Conformity Will Be the Death of Your Growth

When I graduated from university, I had no idea what I was going to do.

I acquired a good grade and was excited about what the future held. I assumed I would follow the path everyone I knew went down: graduate, get a job, begin a career. Sadly, it didn’t go that way.

I ended up in a spiraling pit of misery — endlessly applying for jobs I didn’t want, without knowing what I wanted. I never got further than the first interview and quickly became dejected.

It took me a while to realize that I had only been following one path and made it impossible to grow as a person.

This article is about achieving maximum growth in all walks of life and how I did it by accepting the two paths a person can take.

Sometimes, You Need to Take the Dirt Road

I first came across this concept in Matthew McConaughey’s interview with Tim Ferriss. In it, McConaughey outlines what he means:

“Say someone’s an agoraphobic. Their dirt road is getting out. Someone who’s a bit of a hermit or socially uncomfortable, their dirt road is being an extrovert. Go out, engage, practice it. So it was a flip on that, that sometimes the road less taken can be a dirt road, yes, many times the path less taken.”

Life is never one clean straight of the autobahn. More often than not, you must take a dirt road to get where you want to go.

For me, it was writing.

Most of my friends went down the path I mentioned earlier — graduate, get a job, start a career. That wasn’t working for me. I needed a dirt road.

While I am not alone within the writing community, none of my friends do anything remotely similar to me. I’m out on my dirt road.

Yours looks different to everyone else’s, but then so is your destination.

This is vital for personal growth. By taking action to face your fears, you learn that the dirt road is the key to positively changing as a person. As McConaughey says:

“Go out, engage in it, practice it.”

I was afraid to post my work on the internet for fear of what everyone would think about me. Now, I encourage everyone to take the dirt road, as a more unconventional path is perhaps the only way they’ll reach success.

Other Times, Take the Autobahn

For those that don’t know, the autobahn is a German motorway without a speed limit. You can take your car to the maximum, and because everyone else is doing the same, crash rates are remarkably low.

Fresh out of university, I wasn’t on any sort of road. I was parked in the layby area, waiting for someone to pick me up. I knew I enjoyed writing (especially pieces I like) but stopped short of exploring it as a potential career because I didn’t think it was “the right thing to do.”

I should’ve got into my car and driven away.

The autobahn itself is an unusual road. The ability to go as fast as you want without restrictions is rare — just as people rarely follow their passions.

After months of not really trying with anything, I decided to join my autobahn. I slowly got accustomed to the lack of restrictions writing gave me, and now I am at top speed.

If you like the look of something, whether it be writing, collecting obscure coins, graphic design, or whatever, then go for it.

Put your foot to the floor and see what happens.

You Need Autobahns and Dirt Roads to Maximize Growth

If I had never taken the dirt road and began putting my work on the internet, I would never have been able to join the autobahn. Every day, I am cruising along at full speed, writing article after article.

Even then, however, a dirt road is going to present itself soon. New opportunities are popping up, so I’m going to turn off soon. That is what life is all about.

The twists and turns.

The different speeds.

The journey.

Personally, I would have struggled to find the autobahn if I first had not taken the dirt road. You might be different. You might be cruising through life until you realize that you need to take an alternative path.

Follow me to see more articles like this.

...

Follow