Growing Up Isn’t Over: How the Mind Keeps Developing in Adulthood

By Nigel Denning and Jordan Bakker

By reading this piece, you’ll discover:

• Why the old story — that growth ends in childhood or early adulthood — can quietly limit our sense of possibility.
• How the Map for Living, one of several frameworks we use at Integrative Psychology & Medicine, is based on a new story: that adulthood is not an arrival point but a stage of ongoing evolution and inner development.
• Six key areas where adults can keep growing — including wisdom, balance, perspective, vitality, compassion, and purpose.
• How recognising growth as lifelong can turn struggles into opportunities and renew a sense of meaning.
• Practical skills you can use this week to stretch your capacities and notice your own ongoing development.
• The profound ripple effects this new story of adulthood could have — for your wellbeing, your relationships, and even the wider world.

At 45, David had a steady job and a family, but he felt stuck — as if the best of his growth was behind him. Then a leadership program at work challenged him to reflect on his blind spots and practice deeper listening. At first it was uncomfortable, but over time he noticed a shift: his kids opened up more, his team trusted him more, and he felt more patient with himself. What surprised David most was realising that growth didn’t end in youth — he was still becoming, and it felt both humbling and exciting. (Fictional Vignette)

Many of us grow up believing that development is something for children. Kids learn to walk, talk, and make sense of the world, while adults are sometimes thought of as “finished products.” 

But this isn’t really true. Growth doesn’t end when we leave school or university. Our awareness can keep deepening and our perspective can keep widening. Our capacity for wisdom, compassion, and resilience can keep growing too – long into adulthood. In this sense, each one of us can keep evolving. 

In our last post — Your Mind Isn’t a Thing — It’s a Process — we explored how the mind is not a solid object but an ever-changing flow, always in motion. This post takes that idea one step further: the mind is not only a process, it is a developing process. And that means our story of adulthood might need to change.

The Old Story: Adulthood as Arrival

“Middle age is when your broad mind and narrow waist begin to change places.” – E. Joseph Cossman

The conventional picture of adulthood is one of stability. Childhood and adolescence are for learning and exploration; adulthood, on the other hand, is portrayed as a time for settling down. You finish your studies, get a career, build a family, acquire resources, and provide for others. Growth, in this story, is externally focused— buying a home, securing a promotion, putting kids through school.

What often gets lost in this picture is the idea of inner growth. The assumption is that once you’ve reached adulthood, who you are on the inside is largely set. You’re expected to be reliable, competent, and consistent — not still searching, stretching, or transforming. If you do change too much, people might even see it as a crisis: a “midlife crisis,” a breakdown, a deviation from the norm.

This story can be comforting because it gives adulthood a clear script. But the cost is that it sidelines the deeper human drive to keep learning and evolving. It suggests that once we’ve achieved material security, the mind itself no longer has much developing left to do.

New Story: Adulthood as Evolution

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” – Carl Jung

At Integrative Psychology & Medicine, we sometimes share with our clients a Map for Living – an integrative framework for understanding one’s own mind and navigating life from that vantage point. Our Map for Living builds upon a very different story – rather than conceiving of adulthood as an arrival point, we adopt a new view that suggests that adulthood is but a part of a larger arc of human development. We have the opportunity to keep growing in the direction of greater awareness and greater capacity.

The general trend of development can be understood with the analogy of a bushwalker climbing a mountain. At the base, the view is narrow — you can only see what’s directly in front of you. But as you climb higher, more of the landscape opens up. You see rivers winding through valleys, forests stretching across hills, the horizon expanding in every direction. Nothing about the forest or the river changed — what changes is your perspective. It has become broader.

In the same way, as we move through adulthood, the mind has the potential to grow into wider and deeper ways of seeing. We can become more aware of our thoughts and emotions, more able to hold multiple perspectives, more compassionate toward others and ourselves, and more connected to meaning and purpose. This is the general pattern of the evolution of mind. This doesn’t mean every adult automatically develops these capacities. Just as climbing the mountain requires effort, guidance, and sometimes struggle, so too does human evolution often require some commitment. But the potential is there. And the further we climb, the more freedom and empowerment we may discover to fulfil our goals and serve those we love. 

Adulthood, then, is part of a lifelong ascent, opening ever more into new vistas of awareness and capacity.

Key Areas of Development in Adulthood

“We do not simply grow old, we grow up. We can continue to develop in wisdom, depth, and care throughout our entire lives.” — Ken Wilber

There is not just one way that the mind can develop – in fact there are many. Let’s quickly survey some key realms of development. As you read through this list, you might want to think of people you know in everyday life who excel in one or more of these areas. These areas are an adaptation of the work of the philosopher, Ken Wilber. 

1. Growing Up – Development of our cognitive complexity, worldview and sense of self

Growing Up means expanding how we see ourselves and the world. Someone who has developed skill in Growing Up lives with a broad perspective of themselves, others and the world. They are more capable of holding conflict without collapsing into blame, and responding to life’s challenges with wisdom instead of reactivity.

2. Opening Up – Developing multiple intelligences

Opening Up means developing many of our multiple intelligences, that includes: cognitive, emotional, relational, moral, creative, and even somatic. Someone who has cultivated their capacity in Opening Up lives as a well-rounded human being. They may not be perfect in every domain, but they may think clearly, feel deeply, relate authentically, act ethically, and express themselves creatively.

3. Powering Up – Developing vitality and virtue

Powering Up is about optimising our vitality and health through sleep, movement and nourishment practices. It is also about consciously cultivating the virtues that make life meaningful: courage, gratitude, kindness, perseverance and so on. We can train these inner traits much as we can strengthen muscles. A person who has practiced skills and habits for Powering Up may experience better health and live more in line with their values, potentially inspiring trust, respect and admiration from those around them. 

4. Cleaning Up – Integrating trauma and limiting patterns

All of us carry old wounds and patterns. Cleaning up means facing the parts of ourselves we usually hide — our shadows, traumas, and protective habits — and bringing them into the light of awareness. Through therapy, self-reflection, or compassionate relationships, we may learn to transform pain into wisdom and free ourselves from cycles that once held us back. Someone who has built the skill of Cleaning Up may experience a greater sense of inner freedom – no longer ruled by unconscious triggers and blindspots. Internal healing work may give them depth, wisdom and a deep compassion for others.

5. Waking Up – Developing nondual states of consciousness

Finally, Waking Up is about perceiving the interconnected wholeness of reality. Many contemplative and philosophical traditions describe reality as an interconnected whole — an idea explored in mindfulness and nondual awareness practices. However, our minds tend to emphasize the differences and distinctions, and, according to these traditions, this can lead us to suffer and feel separate. According to contemplative traditions—and supported by emerging research—deep practice may help some people change their relationship to suffering, reducing reactivity to pain and distress over time. These traditions suggest such people sense the oneness of reality that lies behind all of the diversity of the forms of reality, even as they go about their everyday life. 

6. Lining Up – Aligning with a broad sense of purpose

Lining Up is about aligning your life with a deeper sense of meaning and direction. It’s the “why” that gives coherence to all the other areas of development. Different traditions point to this in different ways: Bill Plotkin writes about soul initiation, the Japanese speak of ikigai, and modern psychology talks about purpose as a key to wellbeing. A person who has cultivated the competencies of Lining Up may live with clarity of direction, where gifts, passions, and values come together in service of something larger than the self. This sense of alignment may provide resilience in hard times and a compass for wise choices.

The adult mind is not destined to stagnate. These six areas are some of the main ways that our minds can keep evolving throughout the lifespan. We hope this overview encourages reflection on your own ongoing development, irrespective of your age!

A New Story for Ourselves and Our Culture

“If every 8-year-old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation.” — A poetic reminder of how early emotional education could change society, by the Dalai Lama. 

Adulthood is not an arrival point. It’s a stage of ongoing growth. When we see the mind as a developing process, our story about ourselves changes: struggles stop looking like life sentences, and growth may become a lifelong adventure.

For therapy clients, this shift can be especially hopeful. Therapy can, in some cases, support not only the reduction of distress but also the cultivation of capacities such as self-awareness and resilience. In many cases, with appropriate support, adults can continue to develop their minds, even in difficult circumstances.

This developmental orientation to mind has profound implications for society. If we, as a global culture, embraced lifelong growth in each of the six areas mentioned above, we’d value wisdom alongside achievement, we’d support emotional as well as technical skills, and we’d see elders not as finished but as further up the mountain, carrying perspectives that are so valuable for the rest of us. 

Perhaps even more profoundly, we might realise that this developmental orientation has implications for politics. Many of today’s most stubborn problems — ecological disasters, polarisation, inequality, even war — are fuelled by underdeveloped minds unable to hold complexity, regulate emotion, or extend compassion. Imagine if whole generations kept evolving into greater awareness and capacity. If more people cultivated these capacities, it could contribute to reducing conflict and fostering cooperation. 

We are all still becoming. That truth is both liberating and urgently needed — for our own flourishing, and for the collective future we are shaping together.

Practical Skills: Homework for the Week

Here are a few simple ways you can begin embodying this new story, if you so choose:

1. Look Back Five Years
   Take ten minutes to write down ways you’ve grown over the last five years — not just in skills, but in perspective, patience, awareness, or compassion. This may help you see that growth is already happening.
   
2. Practice “I Am Learning”
   When you catch yourself thinking “I’m just not good at this,” add the phrase: “I’m learning.” For example: “I don’t think I’m very good at public speaking… but I am learning.” This perspective keeps the door open to growth.
   

Stretch a Capacity
Choose one area of growth — maybe emotional awareness, relational skill, or a physical practice — and take one small step this week. It could be journaling about feelings, listening more deeply in a conversation, or taking a mindful walk.

Further resources

The six areas of development described above are closely related to domains articulated by the philosopher Ken Wilber. To learn more about the many areas that our minds can develop, you might like to read his book Finding Radical Wholeness.

For a deep dive into adult development, especially Growing Up, you might like to read The Evolving Self or In Over Our Heads by the Harvard Professor, Robert Kegan. Be warned – they can be a little bit of a challenging read! 

To learn more about multiple intelligences, and Opening Up, you might like to read Multiple Intelligences, by Harvard Professor, Howard Gardner. 

To read more about cultivating virtue, and what we call Powering Up, you might like to read into positive psychology, with one popular book being Flourish by Martin Seligman.

For a self-help perspective on Cleaning Up, you might enjoy reading How to Do the Work by Nicole LePera or Self-Help by Gabrielle Bernstein.

If you’re curious about the area of development known as Waking Up, you might like to read How Enlightenment Changes your Brain by Dr Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman.

If you want to learn more about the area of development we call Lining Up, you might like to read Grit by Angela Duckworth, The Power of Meaning by Emily Esfahani, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, or Purpose Rising by a compilation of different psychologists, therapists and meditation teachers writing on the topic.

Disclaimer:

This article is for general educational purposes and is not a substitute for psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are experiencing distress or mental health concerns, please contact a registered psychologist or qualified health professional.