As a landscape business owner, I have spent years working with plants and trees, studying their growth patterns, and learning how to optimize their health and beauty. However, I have come to realize that pruning is not just a crucial practice for trees and plants, but it is also a valuable lesson in leadership and life in general.
Pruning is an essential task for maintaining the health and beauty of a garden, but it is much more than just randomly trimming branches. It involves a long-term vision, cutting back unhealthy or unproductive branches, and then even cutting back healthy portions to for the long-term goal.
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Long-Term Vision
Just as our landscape technicians need to have a clear vision of what they want the plant to look like, a leader needs to have a clear picture of what they want long-term from their life. Having a long-term vision means knowing where you want to be in 3,5,or 10 years and working towards that goal with every cut. This involves making intentional decisions about what you need to do to get there, including what commitments to prioritize and what to let go of.
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Pruning Unhealthy Branches
Pruning unhealthy branches is crucial for the growth and health of any plant. Similarly, in life, we need to remove unhealthy commitments that drain our energy and resources, preventing us from reaching our long-term vision. It can be hard to let go of things that are familiar, comfortable, or enjoyable, but we must prioritize our long-term goals and take the necessary steps to achieve them.
In my past, this has involved pruning habits, hobbies, and even certain friend groups. The good news is that the clearer the long-term vision you have of where you want to go, the more these choices become obvious roadblocks standing in your way.
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Pruning the Healthy Branches
Sometimes, the hardest part isn’t creating the vision or pruning the unhealthy branches away - but pruning healthy branches seems counter-intuitive. Sometimes, we even have good commitments that are not aligned with our long-term vision. We must recognize that it's okay to let go of these commitments and activities, even if they are not harmful or negative.
Jim Collins says that “Good is the enemy of great.” What he means by that is when your calendar is filled with “good” things, there will be no room for greatness. Pruning out healthy branches that won't lead to your vision is not a no forever; but it is a no for now. For any worthy long-term goal, we will need to prioritize our time and energy on what's essential and let go of the things that don't take us where we need to go.
In Conclusion
The goal of pruning is not to leave the tree as-is; it is to create a better future. Pruning allows us to prioritize our energy and resources into fewer overall branches, leading to an improved future that mirrors our long-term vision. Having a long-term vision, pruning unhealthy branches, and pruning out healthy branches that won't lead to your vision are essential steps in creating a better future. Remember, just as pruning a plant is necessary for its growth and health, pruning in life is crucial for our personal and professional growth.