Growth Mindset
Structure That Sustains but Then Constrains Must Be Broken
Growth sometimes requires abandoning structure that no longer helps.
Posted July 2, 2026 Reviewed by Margaret Foley
Key points
- Structure can provide comfort, safety, and capacity.
- Structure that stays rigidly constant and independent of function can interfere with and prevent growth.
- Breaking structure is eventually required in order to develop enhanced function and capacity.
When we create or build something, we often need temporary supports to help guide us and keep things in place. Sometimes those temporary structures become embedded within whatever we are building and just stay there in a support capacity, possibly forever. Sometimes those supports that at one time helped us set something up subsequently prevent us from growing.
It's not a shoo-in
There's a concept in traditional Japanese martial arts that explains the stages of development and maturation with ongoing training: shu ('shoo') ha ('hah') ri ('ree').
Shu 守 is often functionally translated along the lines of "conserve/protect/follow." This implies that in the early stages of training, we need to follow a model and use that semi-rigid structure to help support our development. Adherence to a set mold is a key idea to help guide our training.
Ha 破 usually means to move away from, detach, or break away. This implies that we are at a stage of understanding where a rigid structure is no longer necessary to support our training. We can begin to break the mold and move away from the rigidity of the prior structure.
Ri 離 has a meaning of transcendence or departure. At this very late stage of training, we no longer need any of the supporting structure of the mold to continue our development. We are independent of past constraints and are free to develop. Contents within the prior structures may still be used but have a very different context and meaning.
The point of all of this is that change is required for continual development. In a martial arts context, this means a very fluid approach to just about everything, bringing to mind Bruce Lee's advice to "be like water." This concept is found in every martial art to a certain extent, but especially emphasized in traditions like Bagua Zhang and Wing Chun Kuen. There is an explicit focus on the development of structure and then freeing ourselves of the structure to live in the moment during our responses.
Staying the same requires changes
In a martial arts context as well as broader life activities, we are striving for development, improvement, and maturation. Do you want to master a strategy or do you want to master yourself? Or, as I often discuss with martial arts trainees, are you trying to master a martial art or become a master of martial arts? These are related but not the same pursuits.
In some ways, this is like that famous quote, "For everything to stay the same, everything must change," found in the 1958 novel The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. In this case, the thing we want to stay the same is our continued development—we want to maintain a growth mindset—whereas everything that supports growth must change and expand to allow it.
Black belt brain injury
In the early stages of my journey back from brain injury, I relied a lot on rigid structures for physical and mental rehabilitation and training. I learned that if I did x, y, and z, and in that order, I was able to function and grow within a relatively safe structure. Attempts to deviate from the structures I put in place made me anxious and involved setbacks.
Until they didn't anymore. I kept trying to develop and push past rigidity in structures in all aspects of my life. I want to understand how to apply the principles, not the details of the methodologies. This means trying to understand the functional purpose of structure, not just its presence. If we can understand why it was useful, we can better understand how to change structure so that it continues to functionally support development.
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu told us:
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
I see this quote as a reordering of Shu Ha Ri: knowing yourself moves you from shu to ha, then knowing yourself and the enemy (or more broadly any adversity or challenge) takes you to ri. This progression is not linear and involves multiple "rinse and repeats" over an extended time.
During my own journey, I've constantly sought to master myself, not just a methodology. And this has required regular questioning of how I address my own life, with necessary revisions along the way. Keeping structure for its own sake removes the functional support it once provided. Truly, the only way to be constant within a life is to make continual changes. This applies equally well to specific aspects of our lives and to a lived life viewed holistically.
(c) E. Paul Zehr
