Do you want to grow? Start with this...

The first principle of personal and professional growth is to learn to value yourself.

Psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck opened his classic book, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth, with a profound three word sentence:

"Life is difficult."

I was probably 21 years old when I first read those words, and I flat out didn't believe them. How could I? I was far too naïve and inexperienced back then (as young Yellows tend to be).

But life persisted, as it does, and my eyes were opened to the reality of the suffering of others and to my own eventual challenges. Life is, in fact, difficult, but... from that difficulty emerges growth and progress.

I've now worked with the Color Code for over 20 years, and I've shared it with individuals and organizations all over the world. I see people and teams fighting through their challenges and working on growth with varying degrees of success.

One of the biggest challenges that I've noticed along the way is that often times in our efforts to change, to grow, to become something "more", we make a critical mistake. We, sometimes, decide that we need to exchange the person we are for the person we want to be.

We get critical of our own flaws. We focus on our own ineptitudes. And we don't like what we see.

When that happens, we run the risk of thinking that who we are, as a person, could actually be fundamentally flawed or, even worse, completely worthless, and we strive to become something or somebody different.

This is a very dangerous path to take when pursuing personal and professional growth.

If we go that direction, our growth will always be limited, because even if we change our behaviors to ACT more "Red", "Blue", "White", or "Yellow" (to use Color Code terminology), our Core Motive remains the same. We can adopt new behaviors, but still feel fundamentally unchanged because we haven't worked on understanding how to love what's below those behaviors - down deep. And if that's the case, the feelings of inadequacy never go away and we are perpetually frustrated.

If you've gone down that road before, you know what I'm talking about...

The good news is that there is another way - a far better and healthier way - to pursue and successfully achieve the growth you seek in life.

It starts with VALUING YOURSELF first and then focusing on the change you want to achieve.

Here is truth... You have amazing worth!

Sometimes you just forget or you're blinded and you don't believe it.

If you're down on yourself, or you're stressed (like a LOT of people are right now), or you've made a mistake, you might forget to see the gift and value of who you really are - the limitless potential that you posses.

Remember, you are unique! You are incredible! You are one of a kind.

In the words of Dr. Seuss,

“Today you are You, that is truer than true.

There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

If you can find a way to embrace the truth of that statement, you can effectively re-frame the way you think about growth.

Rather than taking the "I don't like who I am, so I'll become somebody different" approach, you might start thinking more along the lines of,

"I have value, and I love who I fundamentally am. I have created some patterns in life that I don't like - but I am not those patterns - and I want to work on changing them."

If you are able to do that, and if you are able to value and invest in yourself, the growth you create will be healthy and you will be happy as you face and embrace the change process.

Here at Color Code, we believe in people, and we believe in YOU. I hope that you can find more and more ways of believing in yourself and in the worth that you innately posses.

As you learn more about who you are and create a deeper sense of self-awareness, I believe you will find the growth and the happiness that you both seek and deserve.