The Problem with "Growth"

 Many people nowadays are starting to tap into something called "growth" mindset. According to this view, people in organizations no longer ascribe to the view that they possess fixed characteristics or capabilities. Rather, all people are shifting beings, who are always learning and expanding to embrace new ways of thinking. To believe that one is limited by genetics or set ways of thinking is only to perpetuate a myth of permanence or inflexible nature. As a way of remedying the emphasis on 'finalities' (final nature, final result, etc.) experts in this field seem to be suggesting an emphasis on process: it's not the end result that counts but, more so, an unfolding process of learning that makes a journey worthwhile and worth embarking on. Many of the modern slogans in the growth mindset field remind me of things written by John Dewey a century ago.
    So far, so good, but I have to wonder: where does the concept of 'growth' fit into this? And is there ever a reliable way of gauging whether or not something has 'grown' based on a process or even a result? I think that the concept of growth starts to become murkier as a person starts to explore the inner growth of, say, children. Children are such complex beings that I wonder:  does the imposition of 'growing curve' sometimes inhibit children from doing something that feels genuinely authentic to them? Whose growth is it anyway? At what cost to a person's inner life must they face growth or go through growth?
    To me, the most lasting kinds of growth seem to come from within a person's sincere heart. It might seem that a person is growing when she or he is following how others want them to be, but this is only growth for something outside of oneself, such as a corporation or a corporate value. What often happens in that case is that a person starts to split themselves into a 'personal' self and a 'corporate', almost bureaucratic, self. If values such as 'growth' are meant to be a permanent part of one's life, then it needs to come from a real desire for change. And even in that case, it's still hard to say when change becomes growth. To use a Darwinian example, animals are hardly said to 'grow' through adaptation, since adaptation is simply that: adapting to the circumstances in which an animal lives. But growth seems to me to be something more integral, and more encompassing. To 'grow' is to seem to step beyond a way of living while simultaneously containing it: to see life in a context of something bigger than itself.