Growth Is Hard
Growth is hard.
The habits themselves usually aren't.
The hard part is practicing them consistently.
Every day there are a hundred things competing for your attention.
Your phone.
Your inbox.
Your responsibilities.
Your entertainment.
Your fatigue.
Your comfort.
Every one of them is pulling you somewhere, and very few of them are pulling you toward the person you want to become.
That's why growth requires intentionality.
You don't accidentally become disciplined.
You don't accidentally become healthy.
You don't accidentally deepen your faith, strengthen your marriage, or become a better leader.
You become those things because you keep choosing them when something else is asking for your attention.
And that's just on the good days.
Then life gets hard.
You get discouraged.
You lose momentum.
You get busy.
Someone gets sick.
Work becomes overwhelming.
You experience loss, disappointment, or failure.
When those moments come, external motivation disappears almost overnight.
The goal that once excited you doesn't carry the same weight.
The excitement fades.
The rewards feel distant.
The finish line becomes blurry.
That's why what you want to achieve can't be your deepest motivation.
If your only reason for showing up is to lose 20 pounds, write a book, or hit a revenue target, eventually you'll run into a season where that won't be enough.
For me, the most sustainable motivation is identity.
Who do I want to become?
When the goal loses its appeal, that question still matters.
I still want to become someone who keeps his commitments.
I still want to become someone who honors God with his life.
I still want to become someone who leads by example.
I still want to become someone my family and community can depend on.
The habit is no longer about checking a box. It's about becoming that person.
That's what gives discipline staying power.
Growth isn't about chasing an achievement.
It's about refusing to drift.
It's about making thousands of small decisions that align with the life you say you want.
And that's hard.
But it's worth it.
Long after the excitement of a goal fades, you'll still be living with the person your daily choices created. 💯
10 Minutes a Day
What would happen if you devoted just 10 minutes a day to one thing for the next 365 days?
Most people dismiss the idea because it feels too small to matter.
I think that’s exactly why it’s so powerful.
The first 300 reps are the hardest.
At first you’re excited.
Then you’re frustrated because the results aren’t coming fast enough.
Then life gets busy and you start missing days.
Eventually you settle into a rhythm, but even then it’s easy to wonder if those 10 minutes are actually doing anything.
That’s why so many people quit.
Incremental change is hard to see.
But it’s sustainable year after year.
I love thinking about the first 300 reps. Most people never make it through that phase. They quit before the habit has a chance to shape their identity.
Now think about all the things you could invest 10 minutes a day into:
● Planning your day
● Reading a book
● Learning a language
● Stretching
● Journaling
● Practicing gratitude
● Calling a friend or family member
● Organizing your finances
● Memorizing Scripture
● Reflecting on your day
None of those seem life changing in isolation.
But do them for 365 days, and you may not recognize the person you’ve become.
Take planning your day as an example.
At first, it doesn’t seem like much. You write down your priorities, organize your calendar, and decide what matters most.
But after a while, something starts to change.
Your thinking changes.
You stop reacting to every notification and interruption. You begin looking ahead instead of living in constant catch up mode. You naturally ask yourself, “What’s most important right now?”
Then your talking changes.
You start telling people, “I can’t make that meeting because I’m already committed.” You become clearer when you communicate priorities. You stop saying, “I was too busy,” and start saying, “I can’t prioritize that right now.”
Eventually, your actions change.
You follow through more often. You procrastinate less. You spend more time on meaningful work and less time putting out fires. You become someone who executes instead of someone who simply intends to.
Nothing crazy happened in those 10 minutes.
But 365 days later, you’re making different decisions because you’re thinking differently.
The biggest change isn’t usually in what you know or what you can do.
It’s in how you think.
Then how you talk.
Then how you take action.
The pattern repeats itself over and over.
Change your thinking.
Change your talking.
Change your actions.
There are a lot of factors involved in growth, and no formula guarantees transformation.
But I’ve become convinced of this:
Small investments made consistently over long periods of time have the power to reshape a person’s life.
The challenge is that the payoff is delayed.
You don’t feel different after 10 reps.
You probably won’t feel different after 100 reps.
That’s why the first 300 reps matter so much.
Most people stop because they mistake slow progress for no progress.
But if you stick with it, one day you’ll wake up and realize you didn’t just spend 10 minutes planning your day.
You became the kind of person who plans with intentionality, communicates with clarity, and acts with purpose.
Don’t underestimate 10 minutes.
A habit that only takes 10 minutes a day can quietly reshape the way you think, the way you talk, and the way you live.
So let me leave you with one question:
If you committed just 10 minutes a day for the next 365 days, what habit would you choose?
Why I Obsess Over Consistency
I obsess over consistency.
I think some people assume it’s because I love streaks or want to show how disciplined I am, but that’s the last thing on my mind.
I obsess over consistency because I know hard days are coming.
When life is going well, almost anyone can stay on track. It’s easy to work out when you’re motivated. It’s easy to spend time with God when life is peaceful. It’s easy to lead well when everything is clicking.
The real test comes when everything falls apart.
Those are the days that reveal what you’ve actually built.
But we need to recognize that it’s not just hard days we’re fighting against.
It’s distractions.
They’re everywhere.
Even on your best days, there are countless things competing for your attention. Before long, you can drift from the person you said you wanted to become without even realizing it.
I think most people underestimate this.
They assume they’ll naturally stay on course, but they won’t.
Without intentionality, drift is the default.
I’ve seen it happen in other people, and I’ve seen it in myself.
When I stop being intentional, my rhythms don’t stay the same. They slowly disappear. Left alone, healthy habits drift.
That’s why I fight so hard to protect them.
And when I say “fight,” I don’t mean something dramatic.
Most days, the fight is simply showing up when you don’t feel like it.
The consistency I build today helps me show up better tomorrow.
It doesn’t make painful seasons painless.
It doesn’t remove grief, stress, disappointment, or uncertainty.
But it gives me something to stand on when everything around me feels unstable.
I also think we’ve misunderstood consistency.
We treat it like a success metric, like we’re just trying to accomplish a task.
But consistency is bigger than that.
Too many people are consistent for poor reasons. They’re chasing a feeling, recognition, a result, or a finish line. Those motivations fade.
The strongest motivation for consistency is becoming.
I’m not fighting for a streak.
I’m fighting for who I’m becoming.
If your goal is simply to accomplish something, you’ll probably quit once you accomplish it or when the excitement wears off.
But if your goal is to become a certain kind of person, the work never really ends.
You start to realize that your habits can’t depend on your emotions and your priorities can’t change with every circumstance.
You stop asking, “How do I feel today?” and start asking, “Who do I want to be today?”
That’s a completely different way to live.
The goal isn’t to be consistent for 30 days or even 90 days.
The goal is to become the kind of person who values consistency for the rest of their life.
So here’s a question worth reflecting on:
If someone tracked your life for the next 90 days, would your daily rhythms match the person you say you want to become?
Fight for your consistency.
Not to become successful, but to shape your character.
More hard days are coming.
And when they do, you’ll be grateful you fought for consistency. 💯
More Than Habits
Grow or Die is a lot about doing.
Set a priority.
Build the habit.
Complete the challenge.
Hit the goal.
I genuinely love that.
But I've learned something over the years:
If you focus only on doing, eventually you'll quit.
The vision of Grow or Die is healthy, sustainable growth for every leader.
I care about this more than most people realize.
I've watched people with incredible potential slowly drift away from the person they wanted to become.
I've watched people become someone they never intended to become.
The longer I live, the more convinced I become that sustainable growth is built on who you're becoming, not just what you're doing.
That's why I care so much about helping people think in decades, not days.
Thinking that way is difficult.
Honestly, it's inconvenient.
It forces you to think beyond what you feel today, what you want today, and what is easiest today.
I ask myself 3 questions every day.
Who am I?
Who am I becoming?
Who do I want to be?
Some people think it’s overkill.
Here's a common response I get:
"You're doing too much, just live your life."
But that's exactly the problem.
If I just live my life, life will take me somewhere.
The question is where.
Nobody drifts toward becoming a better leader.
Nobody accidentally builds character.
Nobody wakes up twenty years later and discovers they became the person they always hoped to be.
Growth is intentional.
And it never stops being intentional.
Years ago, I realized how shallow many of my thoughts, interactions, and actions were.
I wasn't becoming the leader I wanted to be.
I wasn't showing up with the intentionality, awareness, and consistency I thought I had.
That realization bothered me.
Because I knew if I kept living that way, I would eventually become someone I never intended to become.
So I started getting intentional.
I became more intentional about what I thought about.
More intentional about the conversations I had.
More intentional about the actions I took every day.
I knew the type of man and leader I wanted to become.
And I knew that person would never appear by accident.
I had to become him one decision at a time.
The doing mattered.
But the being came first.
To be honest, the habits were never the goal.
The person I was becoming was the goal.
So yes, I still ask myself those questions every day.
Who am I?
Who am I becoming?
Who do I want to be?
Those questions remind me what matters.
They remind me where I'm headed.
They give direction to my habits when I don't feel motivated.
Some days I don't feel like doing the work.
But when I know who I want to be, the decision becomes much clearer.
I've been building habits intentionally for over a decade.
One thing I've learned is that you never graduate from intentionality.
People act like once you've been consistent long enough, you can put growth on autopilot.
I don't believe that.
I've seen how quickly drift can happen.
A decade of intentional growth can start unraveling faster than most people realize.
That's why I keep coming back to those questions.
Growth is not just about doing the stuff.
It's about becoming the person.
Yes, the priorities matter.
The habits matter.
The challenges matter.
The goals matter.
But all of those things should be pointing somewhere.
They should be shaping someone.
And that someone is YOU.
If you want to grow for the rest of your life, you need more than a system.
You need a vision for who you want to be.
When you know who you want to become, growth becomes more than a chore.
It becomes a commitment.
This isn't an overnight thing.
It's something you choose to commit to.
And then you keep making that choice over and over again.
That's what I've tried to do and help others do as well.
And it's why I still ask myself:
Who am I?
Who am I becoming?
Who do I want to be? 💯
5,000 reps
I get really fired up thinking about what it would look like to take a habit to 5,000 reps.
At 80% consistency, that would take over 17 years.
I think most people underestimate what can happen in their life if they stay committed to the right habits for that long.
I started intentionally reflecting in 2016.
Looking back now, the impact it has had on my life is hard to even explain. It changed my awareness, my decision making, the way I lead, and the way I see myself.
I also broke my on and off cycle with working out in 2016 and started working out consistently.
Almost 10 years later, I’m in the best shape of my life.
I started reading my Bible every day in 2019.
It’s hard to put into words how much my love for God has grown and how much my life has changed because of it.
That’s why I care so much about consistency.
Eventually the habit stops feeling like something you’re trying to do, and it starts becoming part of who you are.
5,000 reps change the way you think.
The way you talk.
The way you take action.
This is the type of culture I want around me.
People committed to growing for the rest of their lives.
Because after enough reps, you’re not even the same person anymore.
Decades, not days. 💯
Grow for the Rest of Your Life?
This is something I think about every day.
Honestly, I feel like this should be a normal way to live, but it’s not.
Adding value to yourself and others every day should be normal.
Growing in the way you think, talk, and take action should be normal.
But most people don’t live like that.
Most people treat growth like a phase.
But what happens when you’re in one of the lowest seasons of your life? Do you stop growing then?
Growth is broken up into three areas.
The way you think.
The way you talk and interact with others.
The way you take action.
That’s it.
All I’m really saying is be intentional about making progress in those three areas over time.
Through the priorities you commit to, the habits you repeat, the challenges you embrace, and the goals you pursue over time.
That’s what growth actually looks like.
Growth is supposed to intertwine with your life.
It’s not supposed to sit outside of it.
It’s not a season.
It’s your life.
As life changes, your growth changes too.
You reevaluate.
You slow down.
You speed up.
You rebuild.
You adapt.
But you don’t stop.
That shouldn’t even be an option.
I think a lot of people have convinced themselves that growth is only necessary when things are falling apart or they’re really motivated.
I completely disagree.
Growth is what helps keep things from falling apart.
I’ve seen too many people have incredible starts only to slowly drift over time.
A lot of talent and potential. Then 10 or 15 years later their life looks completely different than everyone expected.
Because they stopped growing.
Nobody drifts into a meaningful life by accident.
Nobody accidentally becomes wise.
Nobody accidentally becomes disciplined.
Nobody accidentally becomes healthy relationally, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally over decades.
You build it little by little every day.
Who do you want to become?
Do you honestly think you’re just going to magically arrive there one day?
Do you think one good season can sustain you for the next 20 years?
It’s not.
The people I respect most are usually not the most talented people. They’re the people who never stopped growing.
They stayed teachable.
They stayed intentional.
They kept growing through every season of life.
That’s the type of person I want to become.
Not someone who grows for a moment.
Someone who grows for the rest of their life. 💯
Stop Forcing a Season You’re Not In
Most people try to live in one season forever.
That’s why growth becomes frustrating.
Growth has seasons.
Ignoring them has consequences.
The problem is most people either:
refuse to accept the season they’re in
fail to prepare for the next one
or force themselves into a season they haven’t earned yet
And when you do that long enough, your growth becomes unstable.
Restore
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is step back.
A lot of driven people struggle with this season because they confuse rest with weakness. So instead of recovering intentionally, they push harder with less energy, less clarity, and less purpose.
That works for a little while, then everything starts breaking.
Your focus drops.
Your discipline fades.
Your emotions get louder.
Your relationships suffer.
Your work becomes reactive.
You can’t optimize a system that’s exhausted.
This season matters because if you skip restoration, every future season gets weaker.
Explore
This is the season where you test things.
You try new rhythms.
New habits.
New environments.
New systems.
New ways of thinking.
Most people want certainty too early.
They want the perfect routine before they’ve learned themselves.
They want clarity without experimentation.
That’s not how growth works.
Exploration helps you figure out:
what actually works for you
what drains you
what produces results
what aligns with your values
and what needs to go
The mistake people make here is staying in exploration forever.
Constantly changing.
Constantly restarting.
Constantly consuming new ideas without committing to anything long enough to see results.
Exploration is valuable, but eventually you have to choose.
Maintain
This is the season most people underestimate.
Because it’s not flashy.
Showing up.
Repeating what works.
Building stability over time.
A lot of people sabotage this season because they get bored.
They mistake consistency for stagnation.
So they blow up systems that were actually working because they became addicted to novelty instead of committed to growth.
Maintenance is where trust is built.
Identity is reinforced.
Momentum compounds.
Most of your life is built in this season.
Optimize
This is where refinement happens.
You cut what’s unnecessary.
You simplify.
You tighten systems.
You increase intentionality.
Optimization is not doing more.
It’s doing less with greater precision.
But this season only works if the foundation underneath it is real.
A lot of people try to optimize chaos.
They buy advanced tools before building basic discipline.
They obsess over efficiency while lacking consistency.
They want elite output with unstable habits.
That’s why forcing a season hurts you.
You cannot optimize what you never maintained.
You cannot maintain what you never explored.
And eventually you will have to restore if you ignored your limits long enough.
Why We Force Seasons
Because we compare.
We see someone optimizing and think we should be there too.
So we skip restoration.
We rush exploration.
We fake maintenance.
We imitate optimization.
Some people need to stop grinding and recover.
Some need to stop overthinking and experiment.
Some need to stop experimenting and commit.
Some need to stop adding and refine.
Wisdom is knowing the difference.
Prepare for the Next Season
Every season should prepare you for the next one.
Restore so you have energy to explore.
Explore so you know what to maintain.
Maintain so you have something worth optimizing.
Optimize so you can scale without collapsing.
The goal is not to stay in one season forever.
The goal is to recognize where you are, embrace it fully, and move through it with intention.
Forced growth looks impressive for a moment.
Sustainable growth lasts for decades. 💯
Follower Questions vs. Leader Questions
One of the fastest ways to understand where someone is in their growth journey is by listening to the questions they ask.
Questions reveal mindset.
Some questions create ownership, growth, and responsibility.
Others create blame, passivity, entitlement, and ego.
Before reading these, avoid trying to immediately label yourself as a “leader” or a “follower.” That misses the point.
Healthy leaders still ask unhealthy questions sometimes.
Healthy followers do too.
This is not about status.
It is about awareness.
We need healthy leaders.
We also need healthy followers.
Healthy leadership and healthy followers both require the same thing:
humility, ownership, responsibility, and a willingness to grow.
The goal is not to impress yourself with what category you fit into.
The goal is to recognize the questions shaping your decisions every day.
Unhealthy Follower Questions (Comfort, Entitlement, Blame)
These questions usually avoid responsibility, growth, or ownership.
1. What’s in it for me?
Focuses only on personal benefit instead of shared growth or mission.
2. Why should I have to do that?
Treats responsibility as burden instead of opportunity.
3. What’s the bare minimum?
Searches for the lowest effort path instead of excellence.
4. Why are they getting opportunities over me?
Shifts focus to comparison instead of ownership.
5. Can someone else handle it?
Avoids discomfort, initiative, and accountability.
6. Why should I care?
Reveals disengagement before action even starts.
7. Who’s to blame?
Protects ego instead of taking responsibility.
Healthy Follower Questions (Growth, Ownership, Contribution)
These questions create growth, humility, and intentionality.
1. Am I passionate about what I’m stepping into?
Clarifies alignment before commitment.
2. What can I learn here?
Keeps you teachable instead of defensive.
3. How can I contribute value?
Moves you from consumer to contributor.
4. Where do I need to improve?
Builds self-awareness and growth focus.
5. What responsibility can I take?
Turns observation into ownership.
6. Am I coachable right now?
Exposes pride in real time.
7. Who am I becoming through this?
Keeps identity focused on transformation, not just results.
Unhealthy Leader Questions (Ego, Control, Insecurity)
These questions often come from pride, fear, selfish ambition, or the need to protect image.
1. How can I stay in control?
Leads from fear instead of trust.
2. How do I appear successful?
Prioritizes image over impact.
3. How can I get credit for this?
Turns leadership into self-promotion.
4. Why can’t people just do what I say?
Avoids development and communication.
5. How can I protect my position?
Operates from insecurity instead of stewardship.
6. How can I stay needed?
Creates dependence instead of empowerment.
7. Who can I blame for this?
Protects reputation instead of owning outcomes.
Healthy Leader Questions (Service, Responsibility, Development)
These questions create trust, responsibility, and long-term impact.
1. How can I best serve this person?
Leadership starts with service, not authority.
2. How can I develop the people around me?
Focuses on multiplication, not control.
3. What responsibility do I need to own?
Healthy leaders absorb accountability first.
4. What example am I setting?
Behavior communicates louder than instruction.
5. What conversations am I avoiding?
Avoidance erodes trust and clarity.
6. How can I empower others?
Leadership is measured by independence created, not dependence maintained.
7. Who is becoming stronger because I led them?
The real output of leadership is people growth.
Take a second and read these honestly.
A lot of people never change because they never change the questions they ask.
Your questions reveal what you focus on:
comfort, growth, control, approval, or purpose.
The questions you consistently ask yourself will eventually shape your mindset, your habits, and your leadership.
Make sure you’re asking good ones. 💯
Your Habits Don’t Care How You Feel
Most people think growth shows up on their best days.
It doesn’t.
It shows up on the days you’re tired.
The days you’re distracted.
The days you don’t care.
The days you want to skip everything.
Hard days don’t build new habits.
They expose the ones you’ve already built.
On tough days, you don’t suddenly become more disciplined.
You default.
You fall back on what you’ve been doing consistently—
not what you say you want to do.
No one wants to admit it, but when things get hard, their habits disappear.
After tracking growth data for the past three years, one pattern is clear:
Most people on a tough day drop to about 40%.
They skip the workout.
They ignore their priorities.
They avoid the conversation they need to have.
They stop tracking altogether.
They’re not lazy. They just lack structure.
Nothing is anchored, so everything becomes optional.
If you’ve built real habits, you don’t operate at 100%. That’s not realistic.
But you don’t fall to 40% either.
You stay around 75–95%.
You still log.
You still move.
You still execute something that matters.
You’re not deciding in the moment. You already decided.
Inside Grow or Die, we track this every day, and the patterns are obvious.
Inconsistent people disappear.
Somewhat consistent people pick and choose.
Consistent people still show up.
Not perfectly, but predictably in the things that matter.
A lot of people will read this and say, “I’ve been consistent.”
Based on what?
Memory?
Feeling?
A few good weeks?
If you’re not tracking it, you don’t know.
And if you don’t know, you’re guessing.
That’s the problem.
It’s hard to see your blind spots without data.
You remember the days you showed up.
You forget the days you didn’t.
So your version of consistency gets inflated over time.
That’s why tracking matters.
And it’s not about being perfect. Once it’s in front of you, you have to deal with it.
At a certain point, it’s no longer about motivation.
It’s about identity backed by reps.
When you’ve logged something 100+ times, skipping it doesn’t feel neutral anymore.
It feels off.
You don’t need to hype yourself up.
You just follow through.
If your habits disappear on hard days, they’re not habits.
They’re preferences.
And if your growth only shows up when you feel good,
you’re not building anything that lasts.
Hard days don’t need to feel good.
They just need to look consistent.
Over time, consistency on your worst days
is what builds a life you can actually rely on. 💯
The Impact People Pleasing Has on Your Growth
For as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled with pleasing people.
For a long time, I didn’t think much of it. I told myself it wasn’t a big deal. If anything, I thought it only affected me.
That’s not true.
People pleasing doesn’t just hurt you. It changes how you show up, how you make decisions, and how people experience you.
Almost a decade ago, I read something that forced me to take this seriously. It was about self-awareness, and it introduced a simple matrix with two dimensions: internal self awareness and external self awareness.
Four types:
Aware
Introspector
Pleaser
Seeker
The one that stuck with me was the Pleaser.
High external awareness. Low internal awareness.
The description:
“They can be so focused on appearing a certain way to others that they overlook what matters to them. Over time, they make choices that are not in service of their own success and fulfillment.”
That hit me then.
It hits harder now.
Because self awareness is not something you figure out once and move on. It is something you fight for. And the more responsibility you take on, the more it gets tested.
Lately, I have felt that tension again. It is harder to stay aware. Easier to drift. Easier to default to what people expect instead of what is actually right.
If you are honest, you have probably felt that too.
Maybe you lean Pleaser like me.
Maybe you are an Introspector, clear on yourself but not open to feedback.
Maybe you are a Seeker, still trying to figure it all out.
Either way, this is not neutral.
Where you fall in this matrix directly impacts how you grow.
How This Quietly Slows Your Growth
This is not just about personality. It shows up in your decisions.
You start making the wrong calls.
You climb a success ladder on the wrong wall.
You stall without realizing it.
You weaken trust over time.
This is why it matters.
Self-awareness is a direction setting tool.
If it is off, everything downstream is off.
So What Do You Do About It?
This is where most people stay stuck.
They recognize it but do not change anything.
Here is how to actually work on it based on where you fall:
Pleaser (High External, Low Internal)
You are led by perception more than conviction.
Before you say yes to anything, ask:
“If no one knew I did this, would I still do it?”
At the end of each week, write down three decisions you made for approval instead of alignment.
Then train it daily. Say no to one thing a day for the next two weeks. Even small things. Build the muscle.
Introspector (High Internal, Low External)
You trust your own perspective too much.
Pick one or two people and ask them weekly:
“Where am I off right now?”
Then stop defending it.
If you hear the same feedback twice, it is real. Adjust.
Seeker (Low Internal, Low External)
You do not have clarity yet, and that is okay. But you cannot stay here.
Stop waiting to figure yourself out.
Build clarity through action.
Learn something. Apply it the same day.
At the end of each week, ask:
“What did I do this week that shows who I am becoming?”
Aware (High Internal, High External)
This is where you want to be, but it does not stay without effort.
At the end of each day, ask:
What did I do well?
Where was I off?
What do I adjust tomorrow?
Then zoom out quarterly and reset your direction.
If nothing is stretching you, your awareness will fade.
Now Prove It 💯
Self awareness is not about knowing yourself once.
It is about adjusting yourself daily.
If your decisions stay the same, so will your life.