The Danger of Growing Without Blooming
Why effort can look productive and still leave you empty
Core Insight
I used to think thriving would arrive after I fixed myself enough. What I learned instead is that thriving happens when effort stops fighting my nature and starts moving with it. Painful does not always mean wrong and easy does not always mean aligned.
This is article #5: The Need for Thriving.
Part of a 7-Human Needs series on Why We Do The Things We Do.
If you are new here, you can start with
Need #1: Safety
Need #2: Curiosity
Need#3: Meaning
Need#4: Belonging
Need#5: Thriving (You are here)
I was in Hua Hin last week.
I hiked terrains my legs had never touched before. I let my curiosity take the wheel and by the end of the trip, I was physically wrecked. My old knee injury flared up so violently that I am still nursing it as I write this article.
But I was happy. Thoroughly and wildly happy.
When I came back, the reality of my coursework hit.
An easy assignment, really. I just needed to jump onto TikTok to do some research. Friends have been urging me to look at those reels for years but I actively avoided the platform. I only used it because the syllabus demanded it.
Compared to the mountain trails, scrolling was utterly effortless.
It was so easy I immediately tried to “perfect” my research. I almost fell right back into my old corporate operating system. The phantom pressure to optimize every second. That gave me literal goosebumps.
So I stopped.
A massive wave of emptiness followed. I realized I had just burned hours of my life I was never getting back (even though I had a good reason).
The hike was painful but it aligned with my natural cadence. I was participating in my own life, doing something I enjoyed.
The TikTok scroll was painless but surprisingly, it triggered an automated survival mechanism. I was reacting. I was almost wearing the High-Performance Shield I had promised myself I would discard.
The Exhaustion Despite Everything
Back then when I was still wearing the shield, I remember feeling very tired most of the time.
It was a very specific hollow kind of fatigue. You know, the type of tiredness that lingers in your body even after optimizing your food and sleep.
On the outside, you look successful and function well. Yet you can’t help but feel a void inside.
We all have the need to better ourselves. But at what expense exactly?
Our need to thrive is vastly different from our need to grow and yet we think that once we grow, thriving comes automatically.
The self-help industry monetizes a deficit – your deficit. It sells the brutal illusion that you are fundamentally broken. They ask us to excavate our soul, to drill deeper, work harder at fixing ourselves completely before we are allowed to exist peacefully.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against any self-help gurus. On the contrary, I like to study them and find out what makes them tick.
Thriving in Nature
Plants absorb what they need and grow. They never set a KPI to outgrow the foliage next door and simply thrive and bloom when the conditions are right.
Notice I said, “when the conditions are right”. Do you know that a flowering plant can continue to grow without flowering if the conditions are not right?
Thriving requires you to make a choice. When you stop fighting your own nature you cultivate the environment for unforced brilliance.
At times, the High-Performance Shield is subtle and disguises itself as discipline, diligence and self-improvement. But its real job is protection. It keeps you busy so you don’t have to feel. It keeps you optimizing so you stay in automation. But worst of all, it keeps you in reaction mode so you never fully participate in your life.
Look Inwards Instead
Don’t get me wrong. To have discipline and diligence in life is definitely helpful. Optimizing our habits can save us a lot of time and effort when done correctly. When effort aligns with your nature, it feels joyful. You can grow and thrive.
But, if you are feeling tired and empty like I was, your need to thrive is not fulfilled. You become the plant that continues to grow but never flowers.
With that, I invite you to inspect and remove the friction that makes everything feel heavy because thriving is never about pushing more effort into the system. In this instance, the effort you put in is fighting your nature, even when it looks productive.
Drawing from my recent hike experience, my nervous system felt calm and safe even though my legs were giving me warning signs. So what if my husband was able to hop down while descending but I had to climb down slowly? I felt totally present at that moment and was immersed in the experience.
In contrast to the TikTok scroll that did not hurt at all, something just felt wrong.
Moments like that are signals that we shouldn’t ignore. If it isn’t obvious, you’ll need to take notice of where you are actively participating versus where you are performing.
The Mindset Shift: Humans Are Meant To Thrive
We are meant to thrive by working with our inner brilliance, not against it. That is why this publication is called “Lazy By Nature”. Once we look inwards and align our actions with it, our energy just flows.
Maybe you’re like Alicia, who is thoroughly brilliant at writing stories that trigger goosebumps. Or Peter Ashby Smith, who studies how ancient stoic ideas hold up under modern pressures.
No matter what your inner brilliance is, you will thrive once you align your actions with it.
Always remember: Success does not require suffering.
Once you find that spark, your natural cadence becomes effortless.
Missed a step in the series?
Article #5: The Need for Thriving (You Are Here)
💡 Question: What do you normally do productively but feels like a drain at times?
Please share it in the comments so we know that we’re not alone in this.
P.S. Creating from a place of Sanctuary requires a commitment to rest. If you’d like to support the “Unforced Brilliance” of this series, you can buy me a bubble tea. It’s a small act of participation that helps keep this space thriving.
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I absolutely love this. When you channel your curiosity and briallance, you create something that is uniquely YOU and that's how you thrive. Thank You so much for sharing!
Sometimes the problem isn’t effort.
It’s whether the effort feels like yours.🤍