I am dedicating year of 2021 to a year of self-journey, a year of looking inward to understand myself better and to grow. This is part 1 of the series.

As I am spending a lot of time at home, I have invested more time into decorating my apartment by getting houseplants. I am now a proud plant parent to one peace lily, one baby monstera, one baby calathea, one golden pothos, one snake plant, one blue Hyacinth, and six baby succulents. Since I got most of them (except for snake plant) a couple of weeks ago, I’ve developed a new routine – every day after waking up, the first thing I do is to pay them a visit by the window sills and observe their growth and the soil moisture. I also check on them when I am on calls, when I look out of the windows, when I pace back and forth in the living room thinking through ideas, etc. I often wonder, ‘Did the stem grow by a tiny bit? Is this leaf new? Did the color of the petal become more vibrant? Did I provide it enough water?’ It has become so ingrained in my daily routine because I am eager to let the plants grow and to reap the benefit and excitement of fully grown plants.

When I was looking through old pictures of the snake plant, it dawned on me that it takes time for growth to happen. Over one and half years’ time, my snake plant gets much taller and grows new bulb when I provided it consistent watering. The same principle applies to personal growth. I need to be patient with myself and let growth happen gradually. A lot of things I am interested in pursuing do not happen overnight, such as developing a good reading habit to read 20 books a year, running a faster half marathon race, making wiser personal investment decisions, becoming a better product manager at work and a better writer, etc. What I need to focus on is to put in the work, to not bang my head against the wall if I slack off once in a while (just like no big deal if I forget to water the plant one time), and to trust that in a couple of years I will see the positive changes in myself just like in my snake plant.