Why do practitioners stop growing?
It can happen very quietly. We spend years developing our knowledge and expertise, refining our approach and becoming more confident in what works. Then, almost without noticing, we stop stretching.
For some practitioners, this is because a degree of comfort sets in. Once we are experienced and our usual methods work reasonably well, there may be little pressure to do things differently. Add a full caseload, family commitments and the genuine cost of professional development—both in time and money—and remaining where we are can easily become the path of least resistance. What began as expertise can, over time, become a comfort zone.
There is another pattern at the opposite end of the spectrum: the highly curious practitioner who loves learning and signs up for too much. I can certainly put my own hand up here. At the moment, I have four courses underway and partially completed, each requiring me to keep finding—and then rescheduling—time to return to them.
Although these patterns look quite different, they often have the same missing ingredient: space for reflection and integration. Learning alone does not necessarily lead to development. We need time to think about what the learning means, how it fits with what we already know, and how it might genuinely change the way we work with clients, teams or organisations.
Supervision can help, but supervision itself can sometimes become another comfort zone. I have worked with the same wonderful supervisor for many years, and I value her enormously. I have also deliberately sought out other supervisors and developmental experiences along the way—people who bring different perspectives, notice different blind spots and challenge my thinking in different ways.
Professor Peter Hawkins speaks about the value of “colliding perspectives.” I love that phrase because developmental growth rarely comes from surrounding ourselves only with people who think as we do. It often comes from encountering a perspective that unsettles us just enough to see our work—and ourselves—differently.
Practitioners do not usually stop growing because they lack ambition. More often, we stop because we lack the time, space and sufficiently diverse perspectives needed to keep developing.
That realisation is one of the reasons I created COLLECTIVE+.
Not as another course to complete or another library of content to work through, but as a professional home for practitioners who want to continue growing throughout their careers. A place where current research is thoughtfully curated, where ideas are explored together, and where evidence is translated into meaningful practice through conversation, reflection and the sharing of diverse perspectives.
If you’re someone who values evidence-based practice, enjoys having your thinking challenged, and believes that professional growth doesn’t end when formal study does, I’d love to invite you to join our Founding Cohort.
As a Founding Member, you’ll help shape the culture and conversations of COLLECTIVE+ from the very beginning, while securing your Founding Member rate for life. More importantly, you’ll be joining a community of practitioners committed to staying curious, connected to the science, and continually evolving their practice.
Because perhaps the greatest risk isn’t that we stop learning.
It’s that we stop growing.
Join our COLLECTIVE+ Community today.
Yours in Positivity,
Dr Suzy Green.
