The Upward Trend of Growth

Apr 11

JONNY ROMAN

This is a chart of Amazon’s growth over the past 5 years.

What do you notice when you look at this chart? A few things jump out at me. First is that there are a lot of peaks and valleys. A lot of ups and downs. And some moments were more down than others, while some were more up than others. Another things is the overall trend of the stock has been upward. If you were to draw a straight line from the starting point to the end point, it would be angled upward, showing that even though there have been ups and downs along the way, growth has been consistent.

Now imagine that this were a chart representing your emotional experience of your life.

Would you be satisfied with this as your emotional reality? In many ways, this is a representation of my life. There have been lots of ups and plenty of downs, and in fact, earlier on, I started at a much lower place. My “value” was much lower (at least in my own eyes).

And while I still go up and down, my overall trajectory has been upwards.

I have continued to grow, I have continued to learn, I have continued to improve my relationship with myself and my emotions. And because I understand that my chart looks pretty similar to Amazon’s, it is a lot easier to handle the dips when they show up, because I know I am on an upward trend. I know that overall, I’m coming out on top, because I’m still growing. And I’m going to have dips. I’ve never seen a stock chart that is one smooth upward line. They all have this jagged path (and not all of them trend upward). They all go up and they go down from time to time. They all have dips and they all have jumps up.

Just like us.

It’s important to remember that this doesn’t just happen. The upward trend happens because Amazon focused on growth, they focused on improving, they were constantly searching for ways to get better, provide more value, become more efficient, hone their skills, and grow. They are intentional about it. And we need to be as well.

Growth requires work and intention and commitment, and also more than a dash of self-compassion, grace, understanding, self-forgiveness, and love.

With that, you can weather the dips more quickly and easily, so they don’t reverse trend and start heading down, but rather you can pick yourself back up and keep going up.

Love,