A major principle of personal growth is to have a high level of intentionality, John Maxwell puts it as; to reach your potential you must grow and to grow you must be highly intentional about it. So, whether it is even improving in an area of Music, your writing, or speaking, you need to sit down to articulate, write down step by step how you are going to do that, the actions that are required for you to be able to accomplish that. For example, a few years ago I was in year nine and around age of 14. I was the fourth fastest in my year in 100 m. The following year when I was in year 10, I was the fastest because at the start of each Athletics season, the fastest guys would run a race and then out of that the teachers would be able to identify who was going to be our main 100m run, 200m run, and which people were going to be in the 4X 100 relay so I ended up becoming the fastest a year later so that was in year 10 and I was shocked, I think I was not the only one who was shocked but I was thinking ‘wow’ because I did not just beat the guys, I whooped them and this actually puzzled me for a little while and I was trying to figure out how exactly did this thing happen. A few months later, it just dawned on me that it is because in between year nine and year 10, I started doing paper rounds (you basically go to a convenience shop and you get some papers, usually in the mornings and you basically go around certain houses and you deliver them to those who have subscribed to those papers).
I usually did that on my bicycle and I used to do that every single day of that particular year, except on Christmas day so you can imagine that every single day I was exercising and building up muscles while riding the bicycle to do the deliveries on time. So the point is that, later on I ended up becoming the fastest simply because I was growing daily even though I had not plan it that way. I did not realize that that was going to be the effect of it, now that is an exception in some fluke instances, these things do happen but those are not the norm. The norm requires a growth plan, in other words, you need to sit down and decide the steps to take to achieve your desired goal. A great mentor of mine some years ago used to say that the way to know how to start something is by starting it. It is that simple.
