Growth is often treated as something that is always good and should never be questioned. If you’re experiencing more revenue, more visibility, more responsibility, and more opportunity, what could there be to question. In theory, growth should always feel like expansion. However, in reality, many CEOs experience something different.
The business grows, but life feels tighter. Success increases, yet internal pressure does too. Instead of feeling energized by momentum, leaders feel taxed by it. This creates a quiet but consequential question most CEOs never ask out loud: Is this growth actually expanding me, or is it costing me more than I realize?
This is not a question of gratitude or resilience. It is a question of sustainability.
Why growth feels different at higher levels
Early growth is exhilarating because it is additive. You gain skills, traction, and confidence simultaneously. At higher levels, growth becomes multiplicative. Each decision carries greater consequence. Each expansion touches more people, systems, and identity layers. Without intentional integration, growth can quietly extract more from the leader than it returns. The result is a version of success that looks strong externally but feels heavy internally.
According to Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace report, leaders and managers report significantly higher levels of stress and burnout than individual contributors, even as their organizations grow and perform. Gallup found that sustained performance demands without corresponding internal support lead to chronic strain at the leadership level, making growth feel taxing rather than expansive over time.
Here are four ways to tell whether your growth is truly expanding you or slowly costing you.
- Expansion creates clarity, not constant tension
When growth is expanding you, clarity increases alongside complexity. Even when decisions are difficult, they feel grounded. There is a sense of internal steadiness beneath the challenge.
When growth is costing you, tension becomes the default state. You may feel perpetually braced, alert, or on edge. Decisions linger longer than necessary. The business demands more vigilance rather than more vision. This is not a workload issue. It is an internal alignment issue.
A big part of the reason we expanded the Move to Millions Method® to include Soul Leadership is to make sure that CEOs are supported on the internal measures of success as much as they are on the external. Soul Leadership helps CEOs distinguish between productive stretch and chronic strain, so growth strengthens rather than destabilizes leadership capacity.
2. Success integrates into your identity instead of threatening it
Expansive growth feels inhabitable. You recognize yourself at this level. Authority feels natural rather than assumed. Success settles into your sense of self instead of hovering as something you might lose.
Costly growth feels fragile. CEOs may feel pressure to protect what they’ve built, defend their position, or continually prove they belong at this level. Even wins can feel temporary or conditional.
When success threatens identity rather than integrating with it, growth is extracting more than it gives. This is a signal that there is an opportunity to enhance your Soul Leadership, not a confidence flaw.
3. Growth increases choice instead of narrowing it
Healthy growth expands optionality. CEOs feel they have more room to choose, refine, and prioritize. Even constraints feel purposeful rather than confining.
When growth is costing you, options shrink. You may feel locked into decisions, structures, or expectations that once felt aligned. The business starts dictating your life rather than supporting it.
This often happens when external expansion outpaces internal integration. The business grows, but the leader’s internal flexibility does not. Focusing on Soul Leadership restores internal range, so success creates freedom rather than obligation.
4. Momentum feels sustainable rather than consumptive
Expansive growth has rhythm. There is intensity, but also recovery. Push is balanced with integration. Momentum feels renewable.
Costly growth feels consumptive. Progress requires constant effort. Rest feels risky. Stepping back creates anxiety rather than relief. The business appears healthy, but the leader feels depleted.
This is one of the clearest indicators that growth has crossed from expansion into extraction.
At this stage, strategy is rarely the missing piece. Leadership capacity is.
Growth is not just what the business can hold. It’s what you can hold
CEOs are often taught to evaluate growth through metrics, milestones, and market response. Far fewer are taught to assess growth through internal experience.
But sustainable success requires both.
When growth expands you, leadership feels embodied, coherent, and aligned. When it costs you, success becomes something to manage rather than inhabit.
The difference is not ambition. It is integration.
Growth that costs you is not the goal
The highest levels of leadership are not about enduring success. They are about holding it well.
When growth begins to cost you, it is not a signal to stop expanding. It is a signal to deepen how you lead yourself inside the expansion.
That is where growth becomes sustainable again.
Desire Support to Enhance Your Soul Leadership?
- If you want weekly support to build your business from a deeper, more regulated place, tune into the Move to Millions Podcast. It is your guide to faith-forward strategy and soul-aligned scaling. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at www.movetomillionspodcast.com.
- If you are looking for a resource to support year-end reflection and next-level embodiment, grab a copy of Move to Millions: The Proven Framework to Become a Million Dollar CEO with Grace & Ease Instead of Hustle & Grind. Available on Audible, Amazon, or at www.movetomillionsbook.com.
- If you are ready to recalibrate your relationship with money, success, and capacity so your next year can actually hold the vision you are called to build, Sanctuary is your next step. Sanctuary is the only container designed to help high-achieving CEOs regulate their nervous systems, stabilize their identity, and expand their capacity for sustainable wealth. Learn more and enroll at https://incredibleoneenterprises.com/sanctuary/
- If you are curious which internal pattern is influencing how you close seasons and build what comes next, take the Ascension Archetype Quiz to uncover your energetic leadership blueprint at www.movetomillionsquiz.com.
