Sandpoint Chamber: Are you growing or dying?

Entering into the final few weeks of the calendar year, it is a good time to reflect on how you are doing in your journey of personal and professional development. It is important to be a lifelong learner. When you develop a feeling that you are an expert, it can cause you to stop the learning process. Or if you rely too heavily on your experience and base your decision making on a “been there, done that” attitude, you are missing out on new and innovative ideas. 

Curiosity is the key to creativity and to continuing to grow and develop. When any living thing stops growing, it starts to age, revert, regress, decay, and eventually die. I don’t know about you, but the thought of that happening to my mind is enough to push me into taking action to continue to grow! 

To continue to grow and develop, you need to commit to a few things that may feel uncomfortable at first. 

Get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. When you get into your comfort zone, you tend to get complacent. When you get complacent in your personal life, you fail to reach your full potential. When companies get complacent in their business, they get left behind and their innovative competitors take the lead. 

Get over yourself. As children, we didn’t worry about what others thought about us. We didn’t worry that our questions would make us look foolish. We just asked the questions. We didn’t worry if we would look dumb by doing something new. We just did it. When you start feeling and acting as if you know it all, you stop the learning process. You need to get over your ego. 

Get out of your box. The box may represent your home, office or routine. Whatever it is in your life that has walls around it (physically or figuratively), is holding you back. Take a different route today. What new things do you see? Instead of sitting at your desk, walk around and chat with your co-workers. What are they doing/learning in their lives that’s exciting to them? Attempt to learn something new every day.  

Intuitively, I know I need to do this, but some days I don’t feel like making the effort. Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner says, “You’re more likely to act yourself into a feeling than feel yourself into an action.” So, I do it anyway, whether I “feel” like it or not, because I choose growing over dying, every day.  

The last few weeks of the calendar year are often full of family, friends, parties, and Holiday celebrations. But this is also the time of year to reflect. How did you do on the goals you set at the beginning of the year? Which ones did you achieve? Which ones did you not achieve? What held you back? 

In just a few weeks we will turn the page on a new year. Now is the time to do some dreaming. What goals will you set for yourself personally, professionally, and for your business? You may not have achieved all you had hoped for in 2024, but I can assure you this: you will achieve 100% of the goals you don’t set. So, dream, plan, and prepare for a new and successful year in which you will continue to grow.

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Mickey Quinn is the executive director of the Greater Sandpoint Chamber of Commerce.