Is it Time to Change Your Soil?

Coaching Column by Pavla...

I had become the victim of major spring cleaning fever this year and one of the tasks I took on was to replace the soil in the planters on my balcony. It had been five or six years since this was done last and, in the last two years, I could really notice that anything planted in that soil just wasn’t doing too well. I got some help with delivering four large heavy bags of soil and a bunch of pretty little impatiens plants, set aside one long afternoon and got to work.

Eeeek. I knew the soil was bad but I didn’t realize quite how bad it was until I started taking it out of the planters. Dust was flying everywhere. I was sniffling and sneezing as if my body just decided to get a quick allergy just to make me stop the process. The old soil was light as it had no moisture left in it whatsoever. The new soil, on the other hand, was heavy, full of moisture and simply wonderful to touch and to look at. Where looking at the old soil made me want to turn away and pretend I did not have a balcony, the flowers in the new soil put joy in my heart every time I look at
them.

Don’t we settle for the old soil in so many areas of our lives and then wonder why things are not working out? The “soil” is anything that we put into the environment around us. In relationships, where there is a great tendency to end up with dirty soil when we take our connections for granted, the soil is made up of what we say to people and how we treat them. In our work, the soil is made up of the knowledge and skills we have at any particular point in time. In our health, the soil is made up of the food we put in our bodies and the rest we get or don’t get.

When we buy seeds or pre-grown flowers, we cannot control all of the factors which determine whether we will get full-blown flowers or not. We cannot control whether there will be late frost this year, we cannot control if there will be heavy rains (in Vancouver, we’d better count on those), we cannot control if heavy wind will blow our seedlings away. But we can control enough things to help the process along.

We can improve our chances by picking good timing to plant our seeds. We can educate ourselves on the best type of soil to use, we can use some fertilizer to help the growth, and we can water our seedlings regularly. All of these things, although they cannot ever give a 100% guarantee that the seeds will grow, will greatly improve our chances.

This works the same in our lives. At work, we cannot control the stock market or the market forces which dictate whether there will be a need for our products or services. In relationships, we cannot control whether people will like us or appreciate us for who we are, as we are. In health, even those who take care of their bodies can get ill. However, we improve the chances for our careers and businesses when we keep our skills current, when we market consistently to the right audience, when we practice the skills and knowledge we have gathered. In relationships, we improve our chances of success when we take the time to be positive with others, when we appreciate and recognize the efforts of those around us, and when we are kind and thoughtful. In health, we improve our chances when we choose to eat food that is good for us, when we get enough exercise, enough “self” time and enough sleep and rest. When we do these things, the dust of the old soil is gone and gets replaced with new, nutrient-rich soil.

Ready to do some soil changing, too?

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