Becoming vs. Arriving — Why Growth Has No Finish Line
Much of how we think about growth is shaped by the idea of arrival.
Much of how we think about growth is shaped by the idea of arrival.
We imagine a future point where things settle: where confidence stabilises, self-doubt quietens, and effort finally eases. This imagined version of the self is often more capable, more regulated, more “sorted” — and crucially, finished. Growth, in this framework, becomes a journey toward completion.
Yet many people notice something unsettling when they reach long-held goals. The arrival is brief. The relief fades. The promised sense of resolution never fully materialises. Rather than satisfaction, there is often a quiet disorientation — a feeling that something is missing.
This is not ingratitude, nor a failure to appreciate success. It is a sign that the model of growth as arrival may be fundamentally flawed.
Carl Rogers offered a different understanding. In his conception of the fully functioning person, growth is not a state to be achieved but an orientation toward living. The individual is not moving toward a final version of themselves, but continually responding to experience with openness, flexibility, and self-trust (Rogers, 1961).
From this perspective, growth has no finish line — not because something is wrong, but because responsiveness itself is the marker of psychological health.
Why Arriving Can Feel Strangely Empty
The emptiness that sometimes follows achievement is often misunderstood. People assume they set the wrong goal, or that they need a bigger one. But the issue is rarely the outcome itself — it is the expectation that arrival would deliver a permanent internal shift.
When growth is framed as completion, the present moment becomes provisional. Life is endured in anticipation of a future self who will finally feel at ease. This creates a subtle disconnection from experience: I am not quite enough yet — but I will be.
When the goal is reached and the feeling does not change in the way anticipated, the individual may feel confused or deflated. The internal struggle was never located in the absence of achievement, but in the belief that worth, safety, or peace lived somewhere ahead.
Rogers’ work challenges this assumption directly. He observed that wellbeing emerges not from resolution, but from congruence — the degree to which a person is able to be in contact with their lived experience without distortion or denial.
Arrival promises relief.
Becoming offers relationship — with self, with change, with life as it unfolds.
The Illusion of the Final Version of the Self
The idea of a “final version” of the self is deeply compelling. It suggests an end to uncertainty, contradiction, and vulnerability. Yet psychologically, this image is both unrealistic and restrictive.
Human experience is not static. Needs change, values evolve, contexts shift. A self that is fixed is one that cannot respond. In this sense, the fantasy of completion is not only unattainable — it is incompatible with psychological health.
Rogers described the fully functioning person as someone who is in process. Such a person is not free from difficulty, but is able to meet experience as it arises, adjusting rather than defending against change.
When people pursue a final version of themselves, growth can become defensive rather than exploratory. Effort is directed toward maintaining an identity rather than responding to reality. This often increases anxiety, as the world inevitably disrupts fixed self-concepts.
Letting go of the final version is not resignation. It is liberation from the pressure to become someone who never existed in the first place.
There is no finished self waiting ahead — only the self in motion.
Growth as Responsiveness, Not Completion
From a person-centred perspective, growth is best understood as responsiveness: the capacity to remain open to experience, to integrate new information, and to recalibrate behaviour in line with internal values.
This requires trust — not in certainty, but in the organism’s ability to adapt.
Responsiveness allows for:
• Changing direction without self-reproach
• Revisiting old patterns with new awareness
• Allowing growth to be non-linear and context-dependent
Completion, by contrast, demands stability. It prioritises being done over being alive. Responsiveness prioritises contact over control.
This reframing changes how effort is experienced. The question shifts from How close am I to finishing? to How am I relating to what is happening now?
In this sense, growth is not something we move toward — it is something we practice.
Becoming as a Kinder Relationship With Self
One of the most significant implications of becoming over arriving is its impact on self-compassion.
When growth is ongoing, mistakes are no longer evidence of failure; they are information. Periods of difficulty are not regressions, but moments requiring adjustment. Effort does not need to culminate in success to be meaningful.
This orientation softens the internal demand to prove progress. It allows people to remain in relationship with themselves even when life is messy, unresolved, or slow.
The Mammoth does not aim to finish its journey.
It adapts to each season, each landscape, each change in ground beneath its feet.
Growth, then, is not about reaching a place where effort stops.
It is about learning to move with life — again and again.