The Painful Realities That Comes With Growing

“Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life.” ~ Herbert A. Otto

If you are at the top of the ladder of success right now and you did not experience growing pains, harsh realities and you did not spend some sleepless nights and even go through some moments of frustration, there is a good chance that your moment of glory won’t last very long.

Growing brings pain while it builds character. It is about taking risks along the journey. Growth comes with losses, many lessons, valleys of defeat and later on, mountain of triumphs. You grow into success only when you begin to accept your own weaknesses, and you come to the realization that mistakes will be made along the way.

In growing, you are often confronted with fear of the unknown and the fear of failure – ‘the what if’s,’ ‘what would others think or say,’ ‘would I be accepted,’ ‘would they support me,’ ‘would I make it beyond…’ These are just some of the harsh realities that comes with growing.

case #1 – A Child’s Perspective 

Now my granddaughter just turned 16 months of age. Being in the same household with her, I have watched her grow up so fast. I have seen every developmental stage of her life right up to this point. Her first smile, first words, her many stumbles and falls as she moved from rolling, to dragging on her tummy, to creeping, to standing and to the point where she started to walk and now, she even tries to out run you.

Getting her to cease from saying to you the adult the word “stop,” and obeying certain other commands is where the challenge lies at the moment. I believe it is just a phase she is going through. And so yesterday, in addition to not obeying a simple command from her mom, she got into a real temper tantrum. So guess what, she got her very first time out in a sit down corner. As part of her growing up pain, she had to endure the few minutes time out sitting in that one place until at last, she calmed down. Truly, it is believed that she learned a lesson by that simple approach.

Case #2 An Adult’s Perspective

On January 11th 2014, as a result of some other growing pains I was having over on Blogger, I decided that it was time to move my blog over to WordPress. Without going into all of the fine details of what needed to be done and what it takes to move and set up a new website, I would just say, “starting all over again, it is rough!”

The pain, the challenges, the frustration all this while trying to get articles written and published, it has not been easy! Writing is my passion yes, and I have been enjoying my blogging journey since I started January 10th 2012, but blogging takes hard work, dedication and commitment.

I have not second-guessed myself or question my decision to change, but through my growing experience, I have come to some harsh painful realities.

1. It is not always easier the second time around.
2. You will always have less control than your heart truly desire.
3. Growth without learning is a risk with serious consequences.
4. When learning comes before experience, it does not make sense right away.
5. You cannot have growth and happiness without experiencing sadness and even times of failure along the way.
6. Not everyone will support your ideas or your decisions.
7. Your thoughts and ideas do not reach perfection in a day – it is over time you begin to see results.

I leave you with this quote from C. S. Lewis –

“Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, and where there is no continuity, there is no growth.”

What are Your thoughts?

Was this post helpful? What challenges or hardships you’ve had to face that you can say helped you to grow?

photo by: martinak