Growing Intentionally

Have you ever tried to grow, or make improvements in certain areas, but you seem to not make any strides? How about feeling frustrated because you have no clue where to even start? I’m sure everyone has felt this way at some point in their life, and that is why I’d like to share my experience with you. Growing intentionally can be hard, especially if you do not have the right habits in place, you’re not in it mentally, or even have a clear vision of what/where you want to grow. I know there can be a lot more that goes into this, so my thought in writing this is not to give you the perfect framework for growing intentionally. However, through my experience, I’d like to share how I was able to grow, and I hope you can take and use what may apply to your life as well.

Let’s start with your mentality. When growing intentionally, you want to make sure that you have the determination and will to do whatever it takes to get better. One thing you can do to build a strong mental state is to set small goals or checkpoints that will help you see success early on in this process and ultimately build confidence to reach the results you’re looking for. Having smaller goals helps because when you have something direct to aim for, you’re more focused, and can easily hold yourself accountable. For instance, during the beginning of my sales career, I wanted to be great at my job, however, I never set a clear goal or vision for myself of what being great at my job looked like. Therefore, I would do my job without knowing what was contributing to my failure or success. When speaking with my manager I was always a little frustrated, because I had a hard time pinpointing what I could be doing better. Once I started to set smaller goals for myself, such as setting a certain amount of appointments, running a certain number of meetings, or closing a certain amount of revenue each day, week and month, it became easier to see what things I needed to work on to move the needle forward. As well, I gained something much more important — the confidence that I can succeed in this role.

When reflecting on my process I found my goals were a lot of smaller objectives instead of one larger objective. This made it a lot easier to focus on certain areas of my process and by doing so I was able to identify strengths & weaknesses I had. By identifying your strengths and weaknesses you can give yourself a clearer vision on what or where you’d like to intentionally grow the most. As well, you can learn how making improvements in specific areas would complement your strengths. When growing up I was always a quiet and shy kid. I would keep to myself and from what I can mainly remember only talk to people when they spoke to me first. As I got older, I noticed that I was a hard worker and was willing to push myself, but I also noticed that I was very much an introvert. Now there’s nothing wrong with being an introvert, I just knew for what I wanted to do with my life I’d need to be okay with being outside my comfort zone. By identifying this element of myself, I was able to grow by getting jobs that forced me to interact with people regularly. Doing so opened up a lot of doors for me which eventually brought me to choose sales as my major which in turn brought me to Sprout Social. Seeing myself grow like this built even more confidence in myself and the mental discipline I needed to continue on this path. I could see how much of an impact it made on me from the relationships I built throughout my career and personal life. This made me positive everything was doing was helping me grow in the right direction.

Once you have the mental discipline to continue pushing and you’ve identified where you’d like to improve, the last component is to be willing to make mistakes, test things out but most importantly, staying committed to your goal. Growing intentionally is not a race, it’s a marathon, and one that will last your whole life. There will always be areas you want to improve upon whether they’re small, large, personal, or professional. Be comfortable knowing that you may not get there overnight and that your mistakes are valuable lessons to help you find the right path to growth. When I was ramping up in my sales career there were deals, I lost because I missed certain steps in the discovery/qualifying part of the call, objections that I did not uncover, and buy-in that I never got from the client. Although this frustrated me, it showed me that I needed to learn from my mistakes, and by learning from them, I was able to identify more areas where I could improve and grow within my role. Through this process, I became one of the top reps in my director group and ultimately reached my goal of consistently hitting quota. If I did not break down my goal of being great at my job and what it took to get to that point, I would have probably given up or lost my job back then. Testing different methods on what I thought worked, what I’ve heard worked, and adding new creative ideas to test around my weaknesses gave me the experience & knowledge to know what will help me grow in the right direction.

Looking back at my experience, I know there are probably a few other areas that contributed to my success. Family, friends, and colleagues that helped & supported me throughout my career. However, there are three key points that I feel made a direct impact on my success:

By implementing these 3 steps, I eventually reached the answer I was looking for, although it did not come overnight. Growing intentionally can be a hard task for us because we have so much to do and focus on daily. However, that is where the mental discipline and your immediate goal come into play to hold you accountable. Through repeating this process, I was able to propel myself forward and grow in ways that I once did not believe possible. Again, this is not the perfect framework, but if you’re looking to grow in any area of your personal life or professional career, I believe these steps are a great starting point and can help anyone move in the right direction!

Click to read about the rest of our Black@ Sprout Social Leadership Principles.

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