An infographic showing what it means to grow. The infograph shows you, represented by a box, growing bigger each time you realize a new dream.
Each thing we achieve in life, whether it is a success or a lesson learned from mistakes, helps us grow and reach for bigger and better.

Step 4 — Grow

Introduction to growing and gratitude

The fourth step is all about feeling accomplished and absorbing lessons learned

An infographic showing that you can start at any step. You can begin with a dream. You can begin with a plan. Or, you can begin playing. Just try anything and see how it feels.
Actually, you can start with any step. However, if you are feeling stuck, it takes time to absorb the lessons learned from the last adventure before beginning anew. See all the steps at once.

After dreaming, planning and doing (exploring), you have either turned your dream into a reality or failed. Either way, now is the time to reevaluate the lessons learned. If you succeeded, I ask, “Do you feel accomplished or fulfilled?” If you failed — I know “fail” is a harsh word, but we’ve all been there — the first and most important lesson is that you have still succeeded in creating a new reality. It is just not the reality you intended. You may not yet realize it, but you have grown as a person. And eventually, it is even possible to enjoy your failures, or as my art teacher called them, “happy accidents.”

By the way, this step is new. As you may know, I rode a bicycle around the world. I thought when I returned home, my journey was finished, but it would take many more years to digest what I had accomplished. Even now, I am still growing and learning from both my successes and my failures. You can also call this stage “Gratitude” because you will always have a memory to cherish. 

I stumbled upon this quote and realized this famous philosopher had the same realization:

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, 1813-1855.

I think this step may be the most important step of all. Even if we dream to travel the world but go no further than the doorstep, there are lessons to be learned.

I haven’t completely ironed out the process, but I’m sure it’s mostly emotional. This is what makes us human. We’re not machines. We have reasons that we do things, and those reasons boil down to an emotion. For example, we don’t want money, we want the experiences money can buy. 

  1. Accepting your successes and failures.  
  2. Feeling a sense of accomplishment. 
  3. Wondering at the new possibilities. 

If you have some ideas of what this process might look like, please send me a message. By the way, I love the number 3. It inherently represents are journey through life: 1) the beginning, 2) the middle, 3) the end. 

 

Articles about how to grow

Articles about how to grow. I’ll be posting more here soon, like learning to feel accomplished and overcoming obstacles. In the meantime, try our worksheets. They are all designed to help you grow.

Our foster kitten posing with our book "Feel Your Feelings"

Emotions

My inner emotional journey has been key to my growth as a person. I felt it so important that I spent years researching how to teach the skills of optimistic thinking, mindfulness, perseverance (grit), and hope. I’m proud to say our research study was published in the peer-reviewed, scientific journal Child & Youth Care Forum. 

Anyway, here are some basics about emotions, and a few tools that helped me. These articles benefit anyone trying to live a more fulfilling life. 

  • I suggest you start with my new favorite emotion — Acceptance.
  • All articles about Emotions.