist brings her vibrant energy, humor and wisdom to ignite individuals, organizations and communities to lead change, growth and impact in a more bold fashion. 24 years, 27,000 clients, 34 countries, 15 books, former radio personality, 11x award winning entrepreneur and humorous emcee.Check out Paula’s best selling books: “Bold Courage: How Owning Your Awesome Changes Everything”, “Dreaming BIG and Being BOLD: Inspiring stories from Trailblazers, Visionaries and Change Makers” book series; and due to be released soon “Bold Vision: A Leader’s Playbook for Managing Growth” go to Amazon http://ow.ly/i8yW307ix67
Speaking inquiries email bookings@paulamorand.com or call toll-free 1-888-502-6317.