#071 - Growth will come
14 Mar 2023 · 3 min
Shelley Hitz talks about patience in creative work. She bought a string-of-pearls plant in January 2022 that struggled for months before suddenly thriving, and uses it as a metaphor for how growth in writing and marketing compounds over time through small, consistent efforts.
Chapters
Hey, friends, this is Shelly Hitz, the owner and founder of ChristianBookAcademy.com and I just wanted to remind you today that growth will come whether you're working on writing your book, publishing it, or marketing. It takes time, takes effort. It takes following the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit and doing it in the strength of the Lord. And I was reminded of, of how growth comes over time when I was looking at one of my plants today. It's a string of pearls plant. So it looks like little peas all on this, like, string. And honestly, when I first got it, I thought it was going to die. I had just bought a really small one so that it was cheaper, you know, because if you buy a big string of pearls, it is expensive, expensive. But I just bought a small little one and thought, okay, I'll just wait and see it, you know, grow over time. But it just was not doing well at first. And one of the things that I've learned over time is sometimes succulents do well if you bottom water them. So a lot of times I will water it. I'll put it into a little pan of water, and that way it's like getting the water from the bottom up. But I'm not sure if it's that or what happened or if it's just the patience over time. But it is growing and it is thriving. And I was looking it up. I. I keep a journal in the Day One app. Right now I'm just using the free version, but it's kind of fun because I don't really post much on social media anymore. And so it's a way for me to kind of keep track of the things that I do and all of that. And so I was able to look up and see when I got this plant, and it was in January of 2022. So it's been a little over a year. And it's growing, it's thriving. But if I would have made predictions, if I would have forced it, if I would have tried to make it happen over a year ago, I would. It would just been frustrating. And I think sometimes what happens to me and I, I'm sure for some of you is we can just get so focused on what we can see right now. And then you see like what one new email subscriber or one sale or one this, one that, and it just feels like this is not working. This is a waste of time. Why am I doing this? Let me just go do something else. Have you ever thought those things? I think we all have at times. And yet, if we will just give it time. It's what I talk about all the time. It's the compound effect, and this is just another way of saying it, that if you keep doing the little things consistently over time, it will yield too much and you will grow. You will see the growth over time. So, friends, keep going. The growth will come. And remember, remember, we can't force anything. We have to just ask the Lord, surrender to him and ask him to bring his blessing and his favor in his timing. All right, I will talk to you in the next episode.