When I thought back on the most growth-full year of my life, one thing kept popping to mind on why it was the most successful of them all. Accountability. The year my friend and I came up with the idea for our Growth Book was the year we did everything we could to be the best accountability partner each other could ask for. So, after thinking it over, I've narrowed down a few great qualities you should be looking for in yours to set you up for the greatest success:

1. Someone with the same values - this one is probably a no brainer for most of you, but it’s easier to keep each other on track spiritually if you have someone that shares your beliefs and convictions. Encouraging each other towards Christ is the goal, and for that you need someone who is on the same page.  I found that for the foundational areas like faith and our core convictions it's so important to be in step with your accountability partner but the personal interests type things aren't as important to match up on....

When I was younger, my mom would take me on errands with her. Sometimes I’d wait in the car and sometimes I’d walk around stores with her. She’d often take much longer than I liked, and I’d sigh loudly in the hopes that she would get the hint and finish up quicker. I’d grit my teeth in frustration. “Don’t you know you’re wasting my time?” I’d want to say to her.

As I got older, I found that I often had similar encounters with God. He doesn’t make me wait in physical places, but He makes my soul wait. He lets my heart wrestle over things it wants and protest against what it believes should belong to me. 

God keeps me on His time, and at times it is oh so frustrating.

Even though I have made it through past waiting periods and found unbelievable goodness on the other side, I still often sigh loudly, grit my teeth, and ask God, “Don’t you know you’re wasting my time?”

But, as I must constantly remind myself, God does not waste our time. He is the Creator of time, and a creator does not waste....

Growth Roots Co. guest posted on the amazing www.club31women.com so please head on over to check it out! And while you're there check out some of their other great blog posts! So much great, encouraging stuff!

I love a blank page. The possibilities are endless and there is freedom to hear God anew and respond to that in any way He's leading. It's not jumbled with mind dumps, and ramblings about how you're dryer stopped working (oh thats just me? Shoot). So, with my crispy chicken taco..I mean crisp, new, shiny, blank page, (man I'm hungry), I sometimes tend to circle back to these 6 journaling topics that have helped me tremendously and I pray they do for you too!

1. Lies vs. Truth - Make a list of all the lies you're believing. The negative thoughts you are telling yourself, the ways you see you're not measuring up, not as good as so and so, not worthy, that you're stuck etc. And then, search the scriptures for the truth about those lies and write them next to it. Replacing the lies with truth. This one is something I unintentionally end up doing once a month simply because I constantly find myself needing to renew my mind. The enemy is always trying to sneak into my thought life g...

Warning: This is long but SO worth it. I promise! If you're planning on grabbing the new Growth Book, then this post is for you!  We have some new sections rolling out in these journals and we would love to tell you what their all about.

A little backstory

But, to start, for those of you that may not know, Growth Book was dreamt up as a resource and tool to help my friend and I get back on track in our walk and growth with the Lord. We were stagnant, unmotivated, and stuck in a pretty deep rut. So, we decided enough was enough and set out on a journey to create a product that - paired with accountability - would keep us motivated, inspired, and passionate about our journey with God. It’s a journal that's meant to come alongside you as you read the bible, take notes on podcasts, pray/fellowship with others, and is meant to be your documentation of where God has taken you this year. As you go through it just know that we are declaring growth, freedom, increase, blessings, abundance, and li...

I've always loved a good statistic on something. I think I like hearing a proven "why" behind something, and it somehow makes me more likely to take things seriously. So, when I finished a whole year with my first ever Growth Book I was thinking back on all the reasons why it worked so well for me, and I wanted the facts. So, being the professional statistician that I am (not) I wanted to research a bit. And I loved what I found. It turns out the act of writing something down has a big impact. So without further ado, here are the 4  reasons why writing things by hand is amazing for you! 

1. It increases your chances of achieving your goals

I’m sure we have all set some goals in life...right? Well, in a ton of studies I found, it was crazy to see the impact that actually writing goals down by hand has on attaining them.  According to one study, the researcher said that you become 42% more likely to achieve your goals and dreams, simply by writing them down on a regular basis, and you...

I love me a good journal. Let’s be real. I have like 6,  unused, various sized, different colored journals sitting in my office right now. I love sitting down with a good cup of tea and writing about an event or memory. But, why journal? Does it benefit anyone other than keeping a story alive? I believe it does. And here are the top 9 reasons why journaling in your Growth Book actually benefits you in more ways than just giving you a reason to drink tea. Ready? 

1. It improves your memory and recall - This one is super exciting because according to a crazy amount of studies, physically writing things down helps you recall things longer, and grasp concepts more fully than if you were to have typed them up, or not written the down at all. The act of you summarizing what you read or heard deepens your understanding and retention of the topic. How cool is that! 

2. It builds your faith - Writing in the “God’s Faithfulness” section is a constant, ongoing list of God’s activity...

I don’t know if you have ever had a week, a month, or even a year where you literally began and finished feeling like you didn’t grow, change, or get better in any way, shape, or form. I can say that I have. And unfortunately, I had a whole year of that once. I entered that year one person and I left...even worse than I started. That’s the devil in a nutshell for yah. Keeping you stuck, hooked on lies, and unmotivated to move forward.

Well, it was near the end of that stagnant year that I met a friend who felt the-exact-same-way, and so we finally decided to do something about it. I’ll spare you the lengthy explanation I am bound to turn this into and in short we came up with what we coined as “Growth Book”.

The journal we created to hold our goals and notes on EVERY-SINGLE-THING we were learning about, reading, hearing, and doing that year. The journal we used to take notes on sermons, books we read, podcasts we listened to, prayers we made, and the spot we went back to daily to reflect...