Are You Growing or Learning?

I never really thought about the difference between growing and learning until I heard Sadhguru talk about it recently.

He said that personal growth can happen in any direction—it doesn’t necessarily have a goal or purpose. But learning, he explained, is different. We usually learn with intention, because we want to earn something—knowledge, skill, money, or recognition.

That idea made me stop for a moment. Have I been growing, or have I really been learning?

When I look honestly at my life, I realize I’ve mostly just been growing. I’ve explored so many things out of curiosity or joy, without any clear plan or reason. The one area where I truly learned with purpose was financial education. I studied it because I wanted to understand how to earn and create freedom. And it worked. Without that, I probably wouldn’t be living the life I have today.

But everything else—my yoga practice, creating digital content, flying FPV drones, aerial videography, hiking, gardening—those have been journeys of pure growth. I do them because they make me feel alive. Not to achieve something. Not for fame or money. Just for the simple joy of doing.

Sadhguru also said something that stuck with me about spiritual growth. He joked, yet spoke earnestly, that nobody grows spiritually by gaining anything. You actually gain nothing. If anything, you start dropping everything the ego has built up. You let go of all the nonsense you’ve collected over time. And honestly, that makes sense to me. Have you ever seen an enlightened person trying to get paid for being enlightened?

Maybe that’s the difference. Learning adds. Growth sometimes subtracts. One helps us earn a living. The other helps us live fully.

I’m still figuring out where I stand between the two. Maybe both have their place. What about you—do you feel like you’ve been growing, or learning?