The Five Stages of Growth: A Journey to Full Presence
The Five Stages of Growth: A Journey to Full Presence and What It Really Takes to Move Through Them
A client once paused mid-sentence, looked down, and said quietly:
“I’ve always thought I was mature… but maybe I’ve only just started.”
That moment stayed with me. Not because he was immature – far from it – but because he was brushing up against something so many of us eventually do: the realisation that growth doesn’t stop at competence. It doesn’t stop at stability. Sometimes, it starts there.
I’ve heard versions of that line whispered across boardrooms, retreats, bike rides, and Zoom calls. It’s rarely loud. Often, it comes just after a promotion, or just before a pivot. It carries a different kind of weight – the weight of honesty.
We spent the session circling what that feeling was about. And what emerged wasn’t a checklist or a theory, but a rhythm. A kind of arc I’ve seen again and again in coaching, leadership, psychology, and life.
It’s not a linear path. It’s not a ladder.
And it’s not really about age or title – it’s about depth. About how we meet ourselves. And how we begin to live not just for performance, but for something deeper.
1. Innocence
There’s often an innocence at the beginning.
Not always in childhood – sometimes in a new role, a new chapter, a new start.
A time when we trust the world a little more. When things feel open, light, and full of possibility. It’s a kind of presence – a way of being without armour.
That stage doesn’t always last. Something happens – a rupture, a disappointment, a sudden awareness – and the edges of the world come into view.
2. Exploration
We begin to ask questions:
Who am I in this? Where do I belong? What matters now?
And so we move into a stage of exploration – trying on identities, reaching for approval, learning the rules of success.
It’s full of energy – but also restlessness.
In this phase, I often hear clients say things like:
“If I’m honest, I’ve worked so hard to get here… I’m just not sure who I’m doing it for anymore.”
3. Maturity
That question often signals the start of something else: the move towards maturity.
Maturity isn’t about getting everything right.
It’s about integrating who we are with how we lead.
It’s when our actions start aligning with our values, and we begin to choose responsibility over reactivity.
Often, people at this stage say they feel steadier. More grounded. They’ve stopped proving and started leading.
But something strange happens here too. Even with stability and success, there’s often a quiet ache. Not a crisis – but a questioning.
“Why doesn’t this feel more fulfilling?”
“I’ve done what I set out to do… but is that all there is?”
4. Wisdom
And so, if we let it, maturity deepens into wisdom.
Wisdom doesn’t come from having the answers.
It comes from learning to hold the questions. To see patterns. To accept paradox. To stop needing to be right, and start learning how to be in relationship with uncertainty.
It’s at this stage that leadership begins to soften.
Less output, more perspective.
Less needing to win, more capacity to witness.
Often, wisdom brings with it a sense of surrender.
Not giving up – but giving over. Letting insight move through you, not just stay within you.
5. Stewardship
And from there, if we’re lucky – if we’re ready – wisdom transforms into something else entirely.
Not up, but out. Stewardship.
Stewardship is the stage where growth becomes offering.
Where we hold things not as possessions, but as responsibilities.
Where we build things we may never see finished.
Where we act with conscience, with care, with legacy in mind.
I’ve worked with leaders in this stage – some at the end of a role, some stepping into a bigger one – who say things like:
“What matters most now is that I leave something behind that works long after I’m gone.”
Or simply:
“It’s not mine to keep. It’s mine to tend.”
This is stewardship. Not a destination. Not the peak.
Just the deepening of a life lived on purpose.
The State of Full Presence
Full presence isn’t a stage itself. It’s the state you reach when all five stages are integrated.
It’s when innocence, exploration, maturity, wisdom, and stewardship flow through you – sometimes all at once, sometimes in cycles – and you move through the world grounded, attentive, and fully awake.
It’s not a ladder – it’s a tide.
We loop, return, and taste each stage again through new roles, relationships, and challenges.
We don’t always move in order, but we carry them all, in different ways, at different times.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned through coaching, cycling, parenting, and trying to live this honestly – it’s that the deepest growth often comes in the pauses.
In the moments where we realise we’re not chasing anything anymore. We’re simply choosing how to show up.
So when that client looked at me and said:
“Maybe I’ve only just started,”
I smiled.
Because maybe we all have.
Stefan
Executive Coach | Founder of Be the Waves
Helping good people lead great things
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I am…
An executive coach who specialises in helping good people lead great things.
Good people care about others, our planet and beauty. Great things are changes for the betterment of society and all that lives within an around it.
It sounds big and fun - it is.
I'm also an endurance racing cyclist and a go. getter.
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