Self Improvement | It All Started With Tomatoes
Self improvement and personal growth are wide categories to define. Here is their definition in Wikipedia.
Seeking understanding in one or more of these:
- improving self-awareness
- developing identity
- developingtalents
- improving potential
- building employability
- enhancing lifestyle
- realizing dreams
- enhancing creativity
- executing personal development plans
And my plan for personal development started with tomatoes.
After my first baby was born, I stumbled on the path of personal growth. I was so filled with love for my beautiful child, that I wanted to plant tomatoes. No, I had to plant tomatoes.
My motherly love was overflowing and needed an additional outlet. What better way than to help something else grow. After all, how hard could it be?
So I bought a half dozen tomato plants with the baby on my hip, dug 6 holes in the grass and lovingly planted and watered them. aaahhh! Happiness and joy!
We tended the garden together, baby and I, every day and nurtured those tomato babies. All of a sudden, I noticed the grass was creeping close to the stems of the plants. “Oh that’s why gardeners create a bed before planting.” It only took me 2 hours to dig out all the grass around my plants.
But they were growing so strong and healthy, so I didn’t mind.
Then one day, I noticed parts of some leaves were missing. Something was eating my beloved tomatoes!. As I peered down into my plants, I saw this caterpillar… with a horn on it’s head. Eeeewww! So I hustled down to the hardware store to find out what to do.
Apparently, they are tomato horn-worms. And since I’m an organic gardener, the treatment was to hand pick. Eeeewww!
We were living on the bay and a light bulb went off! I would pick them off and flick them into the bay! Yay!
But what’s this got to do with personal development, you ask? I didn’t notice it at the time, but I was renewing my identity as a mom. I was improving my self-awareness, self-knowledge , developing my talents and expanding my creativity.
See, personal growth doesn’t have to be this rocky, difficult path. It’s as simple as planting a garden.
P.S. The tomatoes were delicious and I now consider myself an incredible gardener. Check out my library of self improvement books.
I love this book on creativity for personal growth, Creative Awakenings.