STAGNATION: THE STEALTHY THREAT YOU NEVER SEE COMING
3-Minute Read
"If you're not growing, you're dying. Stagnation is the enemy of innovation." Lou Holtz, Champion Football Coach.
For conscious souls, mere existence is excruciating. We are imbued with the will to live for much more than survival. Like all living creatures on the planet, our DNA is encoded with the mandate: Grow & Multiply! And when we don’t, it’s torture. Ever notice that?
Stagnation is a state or condition marked by lack of flow, movement, or development. It is a death knoll for the human mind & body, relationships, businesses, economies, and countries.
“Stagnation is the kiss of death for any organization.”
Particularly for The Innovator Leader, one thing is clear: stagnation is agony. It consistently ranks in the top 10 struggles reported by entrepreneurs, founders, business owners, and creatives.
“The moment you stop learning, you start dying. Stagnation is the beginning of the end.”
This week in The Grip, discover why you’re prone to stagnation, how to spot it, and how to quickly get back in motion. In doing so, you’ll learn to proactively tap into fullness of life for the rest of your life.
Let’s dive in!
why you stagnate
"Stagnation is the natural course of things. All progress is the result of conscious effort." Henry George, Economist, Journalist.
If you’re made for growth, why do you stagnate? There is an ever-present tension inside every human; a battle of agendas between the conscious, imaginative brain’s pull to expand (growth-discomfort) and the subconscious, survival brain’s pull to stay the same (stagnation-comfort). And because the subconscious is a million times more powerful than the conscious brain, the pull toward stagnation will win by default, unless you learn to master it.
You won’t find much help for this dilemma in modern society, either. There was a time on the planet when life was constant discomfort; that is no longer the case for many of us today. The advances of modern civilization have afforded us a level of everyday comfort for the masses—from bedding, electricity, indoor plumbing, heating & cooling, car & air travel, to cell phones & the internet—that even kings did not experience just 200 years ago.
Comfort has become our norm, and that’s the trap. We’ve learned to honor the subconscious pull toward comfort and ignore the conscious pull toward growth. Most of us are unaware that this habit is operating in the background, covertly running our choices. To compound this situation, the nature of growth is a moving target; yesterday’s growth choice is today’s comfort choice. If you want to continue to grow, you must continue to choose discomfort indefinitely.
The reason you stagnate is simple—you stop choosing growth. That’s it. When you stop choosing growth, you get stagnation by default. Always.
“When you stop choosing growth, you get stagnation by default. Always.”
7 early warning signs of stagnation
“Agitate! Agitate! Ought to be the motto of every reformer. Agitation is the opposite of stagnation - the one is life, the other death.” Ernestine Rose, Abolitionist, Suffragist.
When was the last time you intentionally chose discomfort, to agitate yourself toward growth? It’s possible to be thriving and growing in some areas of your life while unknowingly stagnating in others. Review the following Warning Signs of Stagnation and determine if any of them are true for each area of life that matters to you, i.e. Business, Mental Health, Relationships, Spiritual Health, Creativity, Finances, Leadership, Family, Physical Health, Etc.
No Room for Error – Making zero mistakes means you're not growing. Mistakes happen when you push into new territory.
Persistent Indifference – Lacking aspiration, vision, or a sense of aliveness. Struggling to make decisions, find purpose, or proactively take action.
Absence of Learning – No pursuit of new skills, knowledge, or personal development.
Decline in Performance – A noticeable drop in the quality of your work, health, or relationships.
Emotional Distress – Without growth, anxiety, depression, and fear tend to escalate.
Avoidance Behavior – Consistently dodging new challenges, risks, or responsibilities, aka, anything uncomfortable.
Trapped in Routine – Stuck in monotonous patterns with no variation or challenge.
Use this list to proactively check in with yourself during your personal or professional development time. Use it weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Remember, the drift toward stagnation is always in play; like gravity, it’s constant. Mastering stagnation is not about being done, it’s about early and frequent course correction.
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7 questions for choosing growth
"I learned to always take on things I'd never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist." Ginni Rometty, former CEO of IBM.
Ready for some agitation? In the normal course of events, once you identify where and how you’re stagnant, the simplest solution to generate growth is to do something uncomfortable in that area of life. And repeat.
But sometimes your survival brain puts up a royal fight against getting into action. When you find yourself resisting the very growth you desire, use the following questions to help you get in motion. They’re designed to cut through excuses, spark deep reflection, and drive immediate action.
What uncomfortable truth about your current situation are you avoiding—and how much longer will you pretend it’s not there?
If your success depended on making a bold move today, what’s the one decision you’re too afraid to make?
How much is your hesitation costing you—financially, emotionally, and in lost opportunities?
Are you actually stuck, or just unwilling to do what’s necessary to break free?
If a competitor was in your exact position right now, what would they do that you aren’t willing to?
If you knew you had only six months left to make your vision happen, what dead weight would you drop immediately?
When did you start settling for just getting by? What would your past self—the one who had big dreams and took risks—say to you about it? And how will you reclaim your pursuit of living fully today?
Bottom line: your life will grow in correlation to the uncomfortable action you take.
Again, mastering stagnation is not about being done, it’s about early and frequent course correction. Practice this and fullness of life will be your norm.
One caveat; growth includes both expansion and contraction. In a future post we’ll distinguish between stagnation and the contraction phase of growth. They are not the same and you don’t want to get them confused. More to come.
I’ll wrap with a word from Steve Jobs to the scrappy 22-year-old in us all, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
Keep creating!
May you prosper in every way!
Becky & TPL Team