5 Tips to Living A Productive Life
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Life has a way of teaching of lessons we will never forget. A lesson that I have taken throughout life with me surrounds farming.
As a child, my father would always have a garden. It wasn’t just any garden. My father took pride in this garden. We lived on little over an acre of land at one point in our lives and about a fourth of the property was my father’s garden. With care, my father would take tremendous efforts to grow his garden. Here are 5 tips I learned from my father’s gardening that will help you to live a fruitful life.
#1 Start Small
The first garden my father started was less than 6x6 yards, which was only 20% or less the size of his final gardens. The point I’m trying to make is START SMALL!
When you start small…
- You are able to make mistakes and learn from them without causing wide scale destruction,
- You are able to test strategies on a small samples before taking strategy to a large sample, and
- You are able to work at a more comfortable speed that will encourage and facilitate better learning,
So many people want to start big, but there are valuable lessons from starting small. Take the opportunity to learn and grow while your waiting for your big break.
#2 Cultivate Your Mind
Every year my father would do his due diligence of preparing the ground. For those who have never farmed or gardened, this is a critical stage to having a productive year with your crops. Before starting his gardens, my dad met a dry and hard ground every year.
Initially my father utilized a wheel hoe, which was a laborious task. Later, he was able to utilize a tiller. No matter the tool or instrument, my father still had to show remarkable discipline and determination to effectively grow his garden.
Life is unpredictable, but it can be predictable. Just about every Monday, we know that many people aren’t thrilled about going back to work after the weekend. It’s just a fact. This is similar to the dry and hard ground my father would have to break up and break down every year. The only difference is you may have to break up this perception about Monday’s everyday.
Why do you need to break up this perception?
When my father was tilling the ground, he was actually breaking up the old and preparing the ground for new opportunities of growth. He broke down the tough, dry, and hard ground to reveal the soft and receptive soil.
Our minds can get tough and hard over time from past experiences. But, we need to find ourselves cultivating our minds to make room for new growth. It’s called, CHANGE!
Sometimes we have to change who we hang around, the music we listen to, the shows we watch on TV, etc. All these things are part of cultivating our minds. Without discipline and determination, your cultivating can be disorganized causing chaos and negativity to enter your life.
After tilling the ground, my father would tediously plow straight rows. It seemed as if he was overworking, but he was sticking to the preparation process. As my my mind grew, I understood what was going on. If he there would have been a crooked row, it would have cost him a significant amount of crop. If we aren’t disciplined and determined when cultivating our lives, we can cost ourselves various opportunities of growth. It is our job to make room for opportunities to enter our lives. And it all depends on how we cultivate our minds.
#3 Plant Positive Seeds
At this point, my father started planting the seed. He didn’t just throw the seed any kind of way on the ground. With careful attention, he took a specific kind of seed and placed a specific amount of seed in a specific spot in the row on a specific row. It’s about the SPECIFIC’S!
Everyday, you have to be specific about what you permit you eyes, ears, and the rest of your mind and body experience.
There is a skill to planting positive seed. Your blessings need room to grow, so don’t put them so close that one chokes out the other. Also, be careful of wasting your seed. My father made sure the seed fell into the row and not on the dry and hard walk way.
#4 Nourish Your Seed
Dad was careful about feeding his garden. He watered the garden, but not excessively. He also protected it from various sources of danger such as the scorching heat, animals, etc.
Although your seed may be in the right place, there will still be a need for you to supervise or manage your own dreams, blessings, and opportunities life has to offer. Without the proper nourishment our dreams, goals, and aspirations die.
#5 Enjoy The Fruit Of Your Labor
Finally, it’s time to enjoy your hard work.
I remember the smell and taste of the fresh fruit and vegetables. Every piece of food out of the garden had a distinct taste, which I still to this day can recall.
When you work hard and do things the right way, everything in your life will feel and look better. It’s at this step, you will be able to look back on your life and appreciate the process of starting small, cultivating your mind, planting positive seeds, and nourishing your seed.
Action: Don’t live an unproductive life. Follow these 5 steps and discover windows of opportunities open for you.
Question(s): What are your dreams, goals, and/or aspirations, which would benefit from these 5 tips? (Please leave a comment below.)
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