290: Understanding Growth: Lessons from a Lemon Tree: Fan Favorite Replay

Hi there. You’re listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m your host, AliceAnne Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in leadership and work-life balance. I work with clients to shift their limiting beliefs, insecurities, and self-doubt. This podcast will be filled with tools and strategies to help high-achieving women like you feel connected, empowered, and in the lead of your life, both personally and professionally. Let’s transform your life starting now. Lead yourself, the rest will follow.

Hi there, leading ladies.

We have been talking about growing a lot. In fact, in my last episode, I shared with you that a mindset that I have is that I’m either winning or learning. And learning is absolutely part of growing. However, growth doesn’t always look like growth.

A Friend Who Felt Her Business Had Lost Momentum

So as I was preparing for today’s podcast, I was reminded of a story that I had shared with my Leading Ladies Facebook group. Back in January, I had a girlfriend that was in town, and I had invited her over. We were sitting in my living room, and she was describing her past year.

You see, her family had made a really big move to a new state. This meant that they had new jobs, kids were going to new schools, making new friends. And it was just big, new, scary, uncertain adjustments for them all. So she had made the decision to really focus on getting her family settled and establishing their life in this new place. She said her business had taken a backseat, and she admitted that she felt her business had lost momentum.

The Little Lemon Tree I Grew From a Seed

I immediately thought of this little lemon tree that I have. I grew this tree from a single lemon seed. You may or may not remember when Whole30 was all the rave, and I found myself doing the Whole30 program. If you’re not familiar with it, look it up. I should have done more research before the podcast. But I was obsessed with Whole30, eating clean, detoxing my body, and I found I was buying lemons, like five-pound bags of lemons each week. And I remember standing there at my kitchen counter and thinking, “Oh my gosh, I’m buying all these lemons. I should have my own lemon tree.”

And if you know me, you know that I do not have a green thumb. I actually have a black thumb. My girlfriends lovingly tell me that I am like hospice for plants, because I transition them to the afterlife with love and care. So needless to say, I got this crazy idea that I would plant some lemon seeds and see what happens, really not expecting much to happen. But there was a seed that really fought for life, and before I knew it, I had this little sprout.

And so here I am, five plus years later, and I have a four-and-a-half-foot lemon tree. So I’m really proud of this lemon tree. I’ve invested a lot in it, and I have nurtured it. And I’m just so proud of myself that it hasn’t died.

When One Side of the Tree Stopped Growing

But last summer, one part of the tree didn’t grow. One side of the tree grew like crazy, but this one side of the tree was actually looking pretty bad. I was afraid that it was sick, or that the tree was even possibly dying. So that entire summer, the one side of the tree did absolutely nothing.

And I couldn’t help but feel a little sad, defeated, really, because knowing my history with plants, I felt like, “Oh, here we are. This plant isn’t going to make it. It stopped growing. It’s not thriving.”

However, after the summer, when it was time to move the tree back inside my home in the early fall, I started noticing these tiny little sprouts on the side that had not been growing. And then, in a matter of a few days, it just shot out again, and suddenly the tree was all evened out. I looked closer, and the trunk of the tree was much thicker and stronger than it had been early in the summer.

And here I thought it wasn’t growing. I had almost given up. I thought that the inevitable was coming and that the tree was done for. But really, it was just strengthening its roots to prepare for a growth spurt.

Growth Isn’t Always Up and Out

So whenever you feel like you’re not growing, remember that sometimes you have to strengthen your roots. You have to strengthen your foundation. Growth isn’t always up and out. Sometimes it’s unseen, and it’s deep.

As I’m reflecting on last week’s episode of having a growth mindset, I want to put emphasis that you can have a growth mindset. You can be curious and adopt the idea that you’re learning something or strengthening your roots, setting your foundation. But be patient with yourself also. Don’t expect growth to happen immediately.

I’m thinking about all of the businesses that have been affected during this pandemic, COVID-19, and many of our businesses have had to adjust or make adaptations. I’ve definitely seen women leaders, all leaders, being very innovative and kind of pivoting their business or adjusting their business in ways that they didn’t think would be possible. And yet, they’ve been able to really change the way they do business and have found great success.

But I’ve also seen businesses that have taken a pause. They have not rushed to reopen their doors. They have not jumped right in. And I want to make sure that we’re recognizing that that’s still a form of growth. Just because you’re not moving forward with your business, just because you’re not hitting those numbers in your revenue goals, just because you’re not swamped with customers. But maybe behind the scenes, you are trying to find innovations or how you’re going to change your business when you do choose to reopen. Or maybe you’re looking at your life and quality of life, and you’re trying to decide what changes need to happen, or if things need to be completely removed from the way you were working prior to the pandemic.

All of that is growth. Growth is understanding where you want to take your journey moving forward. Growth is not always linear. Growth is just forward focused, in that you have choice and you have options in how you want to move and develop your business in the days ahead.

A Client Who Chose a Different Path

I’m currently working with a client that, through this pandemic, has been working from home. She had two small children that she was helping navigate through distance learning. And during this time, she’s really discovered that she doesn’t want to go back to her high-stress, demanding office job in DC, but that she really wants to reevaluate how she wants to move forward.

For a while, she really had this mindset that she was taking a step back or regressing in her life. She felt like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve committed so much to building this career, and now I’m just gonna walk away.” And she was really beating herself up over that.

It was through working with her during this time that we were able to take a hard look at her core values, really look at her priorities, and restructure what quality of life looked like for her and what she wanted for herself and for her family moving forward. Once we got through that, and we were able to establish what her goals really were, you couldn’t help but recognize the amount of growth that she has experienced in the last three months. Just because she was taking a different path and not jumping right back on this fast-moving train, this high-pressure career, just because she wasn’t choosing to get back on that, didn’t mean that she wasn’t growing in her life.

Back to that lemon tree analogy. It was like one side of the tree wasn’t really flourishing, and she looked at it and said, “I think I want to change my focus and really prioritize my family and being closer to home, and not working these long hours, but being here during these important years with my children and doing something else.” And in fact, she found that as she’s looking into different career options, she really was craving more creativity and more of a social type of career, rather than the career that she had in DC. So that was growth.

Don’t Judge a Pause as Failure

However, when we label something as failing, or stepping back, or regressing, or a demotion, or something like that, when we judge it that way, it doesn’t feel like growth.

And so I encourage you to look back at the last 12 weeks, maybe 16 weeks, three or four months. What changes have you made in your life that have allowed you to grow and flourish in other ways? And in what ways do you want to move forward and shift what your focus is, and maybe give more attention or more priority to a different area of your life to balance you out?

Again, back to the lemon tree. Sometimes a pause will allow us to really look at the big picture and recognize what needs more balance in our life. Where do we need to shift our focus? And how can we help other areas of our life flourish and grow?

What the Lemon Tree Represents

So here we are, a year after the time when my lemon tree looked like it wasn’t doing so hot. I actually look at my lemon tree every day. My mom has always been wonderful with plants, and so I’ve asked her, “What do you do? How do you nurture your plants, other than food and water and sunshine?” And she encouraged me to talk to them, to check on them, and to rotate the pot so that it gets exposure on all sides.

I have a deeper appreciation for this little lemon tree, because I feel that it represents so much of what it means to be a woman in leadership. We really can be harsh judgers of ourselves. We can be very critical. We can feel defeated. We can feel like we are not balanced or that we’re not thriving in certain areas. And so I go out and I look at this lemon tree, and I rotate it, and I give it lots of love and water and sunshine and citrus tree food.

I’m really proud of myself. I will admit that it has yet to bear flowers or fruit, but at this point, I’m just so proud of it. And like I said, I really appreciate what it represents. It’s actually doing really, really well. It has sprouted so much. It has so many new branches. It looks healthier and full, and just really thriving.

And back to my friend who sat in my living room just six, seven months ago, telling me that her business had lost momentum. She herself is flourishing. Her business is thriving. She has expanded, and she’s grown new branches, and she’s just shot out there. And I couldn’t be more proud of her and honored to have been part of that growth and to see her really flourish and shine.

And to my client, she is recognizing that she is growing, growing in ways that she didn’t even know were possible. And she’s enjoying the process. Not always enjoying the process, as growth can be hard, but she’s definitely open and allowing herself to explore. She’s adopted that growth mindset, and she’s trying her best to limit judgments and be open to new opportunities to see where things go.

So if you needed to hear this, if you wanted a little reminder, I wanted to share this message with you, and for anyone that doesn’t feel like they’re growing right now. When in doubt, please remember this little lemon tree.

Until next time, take the lead.

Thanks for tuning in for another episode of the Leading Lady podcast. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at www.leadinglady-coaching.com. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe to the show so you don’t miss any future episodes. While you’re there, it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. This will allow me to be able to help other high-achieving women find inspiration, connection, and develop strategies to live and lead with purpose and intention. See you here next week.