growing out long hair for the first time

Hi, Im a guy and I am growing my hair out long for the first time and I eventually want to donate it to cancer patients through either Locks of Love or Pantene Beautiful Lengths. My goal length is between shoulder blade length and middle of my back :) My hair currently is short around 2 inches long. I was wondering how long would it take to grow it to my shoulders so I can have my first ponytail? and any advice for growing it out or styling it once its long? Im looking forward to the journey :)

Seems like it takes about a yr. for each milestone. Shoulder length, APL- arm pit length, Middle of back, waist. etc.  Of course that depends how fast your hair grows, and if you trim. Good luck!

The hardest part (and slowest part) is going to be where you're at now, before you get it all one length.  Depending on how you want it to look, it may require trimming the longer layers sometimes to get it one length.  If you get it to bsl (mid back) and still want to donate it, like you said, you'd only wind up shoulder length with a blunt cut after that, so that will take about 2 years to get back to mid back from there (depending on trims and maybe  how tall you are - someone around 5 feet tall will get there much faster than someone around 6 feet tall).  It'll grow about 6 inches per year, and you'll get to keep all of that if you take good care of it and don't need to trim off too much.

Paper ur def a huge help and ur more than welcome what do u think of the pic above for my goal?

Thanks I appreciate it. I can imagine that itll feel long once its to this point :) I will def have a decision to make once i get there tho :) I really like the layers in the style above too.