Direction of Growth

If I had to ask you to take your finger and point to a direction when you read the word growth, what direction would you point to?

I would guess that many of you reading this would point upward.

There are many things that grow in that direction.

Children, trees, the concept of age in general, etc.

Some of you, may point outward. Thinking of growth as something that can expand.

The number of books on your shelf, a balloon, lanes on a highway, etc.

I want to talk about a different direction of growth that I've been thinking about lately.

Growing downward.

***

If you've ever done a lower-body strength exercise, then you may have felt what I'm about to say.

Imagine doing a squat while carrying some kind of weight.

When you get to the point in that movement where you need to generate force—after you've actually lowered your body down into the squatting position—you have two mental options.

Option 1 is the obvious option—generate force by pushing the weight back up using your legs.

Option 2 is the less obvious option—generate force by pushing the ground away from you, also using your legs.

Do you see how they are different?

If I had to draw an arrow depicting where you would be focusing your energy in terms of generating force, in option 1 it would start at the floor and point upward, and in option 2 it would start at the floor and point downward.

If you've never done this before, which would you guess feels more powerful?

I can tell you from experience, that option 2—generating force by pushing the floor away from you—feels far more powerful than option 1. It's not even close.

To actually feel what I am talking about, take a break from reading this sentence and try a basic squat.

Now, try the same thing, except this time try to visualize your feet being screwed into the ground while also having blocks of concrete extending from your heels deep into the earth.

I know that sounds super strange, but you'll have to trust me. You need to feel as deeply rooted into the ground as possible, in order to feel the difference.

Regardless of whether you tried this or not, to actually get better at generating this kind of force, you have to learn to grow downward.

You have to get better at visualizing your feet being deeply rooted into the ground, so that you can feel more connected to the ground as you explode away from it.

***

When I take this out of the realm of exercise, it directly translates to the idea of depth.

Growing by deepening our knowledge of a given thing.

Growing by deepening our ability of a fundamental skill.

There's a quote from Bruce Lee that I absolutely love. The gender-neutral version is this, "I fear not the person who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the person who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

If exercise has taught me anything, it's that depth is powerful. Literally.

If you're in a season in life where growth is on your mind, consider pointing it downward and seeing what happens.