“Just like an unpruned rosebush, your endeavors will be merely average without pruning.”

A thought by Henry Cloud, from his book, Necessary Endings (p. 18).

HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

We don’t need to do any pruning in our lives if we accept our endeavors as being average. But do we want to be average?  By the way, what does it mean to be average?

Henry says, “And here is the key point: by average, I don’t mean on an absolute basis. There is nothing wrong with being in the middle of the bell curve in many aspects of life, as that may be what success is for that person or at least that dimension of life. I have friends who own small businesses of less than average size in their industry or by other measurements, yet they have a fully maximized, thriving enterprise for what it is and is supposed to be. Hundreds of employees and tens of millions of dollars is a great rose of a business and a life for what their talents, dreams, and opportunities consist of. Not the size of Microsoft perhaps, but they have achieved fullness of maturity for their company and/or life. Alive and thriving to the max. But without pruning, they would not have gotten there. And by the same token, if Microsoft or a much bigger company with tens of billions in revenues is not pruning, just because they are large, they can still be ‘average’ relative to their own potential. They can truly be lagging behind where they should be.”

He goes on, “So the question is more about this: are you only achieving average results in relation to where you or your business or team is supposed to be? In other words, given your abilities, resources, opportunities, etc., are you reaching your full potential, or are you drifting toward a middle that is lower than where you should be if you were getting the most from who you are and what you have? When pruning is not happening, average or worse will occur.

“Too often, as bad as the results of not pruning can be, we still persist in avoiding it because it involves fear, pain, and conflict. Yet in order to succeed, we must prune. How does that make you feel? Conflicted? Welcome to the inner turmoil of necessary endings.”

But we do want to grow, we do want to reach our full potential, don’t we? 

Yes, yes!