Grow and nurture the life you want...

But what did you sow?!

‘You can’t plant tulips and be disappointed when you don’t get roses.’

I heard this on a podcast last week and of course as a life coach it completely stuck in my head, for so many reasons! The person who said it was talking about being a planner, thinking ahead and being prepared. And I thought about what might be appearing for all of us out of the metaphorical soil right now, that we planted long ago. Is it what we want, what we hoped for, or something else?

It also got me wondering, what if there are no tulips either, what then?!

‘You reap what you sow’ is another phrase I’m sure we’ve all heard, possibly more associated with the concept of you get what you deserve, e.g. being unkind to others means it will come back to you. There is definitely a slightly more negative skew with this phrase although it is referring to our actions having consequences, which can of course be either negative or positive.

Life decisions + actions = consequences

It’s probably a fair point that we shouldn’t be disappointed (or surprised) with the lack of roses if we planted tulips.

The thing is, do we always think about, recognise, or appreciate what we have been ‘planting’? And make sure to do some watering and weeding? Maybe not!

In life, work, relationships – all areas of our lives, what we are investing in to them will bring about the results we are getting (albeit there are things beyond our control that will influence these results too).

If we don’t sow anything, and passively hope instead, we are not likely to get the active growth we seek. So when it comes to sowing our seeds (and reaping what we sow) these questions might be helpful to consider:

1)        what have I been sowing (that I actually want?),

2)        what have I been sowing unintentionally that I don’t want to bear fruit,

3)        what have I been nurturing or not nurturing – the weeds or the flowers?

4)        what have I not been sowing (and wondering about the lack of tulips / roses / anything!)

We know our decisions and actions have consequences (even if we occasionally forget, perhaps deliberately or otherwise).  And going back to the thought of ‘where are even the tulips?’, maybe a better growth equation looks something like this:

Intentional seeds + patience + nurturing = intended* result

(*I think I have to caveat the intended result a bit, because things rarely come out precisely as we envisioned them before they started. But of course it is necessary to sow something, and to try and care for it to give us any chance of getting a semblance of what we hoped for).

To grow the life you want

Translate the above equation to life, and our seeds can be the actions, steps and habits that would lead us to our intended goal(s) (the result). The nurturing and patience parts matter hugely to grow the life you want to create (and reinvent even). Sometimes in nature we can genuinely forget we planted something and it is a total surprise when a flower pops up some months later (in my case some poppies have randomly self-seeded in my garden, I’ve taken no care of them whatsoever as I didn’t even know there were there!). But that’s a gamble when it comes to our desired life goals. We need to prune, water and care for as we go (ourselves as well as what we planted).

What might you now intentionally plant, and nurture, that you know has been missing?

You can make changes, starting now. If you’d like some support, coaching could be just the thing to get you clear on what you’re going to sow, and maybe where the weeds have become problematic too, for example with negative self-talk, or lack of confidence or boundaries etc. Let’s get the right things planted and give them the best chance to flourish! Drop me a message at kathryn@kbmindfulcoaching.com and we’ll find the right support match for you.