When are we growing…and when are we simply chasing?
Personal growth is something we often celebrate.
Learning. Developing. Challenging ourselves. Stepping outside our comfort zone.
These things matter.
But sometimes it’s worth pausing to ask a different question.
Where does the chasing begin?
For some of us, the chasing begins long before adulthood.
As children, we may have learnt that being noticed came through being good, helpful, independent or successful. Whether spoken or unspoken, we can begin to believe that our value depends on what we do, rather than simply who we are.
Without even realising it, that pattern can quietly follow us into adult life.
Another qualification…Another promotion…Another business idea…Another goal…Another attempt to finally feel confident enough, knowledgeable enough or successful enough.
From the outside, it may look like ambition.
On the inside, it can sometimes feel like an endless need to prove something.
To ourselves.
To other people.
Or perhaps to the younger version of ourselves who is still hoping to feel enough.
Maybe that’s the elephant in the room.
Not the next qualification…Not the next promotion…Not the next achievement.
But the quiet belief underneath them all.
“If I just do one more thing… perhaps then I’ll finally be enough.“
The temptation to start again
It reminds me of growing vegetables on my balcony a few years ago.
You prepare the soil. Plant the seeds. Water them. Give them sunlight.
Then… nothing.
Days pass. Sometimes weeks.
It’s tempting to wonder whether you’ve done something wrong. To question whether you chose the right seeds. To give up and plant something else that promises quicker results.
Yet every time we start over, we interrupt the very growth we were hoping to see.
The cucumbers seemed to change almost every day. Their progress was easy to see.
The beetroot taught me something different. Most of its growth was happening beneath the soil, where I couldn’t see it at all.
When the cucumbers were finally ready, they became dinner that evening. The beetroot reminded me that not everything worth waiting for announces its progress quite so clearly.
We don’t dig them up every few days to check whether they’re growing. We trust the process.
Perhaps we are not so different.
Sometimes the deepest growth is happening quietly beneath the surface, long before anyone else can see it.
Growth doesn’t always look impressive
I also remember waiting for flowers to bloom.
No amount of checking made them open any faster.
They simply needed the right conditions, consistency and time.
Maybe we do too.
Sometimes the pressure to constantly achieve means we never stay with anything long enough to discover what it might become.
Transformation often happens out of sight
A couple of weeks ago, a moth landed on my arm while I was in a shopping mall.
My first instinct was to gently blow it away. Instead, it settled on a nearby piece of wood, giving me the chance to really look at it.
Much of its transformation had already happened long before that moment.
I was only seeing the result.
Perhaps personal growth is similar.
Some of the most significant changes happen quietly. They aren’t always visible to others, and sometimes we don’t even recognise them ourselves until much later.
Setbacks aren’t the end of growth
A gecko can lose its tail when threatened.
It’s an extraordinary survival response.
The loss is significant, but it doesn’t stop the gecko adapting, healing or continuing with life.
We experience setbacks too.
A relationship ends.
A job changes.
Our confidence takes a knock.
Plans don’t work out as we’d hoped.
It’s easy to mistake a setback for failure.
Perhaps it is neither.
Perhaps it is simply another part of growing.
Healing doesn’t always mean returning to who we were before. Sometimes it means discovering that we can still move forward after losing something we thought we needed.
A different question
There is nothing wrong with wanting to grow.
Growth enriches our lives.
It expands us, stretches us and teaches us.
But growth and chasing are not always the same thing.
Sometimes the greatest act of courage isn’t finding the next thing.
Sometimes it’s staying with what we’ve already planted.
Trusting the process.
Allowing roots to form before expecting flowers.
Perhaps the question isn’t whether you should keep growing.
Perhaps it’s this.
Are you growing towards something… or are you chasing something that can never quite be caught?
Perhaps the answer begins by standing still long enough to notice what has already been growing beneath the surface.
Curiosity doesn’t always lead us to immediate answers.
Sometimes it simply invites us to pause, notice and wonder what comes next.
If you’d like someone to walk alongside you in that process, you’re always welcome to get in touch.
