Change can show up without warning. Growth is always a choice.

​I'd like to have a dollar for every time change has slapped me upside my head in life. If I had those dollars, one change I'd immediately be able to make is to go from worker to retiree.

Now a dollar for every time I've grown from those changes? Well that might not be as lucrative. Because I haven't always chosen to grow from those slaps to the back of the head.

Every change is an invitation to grow. Every. One.

Steven Furtick says one thing that stands in our way of growth is CONFLICTED IDENTITIES. He says, "that's when you're not used to doing the new way of doing things enough, so you return to what you knew because what is new is costing you."

And THAT actually slapped me upside the head.

One change I've battled the last couple of years is divorce. What that costs me most is time with my boys. After my scheduled time with them, I drop them off - watch them slowly disappear into the house - and then I drive away. And cost - cost hits me hard.

And I can find myself drifting to wondering if I should have ever left the life I knew.

That's not because what I knew would be any healthier for anyone today than it was then. It's only because of the cost of growing. And when we choose to grow, when we choose to leave behind what we've known to become who we truly are. There is a cost.

We all battle that, I think. We yearn for change and for authentic becoming in life. It's the cost of post-change growth that scares us to death. It's what often gets us stuck in change - stuck in the slap to the back of the head - stuck in the old self.

It happens in our relationships.

Our jobs - maybe we change jobs to grow but that new job is costing us.

Maybe we quit drinking to become a healthier version of us, but that means feeling the pains and struggles alcohol used to numb.

Maybe it's a new nutrition or fitness plan. We hear who we truly are inviting us into growth, but that change often leaves us longing for the comfort of what we knew.

Change is a wake up call. Sometimes we set the alarm for it, sometimes it just wakes us from a dead sleep without warning. But change is ALWAYS asking, are you ready to grow?

Change is always going to show up.

Growth, well you need to go meet that.

Just know, it's going to cost you. Growth will have you looking back at what you knew and try to make more appealing all the reasons you left what you knew behind. Growth will try to convince you the cost isn't worth the change.

Becoming who we truly are - that's not free. It does come with challenge and sacrifice. And take it from someone who wakes up every day feeling a cost - but feeling ever closer to becoming who I truly am - it is worth it.

Growth is a choice. It can be a hard one. But often, in the end, not nearly as hard as what we knew.