Our collective obsession with anything ‘growth’ is fascinating. We report on growth (or its opposite; decline) daily and across anything measurable. My personal fascination with growth (across all its facets) is what leads me to write this note. Growth’s ambivalent relationship with hardship and suffering carries it into romantic waters. Another weak spot of mine.

What explains the fascination? Why are we obsessed with growth?

Growth is new, unchartered. The naturally curious venture into exploring it and come back expanded. Those not personally motivated by it, still admire it. Bolt’s record-shattering sprints, the moon-landing, technological and medical breakthroughs, explorations. They are concrete embodiments of growth. They point to progress. Growth has the power to turn dreams into reality.  Dreams can feel intensely cathartic and freeing, and there is an interesting correlation between growth and freedom on which I will expand later.

Every ‘thing’ around us has grown into what it is today. Every person spent the first two decades of their life growing, physically, and mentally. The day we feel physical and/or mental decline vs. growth, is the day we experience depression (at first, until we find other areas of growth within ourselves again!). From day one of consciousness, we start focusing on growing ‘towards something’. Kids obsess over growing taller, stronger. We measure it, parents track it. All years leading into adulthood are packed with intense and intentional development.

We don’t do this for pleasure. We do it because physical and mental growth is essential to survival. It always has been. Survival lives in the core of our DNA, and inevitably so does growth. 

Growth becomes less obvious when entering adulthood. It is no longer measured in inches penciled across kitchen walls. It instead manifests itself across things like intellect, career progression, well-being, spirituality, resilience. It doesn’t just occur naturally anymore; we need to work for it. Push ourselves. Throughout the most formative first two decades of life, growth is by and large taken for granted. Once the natural growth cycle stops, and its plateau hits, struggle and sacrifice in exchange for growth becomes table stakes.

My earliest memories of this are being outrun on the field by guys training extra hours outside our traditional training schedule. Hold on, you might need to do more than strictly required I thought. Some of these team mates later went on to win an Olympic Gold medal in Tokyo. It happened again when first entering professional life. I was forced to work harder if wanted a chance at standing out. While painful at first, it led to an immeasurable amount of personal growth.

One’s reaction to struggle and sacrifice is defining. Those that learn to embrace it, grow. If there is no growth without struggle/sacrifice, why do we want it? Many of us don’t. Some of us say we do. A minority actually do. Those in pursuit of continuous growth share a belief that growth doesn’t have an end goal but is a continuous journey that brings deep satisfaction and sense of purpose. Struggle and sacrifice are part of that journey too. Although sacrifice, struggle, and sometimes suffering is part of growth, they shouldn’t be pooled alongside effort. Effort can be highly enjoyable and does not necessarily equal suffering. Suffering is often part of the journey but is not a requisite for growth. Viktor Frankl, who survived and found growth and meaning in the most extreme of circumstances, is the first to point out that to suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic. Others find suffering relative. The poet Rilke wrote ‘wie vielt ist aufzuleiden!’ (how much suffering there is to get through!). As Frankl describes it Rilke spoke of ‘getting through suffering’ as others would talk of ‘getting through work’ and that suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning. In the context of growth, we might think of meaning as working towards a professional or personal goal. It helps us be intentional about where we place our efforts and why.

There are few moments when one enters a state of flow. To me, it happens at the oddest moments, typically when being intentional about working towards a certain goal or outcome. It’s when you’ve painted a very concrete picture in your mind of what you want to achieve/are working towards, and the only thing standing in between your vision and the realization of it is the execution. Effort becomes effortless and you float as if running with the wind at your back or paddling with the current. In these moments I feel that I’m growing, and the state of flow serves as a vector into one of the most powerful forces that exist: confidence.

Confidence might be the closest thing to freedom. Feeling confident is feeling free. You don’t think about or feel tied down by pre-existing boundaries. You float. Confidence is irrationally powerful and typically doesn’t come naturally. Yes, one might gain confidence because of their genetic disposition (strong, good-looking…), but ultimately, it’s earned. Sometimes over very long periods of time. It comes from a deep believe that one is good at something, or relatively better than their peer. To be confident is also to have courage, and to recognize the effort and sacrifice required to achieve growth. Alain de Botton says that “confidence isn’t the belief that we won’t meet obstacles; it is the recognition that difficulties are an inescapable part of all worthwhile contributions. We need to ensure that we have plenty of narratives to hand that normalize the role of pain, anxiety, and disappointment in even the best and most successful lives”. Seeking growth and therefore exposing yourself to failure and success is forging one’s personality into something that is unique, and interesting. I find people seeking growth deeply intriguing.

Confidence holds another bit of magic; the power to attract. It gives a sense of security, knowing that one is good at something, or relatively better than their peer. People like to attach themselves to that perceived security. That perception is nuanced because one can, on the surface, deceive and persuade people into believing one is confident at something. Real confidence however stands the test of time and is fundamentally different because it is a knife sharpened through the many failures and successes as part of one’s journey seeking growth. It’s earned, and there is a level of self-respect you will detect amongst those that have it. Didion writes about people with self-respect exhibiting a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character. ‘Character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life- is the source from which self-respect springs’, she says. I like this because it emphasizes the role of oneself taking full ownership over their growth.

In seeking growth, one might expand to a point whereby you outgrow a certain life, into a new life. Taking elements from the old, but fundamentally becoming better. The value of an improved you to family, friends, partners, colleagues, and society at large is not to be underestimated. Perhaps the reason why we are collectively obsessed with growth (and fear decline) is because those seeking and delivering it fundamentally lift everyone else around them up. While on the surface perhaps perceived as self-focused, seeking growth might be the most selfless thing you can do.