Expanding Your Pot
I wrote earlier this week about being mindful about what size pot you plant yourself and others in. I wanted to follow up on that post to discuss ways to expand your pot once you realized you’ve outgrown it. So, what do you do when you’ve outgrown your pot? Here’s my advice:
1. Expand Your Network
Whether you’ve outgrown your pot at work or in life in general I think one of the main things you can do is remove the barriers that you may have created or found yourself operating within. You can do this by expanding your network. Expose yourself to new relationships. Have conversations with people you generally don’t spend a great deal of time talking to. Follow influencers online that you generally don’t think to follow. Read a book. Expanding your network exposes you to new perspectives and concepts.
2. Loosen the Strings
Give yourself, your team, your children, whomever permission to take the lead, make decisions, and to be exposed to risk. In our careers, a manager who tells their staff exactly what to do and how to do is limiting their growth. The solution is to allow team members to take ownership, solve problems, make decisions, and inevitably make mistakes. This can be similar in our personal lives as well. If you find yourself micromanaging yourself, your family, and others it’s time loosen up a bit. This doesn’t mean we have to start ourselves or others off with huge responsibilities and huge risk. You don’t have to go from 1 to 10 in short order. You can and should start small. Ultimately, if you don’t have to think about what you’re doing, you’re not growing. If everything is laid out for you 100% and all you have to do is do it (on autopilot) your pot is too small. Sometimes having a tight or micromanaging grip on life removes the need to think and be present. When that happens, you’re too confined.
3. Do Something that Scares You
We all have things that scare us. Meeting new people is often scary for me. If I never step outside of my comfort and meet new people I’m not growing. My pot is too confining. When we learn to move forward despite the fear we’re naturally expanding our pots. I decided to buy an investment home a few years ago. I was so scared I could hardly breathe. However, at the end of the experience I was so proud of myself for accomplishing a goal despite being afraid and despite having no clue what I was doing initially. It was such a confidence booster. If I could buy and rehab a house I could do anything!
4. Learn Something New
Like I taught myself about real estate investing you too can make it a point to learn something new in order to expand your pot. It doesn’t have to be anything in particular. It can be learning to play the piano or to code a website. You can rotate assignments at the office to shake things up for your team members or encourage your family to learn a new activity. Trying a new way to do a routine task can be extremely valuable. I often find that one new thing learned leads to new curiosities which ultimately lead to new learnings.
These are my four steps for expanding your pot or helping to expand the pot of others. Do you have other ideas on how to grow yourself?
