The Progress Trap

"A client once told me, "I just feel like I'm not making any progress." She wasn't just talking about her career and her personal development. It was something deeper - a lingering sense of being stuck, coasting, falling behind, of living incorrectly, of failing to move steadily forward while everyone else seemed to be moving onwards and upwards into some brighter future."

"When I asked what "progress" meant to her, she hesitated. It is one of those ubiquitous concepts we use all the time without truly interrogating them. She couldn't really articulate it, except by saying "getting better, getting ahead." That moment captures something crucial about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Our self-stories do not develop in a vacuum. They are in constant dialogue with larger, culturally shared stories - stories about who we are as a species, how we should live together,"

"As embodied, embedded, and encultured beings, we are profoundly shaped by the grand narratives of our culture and our time. We may embrace them, resist them, or absorb them without even noticing. Some of these shared stories have become so natural that we hardly recognise them as stories at all. And yet they shape almost everything. They influence what we strive for and desire."

Many people experience a pervasive sense of not making progress, felt as being stuck, coasting, or falling behind despite external movement. The concept of progress is often vague and assumed rather than defined, commonly equated with getting better or getting ahead. Individual self-narratives form through continuous interaction with broader cultural narratives that prescribe meaning, purpose, and norms for living. Those grand narratives shape desires, moral judgments, notions of agency and responsibility, and benchmarks for success or failure. Common metrics of progress include job title, salary, fitness metrics, relationships, and inner comfort. Romantic love and a gospel of work operate as influential cultural scripts.

Read at Psychology Today