Personal Growth: Baby Steps vs. Breakthroughs

[Wave Rider]

When I consider the times when my life has actually improved, it wasn't usually me taking "baby steps" to improve things. A lot of psychotherapy and self-help material teaches that we grow through small incremental improvements, and that we grow and and change so slowly that the growth is almost imperceptible. This has not been my experience with how change has happened for me.

 

Usually, when positive changes happen in my life, it's usually more in the form of breakthroughs. I'll have some kind of breakthrough, and then I'll make rapid improvements until I hit a wall and can't go any further. I am usually able to retain the progress I made during these periods of rapid improvement, but once I hit the next wall, I can't go any further. Then I'll have another breakthrough and make rapid improvements, then hit another wall and stop improving.

 

A good illustration of this is my weight loss. When I moved to California I was about 220 pounds (I am six feet tall and want to be at about 175). I changed my diet and rapidly lost weight down to 205, then I abruptly stopped losing weight, and I stayed at 205 for several months. Then I changed my diet again and started lifting weights, and I rapidly lost weight down to 190, where I hit another wall. I've been stuck at 190 for five months and I can't lose another ounce.

 

It was similar when I learned about attachment theory, which helped me to rapidly make changes that helped me to avoid bad relationships. But now I've hit another wall and feel like I can't go any further.

 

So what has been your experience: baby steps, or a series or breakthroughs and hitting walls?

Edited September 9, 2016 by Wave Rider

[No_Go]

Series of breakthroughs and hitting walls for me as well.

 

I tried the baby step approach as well - it left me miserable and underachieving in all the areas that I tried to implement it.

 

I truly believe it is all or none when it comes to personal growth.

[xxoo]

Breakthroughs, mostly. But the breakthroughs came from baby-step starts, if that makes sense. Lots of baby step starts go nowhere, and then one leads to a breakthrough. It just "clicks".

[sooshi]

Breakdowns, each followed by a breakthrough--which came from baby-steps starts (as xxoo nicely put it).

[Wave Rider]

Well, that's helpful to know. It's helpful because I've often spent a great deal of time - sometimes years - with an approach that doesn't work and was never going to work. During those times when it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, I could console myself by feeling like I was taking baby steps, but in reality I was getting nowhere. So if change happens more with breakthroughs, as is my experience, then I can quit a direction that's getting me nowhere before I have invested too many resources into it.