It never happens without problems, issues, challenges and doubts to overcome but as human beings this is where our resilience comes into play and becomes our ally. For any of you reading this who know me even a little, developing resilience (and many other skills!) is where my 3 favourite ‘C’ words come into play:
It all begins with COMPASSION for me – compassion for myself especially, but also compassion for the process of growth generally, knowing it is not linear or easy. I used to attach all my self worth to outcomes and my critical voice (who I call Fergie, after Man Utd’s old boss Sir Alex Ferguson!) would run wild if I ‘failed’ at something. So much so that there have been long periods of time in my life where i would try NOTHING new, just to try to protect myself from my own self-criticism.
However, I have since learned that failure is an intrinsic part of the process of growth, so developing our compassion is so important in order to be kind to ourselves and retain the will to try again the next time, armed with better knowledge that before we ‘failed’ – this is resilience and how we learn.
Continuing to strive for the things we want in life and doing so as our beautifully authentic imperfect selves, inwardly and outwardly, means we are behaving in CONGRUENCE with ourselves and there is much we can take from acting in alignment of our values and inner experiences out in the world. For me this helps bring satisfaction and joy to the messiness and difficulties of the process of growth and also fills my cup of resilience – I might not be where I want to be right now, but I am doing it my way, as me!!
Then finally there is the CONNECTION we feel by sharing our growth journeys with other significant people in our lives. I feel so blessed to now have people in my life with whom I can share the stories of my growth journey and it is a privilege to be able to hear all about theirs. This shared experience absolutely increases my resilience and determination to continue to seek growth and understanding in everything I do.
I have come to believe that all three of these ‘C’s are required in order for us to achieve our growth goals, I’d love to hear below about what strategies and tactics work for you in your lives when it comes to growth goals.
Just before i sign off, if any of you are interested in reading more about my 3 ‘C’s, here is a link to an article I wrote recently:
https://with-you.co.uk/news/newsletters/941-wynews-issue04-mar22-2