Make Sure to Plant Seeds, Not Weeds

Everything we are now is a result of our past overriding thoughts and actions. Where we are living, how much we are earning, who our friends are, the foods we are usually eating, the places we are usually going. All of these things are a result of our past overriding thoughts and actions.

Every action has a reaction. A consequence. By doing such and such, such and such will happen. By taking such and such action, the reaction will be such and such. Every day we make decisions that will affect our tomorrow, no matter how big or small the effect is. By going to the gym today, you’ll be more likely to go tomorrow. Every day we plant new seeds. These seeds either grow day-by-day, through nurturing or become malnourished and die. Similarly every day we plant weeds too. These weeds also either grow day-by-day or die. Seeds feed us, but weeds starve us.

Plant seeds not weeds.

Keep the most important thing, the most important thing

What is the most important thing in your life? Whatever it is, do you do enough of it? Do you spend enough time on it? Do you help that seed to grow by nurturing it or do you let it die a slow death? Or do you plant weeds alongside your primary seed and allow your garden to become unorganised, taking your focus away from the seed and onto the weeds?

Whatever the most important thing in our lives is, we must ensure it stays the most important thing. As we all know there are more distractions now than ever. Keeping the most important thing, the most important thing can be difficult. This is why it’s so important to plant seeds and not weeds.

Weeds take our focus away from the seeds. By spending more time cutting weeds, we spend less time nourishing the seeds. How to avoid this? Cut off weeds at the root.

Cut It Off At The Root

For example one of my most important seeds is to become proficient in Mandarin. In order to grow this seed into a tree and become proficient I must plant other seeds to aid me. One seed could be sources of learning (podcasts, books). Another seed could be time (when I will learn to best suit me and how much time I spend learning).

However as well as planting seeds I must avoid planting weeds. One weed I could plant is using my phone when learning – a major distraction. Another weed is putting the studying off until a later time. Which will not allow me to absorb the information as well as I would have during my prime learning time.

By planting seeds and eliminating weeds we can grow a beautiful garden that nourishes us when we nourish it. By saving time and not planting weeds, we don’t have to pick out the weeds and instead can focus on growing our seeds.

However I, as well as you I’m sure will plant weeds. It’s difficult not to. However the key is to cut them off at the root. For example when studying Mandarin I use my phone – I have an app that teaches me. This can be distracting because it’s very tempting to use other apps – taking my focus away from my learning app. In order to combat this I put my phone down when listening to the podcast, so I am completely immersed in what I am learning. There are no distractions then. But when the podcast is over and the speaking exercise begins, I pick my phone up and speak the dialogue accordingly.

By cutting the weed off at the root we can eliminate it before it grows into something that starves us and becomes really difficult to remove.

Act fast. Plant seeds, not weeds.

Thanks for reading.

Tony.