Do you ever sit there and think about all that you have given up? It can make you feel downright stupid. To have a dream that you have had put on your heart, to have the courage to actually follow that dream and then to feel like you have nothing to show for it. Matter of fact not only do you have nothing to show for it, but you have people looking at you lost at why you are still even trying. They can’t see your bamboo tree growing, and because of that, they doubt you.
They are reminding you of all the reasons you should give up and all of the reasons that things will not work. You feel each reason like a punch to the gut, it makes you stick, and you feel like you want to throw up, and you want to give up. You can’t shake that feeling or that voice that keeps reminding you to keep going through.
Never Forget The Bamboo Tree
The bamboo tree is like any other plant in the sense that it needs sunshine, fertile soil, and water to grow. It needs these ingredients daily. You miss a day, and there is a good chance that the tree will die. After one year, you see nothing.
Year 2, still nothing!
By the 3rd year, you are sure that you will see something pop up and yet nothing.
By year four you are sweating and wondering what the hell you are even doing or if the work is becoming anything.
By year five the bamboo tree not only grows but it pops up 80 feet in six weeks.
It is not that the bamboo tree is not growing, it is that the bamboo tree understands that to be 80 feet talk you need a ridiculous foundation of roots. The bamboo tree grows underground, but no one else can see that foundation until five years of work.
Remember The Bamboo Tree Everyday
If you feel like you have been working, don’t stop, keep going! Keep laying the foundation. Maybe you cannot see it yet, but something is growing where no eyes. It is underground, and it feels like you are wasting your time and that giving up is the best thing to do.
When we give up early, it is often because we let go of the vision we had for the end. The end is the life that we know we were meant to live. The end is where we wake up every day and we use our gifts to make the lives of others better. In this life we are fulfilled, we are happy and we have everything we need. Our experience is one of purpose, and we could not ask for more.
The other side of the coin is that we keep going back and forth between starting and giving up. We start something, and we don’t see any growth above ground so we quit and start something else. This was my life for the longest time. I developed a new trait called resolve though. I decided that I was not going to stop for one second until I got what I wanted. I’m here to encourage you to give it a try.
You Can Run But You Can’t Hide Like the Bamboo Tree
Remind your dreams that they can’t get away from you even if they tried. Just like the bamboo tree. The ingredients are the same every time. You need a seed, water, sunlight, soil, and persistence. Those are the ingredients, and if you show up with that every day, the bamboo tree cannot run from you and keep growing underground. It eventually needs to show its face.
The thing you are working on will do the same thing. If you bring the right ingredients to the table. There is nothing of the high magnitude that can be accomplished without first having persistence. You have to know what you want and be persistent in bringing it to life. There is no other path, no trick, short cuts or fast passes.
What You Can Do When You Can’t See Your Bamboo Tree
The bible says you reap what you sow. If you been sowing and you have not reaped that means that you have not been persistent enough and that you need to wait. Waiting can be hard though, so what should you do in the meantime? We want to leave you with some tangible strategies that you can put into play to make sure that you hang in there.
Make Sure You Are Working Your Bamboo Tree Daily
Sometimes we can convince ourselves that we are working much harder than we are. We tell the world that we are grinding and doing all of these things when we are not doing a damn thing.
To succeed in life, you have to be able to evaluate yourself accurately. That means that if you only gave a B effort, you know that and you don’t feel like you gave an A effort. Sometimes you need to look in the mirror and admit that you could have done way more. If you think you sow every day but you do not, you will NEVER have success.
Work Smarter on Your Bamboo Tree
Once you have learned the art of working hard, it is time to take it to another level and work smart. Working hard means just doing more and putting in time where you are concentrated. Working smart means looking for the best way. For examples, you can spend hours cutting down a tree or spend an hour sharpening the ax instead.
The same is true for you. How much time do you spend sharpening your ax every day? If your ax is dull everything you do is going to take more time. When you are sharpening your ax, you understand that learning is just as important as the grind. You have to grind to get work done, but you have to learn to be at your best.
Think Daily On What Your Bamboo Tree Could Be
As we stated before, it is hard to quit when you are continually thinking of the life you want to live. We know for myself that I have little interest in many paths outside of Kho Health. It is not because they are below me, but only Kho Health will bring me to the life I want to live in the end.
The vision will invigorate you. I cannot tell you how many times my alarm goes off at 3:10 AM and I do not want to get up. I usually do though because my vision makes me hungry. I want my vision to come alive more than I want to sleep. I want it that bad, and because of that, I read over it daily.
Read Other Succes Stories and Notice Their Bamboo Tree
Reading of the success of others is essential. It can’t be the Hollywood version because that type of success is always overnight. The kind of success I am talking about is the true story of what people had to give up to be successful. You read about people like Disney, and it will blow your mind how many times these people fell flat on their face, and yet they kept going. These stories will inspire you to find more inside of yourself.
Increase Your Discipline and Grow Your Bamboo Tree
Use this time to increase your discipline. Become a student of creating better habits. Do things to challenge yourself and make your life as hard as possible. If you make your life hard now then later it will be easy. If you make your life easy now then, later on, it will be hard.
Here Are Some Things You Can Do to Improve Your Discipline
- Wake up earlier
- Take only cold showers
- Make a drastic change to your diet
- Go to bed at the same time daily
- Workout
There are so many more things you can do. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is no way in the world that you cannot succeed when you have the willpower to change any habit at will. What this does is help you to master the one thing in this world that you can control, and that is you. You cannot control much else.
I Get It… You have Been Working At This
You have been working on this, and the best piece of advice that I have for you is to keep working. Keep showing up and doing more than what you are paid to do. Keep finding ways to be better and to learn as you go. There is no time for self-doubt or self-loathing. Save that for the suckers and the losers. You’re a winner and when you hold on the rest of the world will see just how deep your foundation of roots go.
