The Five Truths No One Tells Us About Personal Growth
I wish someone had handed me a memo about aging. No one told me about the body wrinkles, the full impact of losing the ability to see up close, or how long any injury takes to heal (and how random those become). No one prepared me for how everything changes so often and so suddenly, and how lifelong good diet and exercise don’t ward off all decay. I even did a standup comedy set about not getting this aging memo!
I also wish someone had disclosed the full reality of personal growth. Because like aging, this sh*t is not for wimps.
I’ve been intensely interested in personal growth as long as I can remember. I never got why others weren’t, since it seemed like a must-have to living a good life. It wasn’t until midlife that I realized two forces were driving my interest: One, the lack of love in my childhood, which made me hyperfocus on “being better” (AKA “fixing” myself) so I would (finally) earn the love I needed. It was more about survival than spiritual evolution. Two, apparently some humans are more wired for “developmental potential” (see Dabrowski’s third factor), and I happen to be one of them.
Both forces still drive me, and many of my clients, towards personal growth. But I now understand and have compassion for those who aren’t as intensely committed to personal development. Not only do humans fall along a spectrum of capacity for growth, it’s a tough road that isn’t for everyone.
Such honesty is rarely expressed in our modern, hyper-commercialized culture. Many coaches and wellness gurus market personal growth like it’s nirvana — the road to “wealth” of all kinds, the vehicle to “crushing our goals”, and the path to blissed-out transcendence. They tell us this nirvana is within anyone’s grasp if we only try hard enough … and buy what they’re selling.
But just like anyone trying to sell us something in a consumption-obsessed system, our culture tells partial truths, or full-on lies. It leaves out the hard stuff — the shadow side of the light.
Here’s the memo I never got about personal growth — the five truths that would have made the road a little less terrifying.
Personal Growth is Hard. Really, Really Hard.
No one tells us how difficult personal growth is, in so many ways. It requires commitment, which means sticking with it in a culture where everything and everyone is disposable. It requires time in a culture that’s always rushing and impatient. It requires courage — taking unfamiliar action despite the fear — in a culture where courage is often performative or provocative. It means failing and trying again, failing and trying again — in a culture intolerant of failure (despite the mixed messages to the contrary). It means having your sense of self — your identity as a competent, intelligent adult — rattled by your not-knowing and incompetence. No one tells us that personal growth can be traumatic.
And no one tells us these struggles are a normal part of the process — especially with what I call “Life Homeworks”. Some lessons we learn and move on, while others persist until we die. But if we keep working on those Life Homeworks, we eventually realize we’re not going in circles, but up a spiral staircase. If we look out the window, we notice the view is slightly different — our level and perspective are changing, even if we never reach the top or exit the tower. But perseverance in the face of what at first seems futile is daunting.
One of my Life Homeworks is about increasing trust and relinquishing control, which shows up in every aspect of my life. I struggle to trust myself, other people, and the Universe/Divine. Knowing the (very valid) reasons I have trust issues helps relax my self-criticism and allow more self-compassion, but it doesn’t equip me to trust. I’ve had to build trust gradually over time in short bursts of courage-fueled action, and I’ve made progress — but I’ll be working on this as long as I live.
Personal growth is also hard because it requires lots of support. This support must come from both within and without. No one can do it alone, and no one can do it without their own inner resources. It’s a tragic failure of our culture that many of us don’t have enough support — or any at all. This awareness alone can poke at our wounds and trigger grief, rage, and pain.
And yet we must have the willingness — and capacity — to tolerate discomfort and pain to grow. This is especially difficult in a culture that chronically distracts and numbs us from any discomfort or encourages us to just “push through” without discernment. However, not all pain leads to growth. There’s a difference between the pain of being stabbed and the pain of cutting teeth or giving birth. As we discern the difference and build our capacity to hold “good” pain, the more we can grow.
Not all pain leads to growth. There’s a difference between the pain of being stabbed and the pain of cutting teeth or giving birth.
Personal growth is also hard because it requires capacity and support to explore the Shadow — in ourselves, other people, and society at large. Our culture leaves little room for the Dark unless it’s fleeting, superficial, and banished with a purchase. We lack sufficient language around depression, grief, rage, moral injury, and existential crises. We allow little time or space for them in our calendars or public places. We provide no ceremonies, spells, or wise elders to guide us. But going on an archeological dig of our individual psyche, preverbal emotions, body wisdom, intergenerational past, and deep archetypes is necessary for growth, and a soul journey few are equipped to take in our spiritually anemic culture.
Personal Growth is Lonely. Really Lonely.
No one tells us that making that soul journey is lonely. First, few embark on it. Second, those who do usually leave people behind.
When we change, so do the relational systems we’re part of — families, friend groups, work teams — and not everyone grows with us. Contrary to the way it’s often portrayed onscreen, people don’t always have their own breakthroughs when we do. Not everyone can come along on our journey. At work, setting boundaries, standing up to an authority, or refusing to compromise our values can cause backlash or a point of no return. We may find ourselves quitting a job, leaving a profession, or being ejected from one. I’ve been there — after almost 30 years in the profession, I left the DEI field in 2021.
In our personal lives, ceasing to participate in toxic family dynamics can lead to painful conflicts or icy estrangement. Friendships and romances can end when we develop “allergies” to behaviors that no longer work for us, or initiate a courageous conversation that doesn’t lead to repair or change. We may leave a neighborhood or town where we once felt deeply at home. We may stop caring about the same issues or activities as before. I get it — in recent years I’ve ended two close friendships, became estranged from two family members, and moved away from Albuquerque when I thought I’d never leave. When personal growth leads to heartbreaking losses, we can become unmoored, lost, and unsure of who we are. This, too, can be traumatic.
Our culture depicts the Hero(ine)’s Journey ending with the “vanquishing of the dragon” (Ordeal) and resulting Reward. Ta da! But this incomplete telling leaves out the equally grueling and transformative stage of the Return. Fans of The Lord of the Rings may recall the scene where the Hobbits have returned to The Shire after saving Middle Earth and sit drinking quietly in the pub. Four heroes sit unnoticed in a corner while everyone else engages in mundane tasks and trivial conversations, oblivious to what occurred or what their countrymen accomplished. It’s a disquieting experience to carry gold no one will ever see, and scars no one will ever revere. The Hobbits will never be the same, and never fully understood back “home”, which may be one reason Frodo leaves Middle Earth to go to the Undying Lands.
It’s a disquieting experience to carry gold no one will ever see, and scars no one will ever revere.
Until we reorient, find a new “home” and new community, the loneliness can be overwhelming and make us question our personal growth path. But even though the reorienting process may take time — even years — it is temporary.
Personal Growth Never Ends. Ever.
No one tells us what’s not temporary is the path itself. If personal growth is a video game, mastering one level simply boosts you to the next — with a whole new set of geographies, challenges, dangers, and even rules! If personal growth is a school, completing one grade gets you promoted to the next — with more advanced learning, more difficult homework, a new teacher, new peers, and sometimes an entirely new school.
But no one tells us you never graduate.
There are breathers — the equivalent of summer vacations and winter breaks and long weekends. Even a gap year or two. But personal growth is never over. As I’ve worked on my trust and control issues, I’ve gradually gotten better at boundaries. But I wasn’t prepared for what happened once I mastered work boundaries — Life invited me to get better at boundaries with friends, which wasn’t any easier! Once I got better at friend boundaries, Life brought me opportunities to get better at boundaries with men I wasn’t attracted to, then with men I was attracted to! But while each “level” built on increased capacity and skills I gained from the previous one, each was hard in a new way, and more triggering.
I have a bright, creative client who leads multiple organizations and struggled to give herself permission to take extended time off. This, despite ample financial resources, her partner’s blessing, and the support of competent staff! Many years before, she’d chronically overworked to get the companies launched and kept afloat. Now that she was “successful”, she needed to decouple her sense of self-worth from constant “productivity” to allow her to unplug. Once we worked through that barrier, she could explore underlying layers of resistance to spending her time on projects she wanted and delegating the “shoulds” to staff. But she couldn’t have gotten there without addressing the other challenges first.
It’s easy to beat up on ourselves for not having seen something sooner or learned something faster. (“D’oh! It’s SO OBVIOUS that person/job/place was ENTIRELY WRONG for me!” or “WHY didn’t I say YES to that opportunity sooner!”). But the truth is we can only see certain things or get to deeper (higher?) levels once we’ve passed the earlier “grades”. They are revealed as we grow.
Personal Growth Sneaks Up On You — In a Good Way!
No one tells us how stealthy growth can be, which is both beautiful and maddening. There’s a paradigm in the learning and development field that learners progress from unconscious incompetence (not knowing you don’t know how to do something) to conscious incompetence (knowing you don’t know how to do something), then conscious competence (doing the new thing deliberately, with effort), to unconscious incompetence (doing the new thing automatically, with minimal effort). Recall a time you learned a new skill — driving a vehicle, making something creative, playing a sport, or learning a dance. You probably went through all four stages.
Personal growth works the same way. A hallmark of integrated learning is that the new knowledge or skill becomes unconscious, effortless, and so fluid it’s almost invisible. However, there are two downsides to such mastery (AKA unconscious incompetence). One, mastery makes a skill look easy to others. Since they don’t see all the effort and time that went into achieving mastery, they can easily devalue that achievement or fool themselves into thinking they can do it, too.
Two, mastery can make our new skill look easy to us! We can develop amnesia about our own learning journey. I’ve been surprised (even annoyed) to see someone struggling to learn a language I speak, fix a computer problem I can resolve in five minutes, speak up in a meeting, or tell a loved one “no” because these skills are easy for me — even though I once struggled to learn them! We can forget what it felt like to be consciously incompetent (and humbled by our incompetence), thereby devaluing our own journey to mastery.
Looking back at those treading earlier on the path can show us how far we’ve traveled.
But looking back at those treading earlier on the path can show us how far we’ve traveled. We realize we’ve grown when — suddenly — something that used to bother us no longer does, or an action we once struggled to take comes naturally. I’ve held space for friends and clients who aren’t yet able to leave a harmful relationship or workplace, and I’m able to feel compassion for their suffering (because I’ve walked in those same shadows) and gratitude and appreciation for my growth. Sometimes awe.
These are the moments that make the arduous triathlon commitment of personal growth more tolerable, and worth it.
You Can’t Predict or Control Where Personal Growth Leads
Finally, what makes the path worth it may surprise you. Most of us (including me) believe what our culture tells us — personal growth leads to a better version of you and gets you what you want. But no one tells us that the “you” changes dramatically in the process. Not only will you leave people behind, develop “allergies”, and lose former appetites, your core values, goals, and purpose may shift. Your outer life may also change in profound ways.
I wanted to grow so more (or certain) people would love me, but I wasn’t prepared for how much self-love would change what I need and expect from other people. I wanted to grow so I could change the world, but never thought I’d lose interest in changing it. I wanted to grow so I could tolerate and do more but didn’t expect that healing would make me more sensitive, less tolerant, and less able (and interested in) doing “more”. Personal growth has definitely forced progress on my Life Homework around control!
But no matter where the unending road of personal growth leads, the future “you” will eventually be OK with it. Perhaps even deeply grateful, relieved, or awestruck. And knowing that these five truths are just part of a process as old as humanity itself can make the ongoing journey a little less lonely.
