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Self-improvement and personal growth are no foreign concepts. Online it’s a magical solution to any problem. A prescription without an analysis. Look right and one expert is preaching about which habits are healthy in the opinion of all-mighty. Look left and another virtuoso simplifies complex career development into an easily consumable tactic of networking that worked for one specimen in one particular context.
I have become averse to the concept of self-growth. I don’t know about you, but hearing another youngster bragging about the enlightening journey of self-improvement makes me cringe. There is just something pretentious about that talk.
Those conversations usually turn into a monologue. A young man imagines himself as a hero on this video game-style journey where he overcomes everyday challenges.And being troubled by big or small things is totally normal. What is concerning is how those conversations have the addition of “you should…”in them that somehow transforms a generous sharing of the experience into an audience-building exercise. Yet another young Internet guru-to-be has seen life from the screen of his laptop.
The thought chain made me question my apathy.
Personal growth is an important value to me and, in my opinion, a necessary agent of development. Philosophically speaking, by default, we live so we learn and grow. It is a powerful attitude and reflection. However, what the Internet culture and automation processes have done to it doesn’t do justice. For whatever reason, we have connected two detached ideas together: growth and improvement.
We are obsessed with perfecting ourselves and becoming the best possible versions of ourselves. We seek advancement to improve our social circle, open new career opportunities, receive a promotion, start a company, be a better friend, be more resilient to stress, become more empathetic, and more, and more, and many many more.
We are captivated by ways of generating never-ending improvements.
With the abundance of self-help books, growth hacks, motivational videos and tips on becoming a better version of ourselves there is no hiding from this haunting perfect me. As my friend has recently evangelized to me: “Life will force you to grow. By necessity, you will embark on self-growth.”
And I dare say that he envisioned me setting on the path of enhancing myself.
The thing, though, I did just that two years ago. I was excited about dating another blandly perfect entrepreneur who woke up at 6 am and filled his days with mountain biking, running, swimming, occasional working and even less occasional learning. He recently quit smoking, drank alcohol-free beer and filled his apartment with plants.
So I figured that for him to like me I could become like him. And on my way, I would also metamorphize into a more efficient person at work and a better person outside of work.
Supported by the advice of online articles and books, I switched my routine breaking every nervous cell of my body with a newly adopted motto “Once it’s a habit, it will be easier”. I followed an exemplary healthy lifestyle and didn’t waste my time on indulgences like fiction books or little weaknesses like a piece of chocolate. Where did I end up half a year later?
Burned down.
I sincerely apologize to anyone who met me during that period. I was sleep-deprived, impatient for never being on top of things, annoyed by any slight imperfection and couldn’t stop talking about all the helpful growth advice.
I had to spend a good couple of months in recovery mode on my couch. And I believe I grew more from that couch vacation than the intentional fiasco of self-improvement.
I still strongly believe that a growth mindset is powerful because it allows change: change of perspective and change of conditions. But I find several issues in the current chic trend:
“Self-improvement creates a facade of progress. Obsessing about the self is easier than reforming society.” - Lavender Au, “The Goal Keepers” for Kinfolk.
Growth is a process of changing the states. It isn’t an end result.
Growth doesn’t equal improvement. It’s a process of change.
But change itself doesn’t always lead to growth. Neither does it necessarily lead to improvement.
Just because you changed doesn’t make you a better person.
A caterpillar transformed into a butterfly isn’t a better caterpillar. It may miss a leg or die the next day. A butterfly is the next stage for the caterpillar.
Growth is simply an essential process that accompanies the lifespan of a person, a personality, a business, an animal, mold, etc.
Growth, be it personal growth, business growth or a process in nature, is a process of development that happens with time and independently from us.
All we can do is articulate a goal, choose a strategy and create conditions (aka pick up a healthy habit or two) that support it. There is no point in setting the goal as” to grow as a person” or "to grow a business". It’s like asking teenagers to set a goal to grow into adults. What cultivates growth is setting clear goals and then making steps in the right direction.
A well-shaped strategy leads to growth, but the growth itself is a poor strategy.
“A growth is an indication that the strategy is working, not the strategy,” -Brian Chesky for “Most Innovative Companies” podcast.
It won’t happen because you executed a growth hack or a piece of advice correctly. Neither will it happen after educating oneself on the topic.
It will happen when the time comes.
And this is the most potent and overlooked aspect of growth - time.
We go for hacks and tips hoping we will be able to outrun the time, to make something happen faster. Is it a healthy decision? To grow the production of medicine without doing enough research? To go for a hack before setting the foundation?
And do you know what else time brings? Withering.
A rose flower withers to let the new roses blossom next year. It needs an idle winter to bloom again.
Growth is a momentum between the period of idleness and bloom and it comes in cycles. And this is something no growth hacker will ever admit. That withering, idleness and to a certain extent stagnation are necessary for development. To take the next step, you need to recuperate your resources over a period of inaction.
Growth is a process of changing the states due to time, nurturing conditions, and care.
I’m sticking with examples from nature because this is where we borrowed the vocabulary from. Let’s say you want to grow a rose.
Will you cut off branches from a tree and stick some rose flowers to it? If you change the tree enough, will it grow into a rose? I doubt it unless your thinking is rigid and lacks a growth mentality(pun intended). Not only you don’t have a rose now, but you also end up with a poor short tree that doesn’t serve its purpose. What a waste of resources and glue.
You grow a rose by nurturing it.
You plant a seed, water it regularly, provide nutrients for the soil, let it bathe in the sun in summer, keep it warm with a cloth in winter and take care of it when it’s sick. And with time, arose will sprout.
Nurturing is at the core of growth.
Although sometimes change is needed, it isn’t a default condition for growth.
The two mistakes that many tend to make are, first of all, believing that the more changes you make, the better the situation becomes. The second one is thinking that if you make many hectic changes, one will fire up and lead you to success.
I wouldn’t say that mindset is untrue but inefficient. Moreover, that approach leaves a positive outcome to luck and accident. It’s like running on a treadmill when you actually need to go from point A to point B: you move your legs and you burn calories, but you’re stuck at point A no matter how fast you run.
“The more things change, the more they remain the same. Yet people today are caught up in the illusion of change” - Al Ries and Jack Trout, “Positioning: The Battle for your Mind”.
We engage in the hope of a new habit or anew hack to do a miracle that instead creates a false sense of progression.What is missing is pausing on actions, reflecting on the current state, evaluating if there is an actual advancement and then making a decision to stay the same and keep going or adopt a change.
And that is nurture - support, encourage, bring up - being intentional about choosing tools and conditions with the goal of growing into someone or something.
It’s switching the focus from change to development. One is radical, the latter is progressive. To be progressive instead of senselessly radical requires having a clear idea of where you want to go.
I’ll start with personal growth, but the thinking is applicable to any type of growth.
When you are obsessed with changing yourself, you actually change yourself.You become someone else. Which I find insincere.
In the race to become this mythicalInternet character priding itself on agility, efficiency, and success, we tend to lose track of two things: the reason behind the need to improve and the goal.
When that happens, it stops being about growing into a person one can be proud of. Instead, it turns into a quest to become someone up-to-date and a search for reassurance.
Ironically, the more we obsess with social standards, the less authentic we become. And the more it is for praise, the less we’ll be satisfied with the so-called growth.
Double ironically, it becomes ego-centric which makes anyone vulnerable to biases and inaccurate judgments.
Indulging in ourselves is easy. Questioning and opening the mind are the real challenges on the path to success. The growth mindset isn’t about perfectly executing the plan but is about opening yourself up to change.
It is about growing into someone, making the next step, not changing paths. And it starts with reflecting and having a clear idea of who you are as a person or what you are as a business. So you learn your weak spots and lean in on your strengths.
Who is this person that you can be proud of and why do you feel the need to change? Who else will benefit from the change?What value does your business bring and why do you feel the need to improve on that?
Why do we see growth as a set of quickly adaptable tactics instead of a consequence of a long-term strategy? Two reasons:
Because of these processes, we turned into doers. If we don’t act, we are missing out on opportunities. Because if nothing is done, nothing is going to improve. Stagnation and change became opposite ofone another when in reality, they are part of the same process.
The real problem happens when you enter a knowledge economy where one is paid for thinking.Is quick thinking a good thing?
Not really. Daniel Kahneman argues that in certain situations quick intuitive thinking is full of bias and leads to disappointing results compared to slow statistical thinking.
In the knowledge economy patience, slow thinking and reflection have become the key agents of growth because they allow us to make long-term and flexible decisions based on ever-evolving data. They allow us to adapt and change in the right direction instead of hectically trying to find the right direction.
In some cases, growth is a frivolous synonym for being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs who aren’t open to change limit themselves to outdated resources and inflexible frameworks. In return, it makes their ventures vulnerable to risks and fluctuation. So whoever is into entrepreneurship or business building is highly aware and attentive to growth processes.
When it comes to deep tech, it’s all about integrity and patience.
Any industry connected to science and information technology depends on the slow process of research, the development of technology, cooperation between multiple agents (such as universities, research centers, investors etc.) and certification process.
It isn’t something that can be hacked into a quick growth because businesses in deep tech carry more responsibilities. You can’t speed up the development of medicine without proper research and a rigid trial process because a wrong formula may harm millions of people. In this case, a hack isn’t a booster to success, but an obstacle to delivering quality.
So I will leave the following thoughts to hang for startup founders and investors:
There is power in knowing where you’re going, making steps instead of taking shortcuts and reflecting on the delivered value. That is a way to navigate through growth as a process.
On that note, I offer the following questions to help you grow that are neither hacks nor tips, just prompts to reflect and make better decisions:
