When is the right time to grow?

Jari Hellstén · Senior Executive Coach

“Let’s look at it after Christmas.” “Let’s get the holidays out of the way first.” “We have a few other things on our plate.” “Let’s put it in the next budget.”

Familiar reasons for leaving something we consider important until a better time. We are so busy that we cannot make room for development. We run alongside the bicycle instead of getting into the saddle.

But when, exactly, is that better time?

Development can be organised. Growth happens.

The title deliberately refers to growing, rather than organising development. Development initiatives, training and coaching can be arranged and budgeted for. Opportunities to grow arise in ordinary, everyday situations.

We constantly encounter things that add to our store of experience. Not every insight requires a dedicated training day. We also need a culture in which small observations are noticed, experiences are examined and space is made for what we learn through everyday work.

Over time, this can strengthen an organisation’s collective knowledge and capability. What matters is not only how much development activity is organised, but also what people experience and come to understand in their own work.

Learning must go beyond remembering

In traditional schooling, learning has often meant remembering individual facts and reproducing them in answers. A collection of disconnected facts does not yet tell us how well we can use what we have learned.

For growth, the culture into which new knowledge arrives is crucial. Are we open to it? Are we also willing to question it and judge which parts are useful to us?

We need not repeat ideas from outside simply because they sound convincing. Equally, we should not reject useful new knowledge merely because we are used to doing things differently. We need to understand what our particular situation calls for, and be willing to act on it without unnecessary delay.

We grow as people through experience

One way of considering human existence is to distinguish three interwoven dimensions: embodiment, consciousness and our relationship with the circumstances of our lives.

Embodiment concerns our bodies and how they function. Our relationship with circumstances describes how we are situated in the life we are living. The perspective of consciousness directs attention to our experiences and to how we can also reflect on our own thoughts.

Have you ever caught yourself saying, “That was a foolish way to think”? At that moment, you are not simply thinking about something. You are also noticing your own thinking and can pause to examine it.

These dimensions of being human are not separate from one another. An experience always arises in a particular situation. That is precisely where an opportunity may emerge to see something differently or act in a new way.

Life presents us with opportunities to find meaning: situations that may be the beginning of a new insight. We cannot always defer them to the next budget. The same experience and the same opportunity may not be waiting there.

The right moment cannot always be booked in a calendar

The central point of this article is simple: action and growth take place in the present. Right now.

The moment may be carefully planned and organised. It may also arrive unexpectedly, even at a service-station washbasin, when you only work out how an unfamiliar tap operates after getting wet. We are in the midst of an experience and, at the same time, open to discovering something new.

A culture of learning and growth needs both: planned, systematic development and room for spontaneous insight. There is no need to abandon training days. Alongside them, it is worth noticing what everyday life already offers.

After Christmas, there will be new moments and new opportunities. But today’s opportunity can only be taken today.

What could we discover or do differently in the situation we are in right now?

Meet Jari Hellstén and explore his expertise.

This article is based on Jari Hellstén’s blog post published on 28 November 2024. It has been edited for Rokmind’s website with the author’s permission. Read the original article in Finnish.