When we moved into our current house, there was some pretty extensive landscaping already in place. Really beautiful plants and trees and bushes all professionally laid out. Truthfully, it’s way more than what we would have paid for if we were doing it ourselves. Not only from a financial standpoint, but also from a knowledge and upkeep standpoint.
Part of this landscaping includes a number of holly bushes. The first few years we lived here these things kept growing at a crazy rate of speed. In my novice understanding of horticulture, I did what seemed like the right thing: I bought a hedge trimmer and just shaped them up, trimming only the outermost parts.
This only made them grow faster. The bushes that were once a little large and perhaps slightly out of place were now embarrassingly huge and definitely out of place. They were growing at a rate of speed that was unhealthy, losing their shape because some areas were growing faster than others, and just looked unsightly.
I called in the professionals. They did some deep pruning, went way beyond the surface level that I did. They shrunk the holly bushes, even made them temporarily ugly by exposing the insides.
But then they grew back.
In shape.
In proportion.
In balance.
Way healthier looking.
They grew … small.
This idea is fascinating to me. Growing small. It sounds like an oxymoron. The idea of “grow” seems to be all about increasing in size, in power, in influence. Small seems like just the opposite.
But here’s the interesting thing. The word “grow” has multiple meanings.
1- to undergo natural development by increasing in size and changing physically.
2- to become larger or greater over a period of time
and then this one …
3 – to become gradually or increasingly.
It’s something that struck me as something we can apply beyond landscaping. We can apply this idea into our personal and professional lives.
We live in a hyper-growth culture. “If you’re not growing, you’re dying” is a phrase I hear a lot in multiple settings – careers, businesses, churches, organizations. There’s certainly some element of truth to it, and in some stages of life – like in a startup business – this is more true than other areas.
But to be in perma-growth mode is exhausting.
As I personally head into the year 2020, this idea of “Growing small” is going to be my mantra for both my personal life and the direction of my firm. There’s going to be some pruning.
Having said that, a few disclosures:
I don’t run a billion dollar business.
I haven’t reached financial independence*.
I don’t even have a staff, let alone multiple departments to manage or employees to oversee or shareholders to report to.
Some people may look at my firm and say I’m way too small to be claiming exhaustion and need to just keep pushing.
But I have a good number of fantastic families I work with and entrust me as their advisor, and they have allowed me to reach a point where I can press pause for a bit.
I’ve grinded really, really hard for a little over 2 years to get to this point and have been blessed along the way.
And I’m really tired.
Fident can – and arguably needs – to grow more, but that’s not going to be my focus this coming year. I’m going to get myself – and my firm – healthier. There are some things that have grown too fast – and other areas that have been neglected.
If I’m being really honest, this is hard. There are goals I’ve set – benchmarks I’d like to reach – that will now have to wait. But as I said before, I realized that those goals aren’t really my own and the benchmarks aren’t helpful – they’re arbitrary figures I’ve allowed someone else to create for me.
Are there areas in your own life that have grown unwieldy? Areas of growth that seem good but maybe are causing you to make sacrifices in other areas? What would it look like to prune them back?
What would it look like to grow small?
* Image credit: Annie Spratt on Unsplash