Why We Don't Grow Despite Constantly Learning

Being stagnant; feeling stuck; unable to move forward in life.

These are the emotions that compelled most of my clients to sign up for mental health coaching services. But what astonished me was that these clients are not short on aspiration. They are competent, confident in their own abilities, but are frustrated at their inability to demonstrate them.

When asked about their growth journey, many of them read self-help books, listen to podcasts or watch videos on personal productivity, stoicism and relationships. At times, these resources are helpful in making a meaningful impact on their lives. But at others, it gives off a faux sense of progress on what is effectively mindless content consumption.

So how do we break out of this cycle? As with anything related to productivity, there are a million ways to skin a cat — but one perspective has been especially useful for me.

The separation between our and other people’s knowledge.

Other people’s knowledge

When consuming content, we are accepting the resulting output of the creator’s hours of deliberation and production efforts. The more contextual, intentional and well-articulated the ideas, the more meaningful the content.

What’s generally missing from the equation is the messy, tangled web of conflicting ideas that the creator underwent to arrive at the conclusion in the first place.

Some take the easy road by simply regurgitating the same information elsewhere, but others take the time to research and contest existing beliefs before backing them.

It is this internal turmoil that gives ideas legs to stand on. It’s also why good writing (the foundation of all content) requires authors to rip their minds and souls apart before reassembling them back together into something coherent.

A good example would be quotes or mantras. They mean little by themselves, but it is the context and stories behind these quotes or mantras that give them their emotional charge, and their subsequent impact. This is also why I like books. Not only is text one of the most efficient medium for idea exchange, its format promote the explanation of context and nuances, which gives ideas their much-needed foundation.

Contrast this with short-form video content, where the most viral content puts on a definitive front without giving much context, relying entirely on ethos rather than logos as their rhetoric.

When consuming other people’s knowledge, we, as the audience, rarely have to go through that journey ourselves. At best, we have the privilege of witnessing others on their own journey — and that is different from embarking on a journey ourselves.

Building our own knowledge

Hence, consuming content should be a supporting element in formulating our own ideas, rather than a replacement for it.

This goes against what my clients are doing — which is to consume more media, gathering more context, digging a deeper rabbit hole, further prolonging taking action.

I’d like to think of elderly folk of the past — who did not have access to the same knowledge we have today, and yet are wiser than many of us.

Their sources of knowledge comes from folktales, religious sermons or communes with friends and family. But beyond the stories of other, most of their wisdom comes from personal accounts stemming from a rich and eventful life — something that my clients crave.

Hence, personal growth doesn’t come from listening to other people’s stories, but from the stories we tell ourselves.

Which is a shame — because from where I stand, my clients do in fact live interesting lives and have unique experiences. But it is often buried under the veil of perceived mundaneness which naturally encompasses much of our waking moments. Even adventuring can be boring to an adventurer if he/she had to do it everyday for a living.

This is why private journaling is helpful, and why mental health coaching works so well — it helps frame your own life in a third-person’s perspective. And that perspective, which is real and tangible, works so much better than any self-help material I come across.

So what’s my role as a mental health coach?

Well…I help clients build a finer palette. Rather than having a meal simply described as tasting good or bad — I implore them to further justify themselves. Is it sweet in a citrus or floral way? Is the bitterness unpleasant or does it add to the dish?

The same logic applies to life events. Within the nuances of the cyclical daily life, we’ll find that it may not be as monotonous as it seems. Even amongst greys, there is contrast, brightness and hues. All of these shape how we act, think and feel, which in turn, changes who we are.

A street photographer can take the same route back home for years, and capture a different photograph everyday. A voice actor can repeat the same lines, and still determine a bad take from a good one. A chef can cook the same dish for the same customer, and be judged differently based on the time of day.

So you don’t really need to consume self-help content to help yourself. It certainly helps, but you have all the ingredients you need to live a fulfilling life. You just need a bit of discovering and finessing.