Quit Waiting For Sh*T To Hit The Fan; Growth At Baseline

Growth comes at baseline

When people walk into a therapy room, it’s often in response to something urgent, an emotional crisis, a relationship breakdown, burnout, or a significant drop in their overall functioning. It’s natural. Pain is a powerful motivator. But while we spend so much time focusing on how to tread water when we’re drowning, we often forget that true, sustainable growth happens not during the chaos, but during the calm.

Let’s call that calm your baseline.

What Is Baseline?

Your baseline is your day-to-day mental and emotional “normal.” It’s where you're functioning well enough: not overwhelmed, not spiraling, but not necessarily thriving either. Think of it as your mental and emotional resting heart rate. It’s the point from which your stress spikes or dips in response to life’s challenges.

When you're below baseline, barely holding it together, most of your energy is spent just trying to stay afloat. You’re keeping your head above water, and that’s a worthy effort. But meaningful growth? New patterns? Deep insight? That’s hard to access when you're in survival mode.

Growth is more accessible, more sustainable, when you're at or above your baseline.

Growth at Baseline Is a Long Game

We tend to celebrate comebacks: the person who got back up after everything fell apart. And those stories are inspiring. But what often gets overlooked is the quiet, consistent growth that happens when we’re not in a crisis.

Therapeutic work doesn’t have to be reactive. In fact, it’s most effective when it’s proactive.

When you’re feeling stable, that’s the perfect time to:

• Build new coping strategies

• Examine old patterns (what I call "Old Mental Muscle")

• Strengthen boundaries

• Deepen self-reflection

• Fortify relationships

• Revisit purpose and direction

  
  

This is how we build a new baseline, one that isn’t just about functioning but about thriving.

Visualize Your Growth Timeline

Think back on your life. Were the most sustainable changes you made during your most chaotic moments, or after you had space to breathe?

Most people will recall times where they hit a new stride, settled into a new routine, repaired key relationships, made meaningful changes to their thinking. Those moments usually didn’t happen in the middle of a storm. They happened when the waters were relatively calm.

This reflection helps you:

• Identify patterns of positive change

• Recognize signs of decline earlier

• Understand your own rhythms of growth

The Tool of Self Awareness: Your Early Warning System

We all carry with us traces of our "Old Mental Muscle," the thoughts, reactions, and habits that were once necessary for survival but may no longer serve us. Self Awareness helps us see those patterns before they take the wheel again.

When you notice a drop in your energy, irritability with people you love, avoidance of tasks, increased self-judgment, that’s your internal dashboard lighting up. That’s not a failure. That’s a signal. The earlier you notice, the earlier you can course-correct.

Too often, people wait for things to fall apart before reaching out. But what if you didn’t?

Quit Waiting for Sh*t to Hit the Fan

There’s no rule that says you have to wait for your world to crash before you invest in your wellbeing. The most meaningful growth comes from the steady, intentional work you do when you don’t have to.

So check in with yourself:

• Where is your baseline right now?

• What does a "new baseline" look like for you?

• Are there early signs of a dip you’re ignoring?

• What support do you need to maintain or raise your baseline?

  
  

Keep using your Tool of Self Awareness. Build while the foundation is steady. That’s how you build a life that doesn’t just bounce back, but moves forward.

Sustainable growth isn’t about surviving the storm. It’s about building stronger walls while the sky is still clear.

Let’s stop glorifying the breakdown. Let’s normalize the check-in, the tune-up, the proactive support.

Growth comes at baseline. Don’t wait.

Chris Lauzon, LICSW

Therapist

Boston, Massachusetts