A large portion of our economic indicators are based upon GDP growth. Over the last century, our main idea of measuring a country’s success is as to whether it has GDP growth or not. GDP has often been heralded as the mark of doing ‘better’, and it is only recently that we have started to question this whole concept in mainstream discussions.
This wider economic debate got me thinking about the idea of growth itself, including from our own perspective on personal development. As a coach, we often love using the word growth as a strong visual image of improvement – it harks to our childhood where we grew to fully formed adults. And yet, this obsession with the idea of growth may actually be unhealthy.