No Growth Till You Stretch

“What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.” Wayne Dyer

Growth only happens when you are constantly pulled outside your comfort zone. This is the one reason why reading 3 books a week never helped me grow. I was reading to gain knowledge and to impress people. No matter how many books I read, as long as I was not stepping outside what makes me comfortable.

I have learned to leave in such a way that my best is always in my future and not my past or present. When someone asked me which among my book is my best, my answer has always been that I have not written my best yet. I am just scratching the surface of my best. My best is in the future and I am constantly growing towards it.

The tension between where I am and where I could make me stretch. So also the tension between what I am presently doing and what I can do pushes me to grow and do more. I always feel like Paul the Apostle who said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

If there is no tension in your life, then you really will never grow. You have to stretch to grow. A life where you have arrived will never experience growth. I mean if there is nothing better to live for, why should you even grow? Just like a rubber band becomes useful only when stretched, so also you will be relevant when you are stretching. Stretching expands you.

I pray I will never get to a point where I felt I have really done my greatest work. Whatever I am doing now is really small potato compared to what I have the potential to do. When I stretch my capacity, a measure of my potential gets unleashed. So the more we stretch ourselves, the more potential we unleash and the more we get done.

How to Stretch

1. Stretch Your Thoughts

Gustavo Razzetti said, “When you stretch your mind, you stretch the world around you.” All expansion in life begins with an expansion in your thoughts. Your mind will never expand until you stretch it. When you read what is hard and focus on it to understand it, you are stretching your mind.

How to do I stretch my mind? I practice solving difficult problems. Whenever I come across a very difficult problem, I force my mind to dwell on it until I work out a solution. I make sure I read books on the problem. That's how I get to read books in new areas. Our mind is stretched when a new, higher thought is introduced into it. If I don’t understand what I am reading, I stay with it until I understand it. That way my mind gets stretched to a new dimension.

Carol S. Dweck, the author of Mindset, writes, “The hallmark of successful people is that they are always stretching themselves to learn new things.” What new thing have you intentionally learned recently? Most people stay with the easy stuff. The easy stuff has no power to stretch you to grow and be more than you are now.

1. Associate With People Who Are Stretching

You will be at the same level as the 5 people you associate with. Check your friends, if they are not stretching to become more, the chances are that you also are not stretching. Show me your friends and let me know what they do daily, and I can tell whether you are stretching or not.

Jim Rohn, the American Business Philosopher, said, “Don’t join an easy crowd, you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.” I have a knack for reviewing my friendship every 3 months. If a friend is not challenging me to stretch, he is just an acquaintance and will not enjoy an increase in association. 

When you stay around people who are not stretching, you will assume that there is no need for that. You cannot start stretching except you first change the people you associate with.

1. Do The Things You Cannot Do

When you do what you have never done before, you will find it hard at first and then gradually you will perfect the doing of it. You stretch yourself each time you either do something new or something that is hard. Farshad Asl said, “If there isn’t a struggle, there’s no stretch, and therefore no growth. Easy doesn’t change you and comfort won’t challenge you. Coasting isn’t a strategy.”

People who settle for the normal hardly grow and do not create anything new. They stay in the norm, live normal lives and do normal things. But that's not what we are created for. Living a normal life is death. Many have died in the 20s and only get to be buried in their 80s. I agree with Pablo Picasso when he said, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order, that I may learn how to do it.”

Religion made me believe that there are many things I cannot do. Then I began to do them and I became free. I noticed the more I do the things that people told me I cannot do, that I told myself I cannot do and the hard things, the more I stretch and grow. What I can do increases. Anything you stop doing things because you think you cannot, you limit your growth.

1. Set Audacious Goals

I used to set goals, hoping that I will one day achieve them. Those were the days of ignorance when we were taught to just have goals and pray about them till they come to pass. I did achieve some of those goals but not the bigger ones.

Then I took the counsel of Jim Rohn and everything changed for me. My focus no longer was on setting goals to achieve them but for the goals to stretch me to become the kind of person who can produce them. He said, “The most important benefit of setting goals isn’t achieving your goals; it’s what you do and the person you become in order to achieve your goals.” So I set audacious goals that can challenge me to stretch and become more than I am.

Each day I feel the tension between where I am and the goals I have set. My commitment to the goals stretches me to grow. It has changed my life and I hope it changes yours too as you practice it.

Dimeji is the President/CEO of 1st Millionaire Maker Nig Ltd www.1stmillionairemaker.com