When I’m in my garden, which is a regular occurrence, I reflect on the joy of growth and am in constant awe of what affects plants that also affects humans.

Plants are simple, and straightforward; humans are too, though 34 like to complicate things - a lot! That’s another topic for discussion later, but today I want to share some insights with you as I have chosen to move to my garden table today from my inside office, to enjoy the growth and fruits of my labour.

The first thing I want to share is an image reflecting growth of three fruit trees in the space of one year. And there’s a story with a few insights to tell that will relate to personal growth too.

What you nourish your mind, body and soul with matters

 I’d like to first draw your eye and attention to the lemon tree. It’s a “lots a lemons” patio plant, which I purchased over three years ago. When I got it, it was small but flush with six or seven lemons already on the plant. At the time, I was newly re-establishing my garden after a few years of not growing my own produce. So I got the plant, and positioned it in my garden, watering it and enjoying using the lemons as I needed them.

 But then the lemons stopped growing, and so did the plant. While I had been watering it, I was ignorant of feeding it regularly. So it got no nourishment. I also had it in a position where it was sitting in the full (hot Perth Australian sun) for much of the day without reprieve in a pot, and getting watered occasionally. So it began to die. In fact, when I moved to my new house, I almost threw it out. But something, a little intuitive voice, said “reposition it and feed it.”

So I did.
And within a few months new green shoots began to grow. Within a year, it’s thriving and all because I feed it proper plant food every few weeks, just like I now do with all my plants. It’s yet to produce more lemons again, but that will come, likely in the next season.

As humans, for us to grow, we need the right food for our mind, body and soul too. I’m not going to talk about physical diet in this blog post, although that too will affect your energy and your health and well-being. I am not even going to preach to you the benefits of home-grown organic chemical-free produce. I am focusing on bringing your attention to your spiritual, mental and emotional nourishment. These are the things you give your attention to and make a priority in your life, like who you listen to, what you listen to, what you read, what you watch, what you buy-in and believe as true or not true, whether you get involved in gossip, blame, or discussions that are fear-based or whether you feed your mind, heart and soul with love-vibrational-energy input such as self-responsibility, learning, curiosity, unification, and adding value to the world. 

Creating the right environment will set the scalability for your growth

You are influenced by the people around you. There is a truism that states “You are the sum of who you surround yourself with.”   When you do an audit of your environment, and the people you spend most of your time with, ask yourself: 

•  Do these people lift me up and support my goals and dreams?
•  Are they positive and solution focused?
•  Do they encourage me and others, and speak highly of all people, including themselves?
•  Are they willing to celebrate everyone’s victories including their own?
•  Do these people focus their energy, time and resources on developing their best lives and contributing to making the world a better place?

But there is another audit to check in with — and that is within yourself.

Are you BEING this quality of person for yourself?

When you raise your internal environment, you will also see that reflected in the people you choose to surround yourself with.

You can also move to surround yourself with high-vibrational people who are supporting, celebrating, growing and contributing, but without doing a personal audit and raising your standards, you may be surprised to see some of the people you aspire to be like and spend time with, may be a distant reach if your energy is not yet a high-level match. It’s important to do the inner work, as no-one else can do that for you. 

Make it a daily practice to prune negative thoughts and beliefs from your mind; make small but significant changes in your daily habits to align with your higher vision, values and goals; do the inner work to balance, align and heal so you can transform your life from the inside out. Your internal environment is more important than your external environment, though the people, places and positioning of yourself in life will also make a contribution to your growth.

Just like when I moved the lemon tree out of the direct hot “all day” sun and into a place where it was a little more protected with some shade, to rest and grow, we need to make some subtle changes in our own environment to make sure we have the balance of energies for rest and growth cycles.

When we are exposed to too much ‘heat’ (stress) we slow down or shut down our ability to advance as we kick into survival mode. And with all growth there is an uncomfortable factor that exists. While most who avoid being uncomfortable and therefore stagnate in their growth, those who are flourishing have grasped the thoughts, feelings and actions aligned with being prepared with being uncomfortable to grow.

I am constantly reminding my clients “the more you are prepared to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, the more success you will have.”

We all have different levels of exposure to stress with being uncomfortable, so make sure you balance the journey with plenty of self care. I call these “self care steps to success” as when we focus regularly on bringing our mind, body and soul into balance energetically into a calm state, we look after our nervous system, and avoid an overload of negative stress (and cortisol spikes) which left unchecked often leads to sabotage with triggers of fear, anxiety or worry about all the things that may potentially be in the way of our success.

So manage your internal environment (mind, body and soul) with plenty of nourishing self care steps to your success on your personal growth journey.

Plan, track and measure to acknowledge your success and personal growth

Without capturing or recording our daily wins most people will often default to a distorted perspective of “how far they have come” and discount their success. Unless there is a record of the journey.

It doesn’t have to be a fully detailed record, although the more detail ultimately the more data to determine and provide evidence of the transformation. But sometimes, it’s enough to get just a snap shot, like the picture above of the three fruit trees one year apart. I was pleasantly surprised and delighted when I found this picture from a year ago pop up on my facebook memory feed yesterday. So I popped out and took a current snap to compare. Amazing, right!?

The same is true when I have my clients go through my group coaching training (“The Awakened Soul Program”) each year. Many of them choose to continue their journey working with me and carry on into “Soul Goal Academy”, then “Confidence, Clients Cash Kickstart!” and then into my 12-month Mastermind “Love, Light & Leadership Academy.” When they join the 12-month mastermind, they get access to ALL my programs LIVE again through the next 12-months and during this time NEW clients come onboard. The reflection of the new clients viewed by the mastermind participants who went through The Awakened Soul Program the year before are ALWAYS amazed to see where they used to be on their personal growth journey, and just how far they have come with their ability to harness and master their energy, manifest with more consistent success, and feel empowered to not only live their best life that they love but also help others to do the same too.

Whatever area of your life you choose to develop - spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, socially, or in any of your relationships, make it a fun game to record, reflect and review so you can enjoy the progress, keep celebrating your expansion, and be even more conscious of your personal growth as you stack the evidence for your success. 

Often when we start an intentional journey to manifest a new result for ourselves in an area of our life, we later realise there are far more benefits rewarded than we first expected. When we keep a journal or record of our journey we can truly integrate more of the insights and use those to make even more wise decisions moving forward; decisions in how we choose to think, what to believe or not believe, how to identify our feelings and work more intuitively with energy that is ours, and not trying to transmute the energy of others that we previously may have “sponged’ up as our own. And so much more.

Use your pain as purpose

When the plants I grow are buffered by the wind, I make sure I stake them with a support so that they can maintain directing their energy in growth, rather than survival.

Storms happen. The seasons change. The sun is not always out.

That can lead to some damage. But when that happens in my garden, I sweep up, clean up, and support my plants as best as possible. 

Humans go through storms too. No-one goes through the journey on earth without weathering them! And sometimes, they cause some pain.

The catalyst for choosing a pathway for personal growth to make a change is almost always an area of pain in our life.

Those who get stuck on the story of their pain rarely move forward. 

Those who gleam the value and insights resolve themselves with more resilience and strength, and use their experience to build their next life chapter in not only helping themselves, but of being of service to others. 

So use your pain as purpose. Whatever that is. Look for the deeper empowering meaning. What insights can you gleam from your experience?

Use your experience to shape the best of you, without deciding the experience will shape the rest of your life, unless of course you are determining the value from your experience to thrive and bloom. And of course, just like a garden is created with the vision, love and care of a great gardener, so that your journey will be truly supported with the aid of a great mentor and community to help you express your best potential.

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