Growing in ways I didn't expect

how did you grow?

WAGO is a continuing conversation about who we are becoming and the lives we are unfolding as we get older.

Hello,

Did you grow in the areas you wanted to grow last year? Or were you surprised where growth showed up? Perhaps, in areas you weren’t even considering?

Photo by Carols Ibáñez

I spent a lot of time last year writing, which, for me, was the setting where most of my surprise learning happened.

I aimed to improve as a writer, for sure. But somewhere between all the drafting and the editing, I realized it wasn’t just about becoming a better writer. It was also about being braver.

1. Learning to say more than I’m used to saying

Emotional openness has never been my strong suit. My default MO is to stay neatly zipped up. But last year, I tried — really tried — to loosen the zipper by a millimeter.

There were times when hitting “publish” felt like stepping outside with my coat unbuttoned on purpose. I definitely felt a little exposed and chilly. And sometimes I did get that vulnerability hangover everyone talks about. (I heard Brené Brown said she feels this way too sometimes, so I guess I’m in good company.)

There’s still a long way to go. But it felt like I was using a part of myself that had been dormant all this time. Like stretching a muscle I didn’t even know I had.

2. Letting things be smaller, tighter, simpler

Another surprise: learning to say less.

I’ve always admired writers who can land an idea in under a thousand words. Not because shorter is better (this is so not about attention span). But because brevity and concision force a different kind of honesty.

You can’t hide behind elaboration when you’re trying to be concise. You have to name the thing straight on.

Trying to write that way taught me to notice when I was padding, when I was hiding, when I was afraid to say it, and land the sentence. Funny how growth can happen while you’re deleting a paragraph and being okay with what’s left.

3. Learning to leave things unfinished (on purpose)

My instinct has always been to tuck everything in and offer myself and the reader some kind of takeaway. But I’ve been noticing that some pieces don’t want a tidy ending. Some pieces want to leave a question hanging in the air.

Last year, I fought the urge to always reach for the neat conclusion, and do you know, the strangest thing happened. The writing felt less engineered. More honest, more like conversations. More like the lived experience, which rarely ends with a moral, and almost never with certainty.

Holding that unresolved space in my written work wasn’t (isn’t) easy. Some part of me still wants to close the loop. But I’m learning to sit in that space. To trust that sometimes, questions hold as much clarity as pat answers.

• • •

Looking back, the growth I noticed last year didn’t always show up in the areas I set out to improve. And certainly not how I’d imagined. Most came in small ways that would have been so easy to miss and leave unappreciated.

I’m sharing this experience because I suspect that’s often how growth works for a lot of us — whether in the writing arena or not. Growth often isn’t a big reveal. Usually it’s a series of small shifts we only notice in hindsight and if we’re paying attention.

✴️ Does this align with your experience? Where and how did you grow last year?

🏷 Thinking Life

💬 last word

Here’s a little sunshine to carry us through January and 2026!

All my best,
Lou Blaser

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Lou Blaser writes We’re All Getting Older, a weekly essay series about change, meaning, and the lives we’re unfolding. She also maintains The Filtered, a digital library for reading, learning, and thinking better.