Growth Mindset: Slow Healing over Aggressive Momentum

We talk about growth on this blog quite a bit. How creativity is a vehicle to growth, how it challenges you to grow, how growth happens both in your creative practice, capacity, ability and in your life as a human of compassion, grace, and joy. This growth mindset is powerful and creativity is where you can cultivate it and unleash it. That doesn’t mean a growth mindset or the trajectory of your growth in any avenue must be big, fast, or loud. Powerful growth does not equate to aggressive upwards momentum. No one’s journey in life or creativity is so linear, so progressive. 

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. For years and even now, I was and am a personal trainer. Fitness, health, wellbeing, movement - they are a passion of mine and a very useful creative outlet for me over the years. In the gym when we’re programming a workout specifically for hypertrophy (muscle gain) and even on a smaller level when looking at increasing strength, we always do a periodization program which inherently has periods of high training, increasing weight, intensity etc.. and then we MUST have periods of detraining and REST. They are essential to moving forward, but here are times especially when we are seeing the difference, or have an acute injury, or are in a season of competition and can’t train as hard, that these detraining, rest and recovery periods built into the program for our ultimate benefit feel more like a setback, like slowing down, like going backwards. This idea that progress, that growth means forward, onward and upward only is ridiculous - even our biology doesn’t work that way. And it certainly doesn’t happen overnight at light speed, it takes consistent patience, dedicated discipline, and those practices whether relating to your physical body or your creativity are not loud processes, they are quiet, but that makes them mighty.

Anyone who has started a new hobby, wanted to learn a new skill, or developed a creative practice knows that it is not a blot of lightening from the sky or a giant leap of growth - it takes time, it starts slowly, and the improvement is small but steady each and every day. No one else can make us continue on this path and often, as a result, our growth and momentum comes quietly as we protect our budding creative practice. This isn’t to say stay small and leave space open. This is a permission slip to allow yourself to enjoy the quiet of consistency. Take up the space in your life with intention, with joy, by showing up and standing up for your pursuits. Sometimes a quiet, sure, steady persistence is more powerful than a loud, abrupt action. Keep doing you and building the life, the practice that you want. Over time growth happens, it blossoms and it transforms you. Real growth takes time, it takes periods of rest, it takes steady momentum. Pushing leads to burnout, it leads to crumbling, it leads to stagnation. Consistency creates real evolution. 

Growth is intentional not forced

Adopting a growth mindset is becoming intentional about your time, your priorities, and your practice. In relation to creativity, this is a period of protecting your time, your practice, your drive to carve space out in your life to create. It feels indulgent, it feels selfish, but I can assure you as best I can that prioritizing YOU is always the best move for you. It is not a haphazard throwing up of hands and declaring that you’re retreating from responsibility. Growth is intentional, and in declaring intention we set goals, boundaries, and create space in our life for both grace and acceptance of ourselves and our creativity. Being intentional about how you want to grow, even about simply making it a priority in your life and practice is the first step. You’re not just flailing around hoping you manage to find time, you are deliberately choosing to invest in yourself, to work at something. In that deliberate choice lies your power and capacity to grow. 

Growth is internal not external

We often see these highlight reels, these accountability groups, before and afters of progress as the goal to strive for. Sharing our growth and development is a wonderful, community building thing. However, I often find that when external validation, appearance, and accolades are the primary focus of our growth, what we see is usually more of a performance than a true shift in evolution. The desire to grow comes from within; no one can push us to change. We must accept where we are and have the drive to go somewhere new, somewhere different. Our creativity is a fantastic vehicle for this growth, to help reflect and define who we are and who we want to become. The creative practice is an ever evolving process that shifts and grows as we find our rhythms. Creativity is a marker of progress, a pillar of self reflection that gives us the opportunity to explore our inner world and self expression. 

What role does creativity play in this process of growth and healing?

Growth often does not start from a place of progress, it starts from a place of some sort of deficit or feeling of lack; desire to become different in some way. The way forward is not always easy. It can feel daunting, slow, and tiresome. But it is also beautiful, fulfilling, and peaceful. Creativity is an outlet, a vehicle, and a mirror on this journey of healing and growth. Whether it’s processing your emotions, working out your next direction, or helping you take a moment to pause and celebrate all of your fullness, your creativity is a safe haven. That’s not to say it can’t be challenging or frustrating at times, but it is a companion to you throughout your life, one that never judges. Creativity can hold us in ways humans can’t, it can heal us by giving us the ability to do something when we feel like nothing we do is good enough. It can teach us to trust, believe, have confidence, embrace ourselves in ways we couldn’t imagine.

Creativity allows us to be free in a space that is just for us. It holds space for us to be all of who we are, to learn all of who we are. 

In my own journey creativity has been a force for reflection, a place of peace. In the upheaval of uncertainty and change, the consistency of my creative practice has been an anchor, a guarantee. It reminds me of my confidence, my drive, my force of nature to make the best of where I am, to create the life I want to share with my child and raise him in. Having this central practice in my life is not only grounding, it is character re-building. It is reassurance and strength. Creativity gives us the courage to move forward, the audacity to imagine more of ourselves and of ourselves than we ever have before.