PRUNING YOURSELF TO PROSPER

One of the earliest developmental training sessions I’d conducted for my team members revolved around comparing a forest to a garden and drawing inferences on how they relate to our opportunity for growth – either with proper grooming and care within a structured framework (a garden) or without any oversight or direction in an unstructured expanse of raw potential (a forest). While growth occurs in both scenarios, the former setup involves careful investment from a gardener to plant, nurture, prune, protect and gather fruits. In this article, I’d like to reflect particularly on the importance of pruning and its impact on our character growth as a human being, which in turn benefits our personal and professional prosperity.

Let’s start with defining the word ‘pruning’. In the context of gardening, to prune means to trim (a tree, shrub, or bush) by cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems, especially to encourage growth. However, this concept applies very well to our lives too. Just as plants develop dead or overgrown branches and stems that can hinder their growth and decrease their yield of fruit, our character requires pruning to trim unwanted thought patterns, beliefs and unhealthy emotions that can stunt our personal growth and in turn, the resulting effectiveness and meaningfulness of our actions. As children growing into young adults, we’ve all encountered gardeners around us in the form of parents, teachers or even a supervisor or mentor at work.

However, with our progression into adulthood, it is important that we shift our focus from needing someone to prune our character, to taking responsibility for our own character refinement. To aid us with this objective, comes our ability to use a powerful tool called ‘introspection’ that can help us recognize where we need to be pruned so we can bring out the best from within us. The dictionary defines introspection as the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes. Hidden in our thoughts and emotions, if we look consciously and thoroughly enough, there are times we might find unfavourable things like ego, jealousy, strife, exaggeration, gossip, covetousness, superiority/inferiority complex, condescending behaviour, pride and selfishness, etc. lurking within, which in turn influence the way we think and act in our relationships – be it at work or at home.

Let’s take an example. Imagine a scenario where you would like to be recognized as one of the top performers in your organization. However, instead of being recognized for your efforts as per your expectation, every time, you hear about your peer and his laurels. As a result, your unmet expectation starts turning you sour towards your peer who’s being recognized while creating an urge to get the organization to take note of your efforts. Now, think of some of the ways in which your thoughts and emotions could manifest into your actions, specific to this scenario – every time you talk to this particular peer, you could rather try and find fault or discredit him so you don’t feel like you’re towing the line with everyone else who’s recognizing him instead of you; or, to establish your need for recognition, you could end up trying to take credit for the collective efforts of individuals or try to sound one up over the others in the hope the organization will recognize you. Sounds familiar?

Now try introspecting the thoughts and emotions involved in this scenario that could result in the above behaviours.  Could it be that your pride and ego (and maybe a tinge of professional jealousy) have influenced your thoughts and emotions to lose objectivity such that instead of being able to see your peer for who he is and appreciate the noteworthy results, you’ve started comparing yourself to this person and see him as a threat to your desire for recognition? Though both of you are running your own races, unrelated to each other, your mind and emotions paint a different picture that drives you to compete for attention... This is but one example that demonstrates how easily we can allow our thoughts and emotions to derail us if we are not careful to examine them periodically and prune what’s dysfunctional and detrimental to our growth.  

While the idea of pruning sounds noble and greatly beneficial, what can pull the plug however, is the fact that pruning is a painful process. Inherent to human nature, no one likes to feel uncomfortable or be displaced from his/her comfort zone. Yet, that is the first thing pruning does. It opens our consciousness to what’s counterproductive within us and exposes us to new learnings that can make us uncomfortable or challenge us to redefine our comfort zone, because it advocates self-awareness, acceptance and change. Just as cutting through an object physically requires effort and endurance, pruning your mind and emotions requires mental strength and discipline to go through the process habitually. So, pruning your character might not be a piece of cake, nevertheless, it is a worthwhile pursuit. What makes it so meaningful to pursue you ask? I’d like to offer three benefits that I can attest to from my life’s experience:

1.     Pruning removes what’s ineffective within us

Negative thoughts and emotions have a way of embedding their viciousness into our belief systems and attitudes resulting in the stunting of our perception, outlook and actions. These are like the dead or overgrown stems and branches, that won’t contribute to the growth of the plant. So, when we prune our character and weed out negative and dysfunctional traits, we remove the triggers that cause us to resort to poor behaviour and to stay stuck in mediocrity while we aspire for success and growth.

2.     Pruning fosters new growth

When a branch or stem dies, growth no longer occurs in that area. When we want to grow and develop ourselves further to succeed, the dead stems and branches in our character result in the same outcome – no characteristic growth. By allowing ourselves to weed out what’s unfavourable in us, we make room to continue maturing our character through the examinations and observations of our thoughts and emotions, giving room to accept who we are and to change ourselves in line with who we want to be.

3.     Pruning helps with self-actualization

For those of us who’ve studied Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we know that sitting at the top of his pyramid, is the alluring call to ‘self-actualization’. Simply put, it means achieving one’s full potential. For those of us in the pursuit of developing ourselves so we can bring out the best from within us, pruning, thus becomes a necessary means to this end. Pruning our character teaches us to remove what’s ineffective within us and establish a healthy self-image focused on becoming the most that we can be by encouraging new growth.

So if you want to don the hat of success but have never had the time or intention to purposefully stop and think about where you’re headed with your life or who you want to be, I urge you to consider ‘pruning yourself to prosper.’ Make time starting today, to introspect your life habitually so you can grow to be the best version of you. Just as a well-pruned plant grows and flourishes with abundant fruit, you will see the fruit of your character development, influence the lives of those around you and yield positive outcomes in your interactions with them – both professionally and personally.

Start by identifying your means to recognize where you need to be pruned. For some, the awareness stems from reading and educating their mind and for some others religion and/or spirituality helps. Find your means today if you haven’t already done so. To conclude, I leave you with the thoughts of Henri J. M. Nouwen, “Grateful people learn to celebrate even amid life's hard and harrowing memories because they know that pruning is no mere punishment, but preparation.” You've been given the gift of life to make a positive difference in this world. So, I encourage you to settle for nothing less than the best version of you so you can prosper in everything that you set your heart to!