On Planting Seeds

It’s a universal truth that you never reap what you haven’t sown. You have to plant seeds.

But there’s more to sewing than simply planting the seeds. You have to care for that seed to ensure it grows. You have to ensure it gets the water and nutrients it needs to sprout into something more.

Neglected Seeds Don’t Grow Into Anything

There are some people that think that all they need to do is plant more seeds. So they plant a lot of seeds, and they plant seeds all over the place. They believe that the more seeds they plant, the more opportunities they will have to harvest later. So they plant and plant and plant. They’re always planting, never taking time to care for the seeds they’ve already planted. It’s as if they given up on the already planted seeds. But the planted seeds won’t produce anything because they have a been nurtured and cared for.

You need to plant enough seeds to ensure that you have opportunities to harvest later. But you don’t need to plant more seeds than you can care for and nurture into life. This is what dabblers do. They spend a little time on this opportunity and move onto the next. They’re never consistent enough to care for one seed, or some number of seeds, until they start to produce rewards. They’re excited when they plant that seed, but they lose enthusiasm when it doesn’t immediately spring into something beneficial.

Nurture Opportunities

Consistency matters. There is a power in focus.

Stop and take a look at the seeds you’ve already planted. Are you investing your time and energy in nurturing those seeds to ensure that they grow up to bear fruit? Or are you ignoring those seeds and moving on, planting others only to ignore those seeds to?

Questions

What seeds are you neglecting?

What opportunities or goals do you have that, in order to bring them to life, require a more consistent application of your time and effort?

What seeds have you planted that a little more effort and attention might sprout up to be something big?

How do you have to change something to be able to better manage the opportunities that you want to develop?