This is What it Means to Grow
The Intro
To live is to grow. All that happens from the moment we are born till the day we die is either a form of growth or a means to grow. Lately, I’ve come to realise that the toughest part of growing is sometimes having to not move and just stay still. It’s the point where we painfully live through phases when we feel too small and are uncomfortable because a certain part of us has run its course and it is now time to shed the weight, reinvigorate and make room for new things, if we insist that the journey must continue.
The Theory
Growth is non-linear. It encompasses different stages — some more bearable than the others. Lately, I have learnt so much about how there is a stage of growth that does not involve movement. At this stage, stillness is not necessarily an indicator of stagnation. It is ironic but sometimes, our inability or unwillingness to be up and doing signifies that growth is taking place. However, it is important to understand that in the state of stillness, contentment is the key pointer to growth. If we are not content in that very state of non-movement, unfortunately, stillness may not mean growth. I battled to understand this and I desperately needed to see it play out. For many reasons, I was curious to really know how staying still could mean that I was growing and how I could be content in this state of not moving when all I had been exposed to taught me that I had to constantly be in motion to believe that I was growing. After several attempts to fight the urge, I finally accepted that shaving my hair off was the best way for me to see and understand this theory about growth. So, I did.
The Experiment
I bought into the idea of not using harsh chemicals on my hair much earlier than most people I knew. My hair was great — people loved it and I, even more. Taking care of my hair was one of my favourite ways to get into the world of “self care” and in retrospect, having good hair was one of the many reasons I was able to easily set myself apart as a model. 2020 came and it was the year that taught me how necessary it was to detach the completeness of my identity from my hair because if I didn’t do so, it meant that once I cut my hair, I’d no longer be content with how I looked. As beautiful as all that hair was and despite all the work to maintain it, it got damaged but no one else could see and understand that but me.
As far as everyone else was concerned, because my curls were defined and my texture was sleek, my hair was the “hair goals”. However, these were not the metrics I used to measure growth. While others were impressed, I was frustrated because my roots were messy, porosity was extremely low and large chunks of hair would fall off at the slightest touch due to all the heat and pressure applied on it in previous years. It was weak and in need of a break but I struggled to continue trying to maintain what was already dead. I repeatedly fell deep into the trap of buying more expensive products, switching from hairstyle to hairstyle and treatment to treatment hoping that it was going to get better. There was no more growth — only an illusion of it. If I was going to experience my hair grow again, I needed to make room for that to happen. It’s been 45 days since my haircut, I am now able to wash my hair at least twice everyday and although it’s been impossible for me to have any ‘special’ hairstyles done, I still believe that I’m the most beautiful girl in the world and this is me expressing very lightly, the current level of confidence I feel about myself.
The Analysis
It took only a short while for me to understand why cutting my hair was the best way for me to visualise the whole process of growth. It’s a representation of what usually happens in life as a whole. I’ll explain:
- Starting afresh does not take away the impact of growth from the past: cutting my hair and starting all over does not invalidate the fact that I have great hair. In the same manner, getting rid of the old and creating room for new things does not erase the impact that ‘your’ old has on your progress so far. No knowledge is truly lost, only redirected. It’s never easy to quit the job, make an extreme switch in your career path, let go of friendships that drain you, relocate or leave bad relationships/marriages but neither is spending the rest of your journey trying to revive things that choose to stay dead. It will stifle growth and leave you with just an illusion of it. Dissolution is necessary for growth to continue but remember that ‘your’ old will teach you how to treat ‘your’ new because if nothing else, I now know never to allow tacky hairstylists apply excess heat on my new hair.
- Stillness does not always mean stagnancy: I probably won’t be able to get anything done to my hair in the next 3–6 months because it needs more time to reflect the growth that’s already happening from its roots… and that’s okay. Just like my hair, I need some time to be still and take strategic breaks. Growth is great but it cannot involve constant movement otherwise, it becomes confusing and destructive. A car with no brakes poses threats not just to the driver but those in and around it. Unlearn the things that taught you that in order for you to feel like you are growing, you need to consecutively move from one thing to the other. It’s impossible to always be in motion but at the times when you are still, be happy and content because that’s part of what makes growth so non-linear.
- Growth begins from within: My hair does not start growing from the moment its length is a little more visible. Instead, its next cycle of growth started from the moment the old hair passed through the hairstylist’s scissors. Growth starts from the inside. We have roots to water until they spring up into big, beautiful, fruit-yielding trees. Our outputs alone are never the overall evidence that we have grown and at this point, there might be little to no visibility but there is inner satisfaction. Just like my hair, you may not yet see the offshoots of your progress in the manner that you wish for but there’s already so much growth happening on the inside of you, you are aware of it and it makes you feel so unbelievably good about yourself.
The Conclusion
Growth is not just a state, it is action and this does not always involve moving. Sometimes, it is listening, thinking or even resting. I needed to visualise this for myself. I needed proof that something I was doing was working or was at least going to work. You’d be surprised how much the strands of hair on your head can teach you. I acknowledge that I have grown so much and I will grow even more. It will be a huge disservice to myself if I only begin to recognise my growth when I feel like I am in the most visible state to others. I admit that as much as I desire recognition, I will not make my growth solely dependent on what people have to say about me.
Speaking of growth, I’ve gone from being completely clueless about what to do with my life to growing 2 start-ups within the space of a year. My sister/co-founder have been working hard to scale Frugirls up. Frugirls is a fashion resale platform we started in 2019 and we’re still in the phase of building the community that needs our product. We hope that when we finally launch this product, you are able to connect the dots between where we are now and where we will be by then. In December 2020, I also joined Scrader, a company that I believe is pioneering social commerce in Nigeria as the marketing & growth lead. It’s the 19th of March and approximately 3 months after and I’ve been given an offer to become a co-founder. It’s not a big company and we are yet to raise funds but I recognise the personal growth in this being that I did good enough to be considered fit for such a promotion and my good work will not go unrecognised.
The truth is I don’t know if the things I’m currently doing are the things that will get me to the level of success I aspire to reach but not even my uncertainties can invalidate the impacts that these things will have on my growth. The ultimate proof of this is that I acknowledge the difference between where I am and where I want to be but in this very moment, I am so confident that failure is extinct from my reality and I will not allow the fear of something that does not exist to me, stifle my growth.
