The Swimming Pool That Taught Kate Vanden Bos How to Stop Forcing Growth
Kate Vanden Bos spent years teaching herself to swim laps by forcing every stroke, and that image is the fastest way to explain why so many creative business owners need to stop forcing growth instead of pushing harder toward it. She would watch other swimmers glide through the water while she fought it, length after length, exhausted by the end of twenty laps. The turning point was not more effort – it was a handful of millimeter sized adjustments to her form that let the water hold her instead of resist her. The next day she swam sixty lengths and felt better at the end of those than she had at the end of twenty. That single image, forcing versus flowing, is the entire conversation Renee had with Kate on this episode of Tried and True with a Dash of Woo.
Who Kate Is and Why This Angle Is Different
Kate is the creator of the Growth Cycle, a twelve phase framework built from her own years in naturopathic osteopathy, sports therapy, and eventually a nature connected coaching program that pulled the spiritual piece into focus for her. She describes herself as someone who has always looked for answers in personality systems and astrology without ever being called to specialize in either one, and the Growth Cycle became the container she needed instead. Her core distinction reframes almost everything a driven business owner believes about effort. Pushing harder against a season that does not support what you are trying to build does not make you disciplined. It makes you the swimmer fighting the water instead of the one gliding through it.
What the Growth Cycle Actually Maps
The Growth Cycle maps twelve phases across four seasons, and Kate built it to answer a question personality systems like Human Design and astrology cannot answer on their own: given who you are, what do you actually do today. Each person’s cycle starts on their own date, not January first, which means two people can be living the exact same calendar day while standing in completely different seasons of their own growth. Kate calls this wheels within wheels, the global cosmic patterns, the seasonal patterns of wherever you live, and then your own personal cycle sitting inside both of those. Once you know which phase you are in, you stop treating every low energy day as a problem to solve and start treating it as information about where to put your attention. That shift, energy as information instead of energy as a discipline test, is the whole reason to stop forcing growth and start reading your own map.
The Moment It Got Real, Live on the Call
The moment that landed hardest for Renee happened when she realized, mid conversation, that the day they were recording landed on the exact first day of a brand new phase in her own cycle, called Horizon. Kate lit up and explained that Horizon exists specifically to pull a person out of tunnel vision and toward everything they are not yet considering, and that most people do not plant a single seed of intention until the very last day of that phase. That explanation matched a pull Renee had been feeling for weeks, the urge to sit down, audit what was working, and regroup before deciding what came next. She had chalked that pull up to a personality quirk for years without ever connecting it to anything bigger than her own restlessness. Hearing Kate name the deeper why behind something she had already been sensing is the kind of moment that makes you stop forcing growth through sheer willpower and start actually listening to what your own timing is telling you.
What This Means for Your Actual Calendar
For creative business owners, the practical application shows up fastest in how you plan your calendar. A photographer moving through a phase built for rest or reflection will burn far more energy trying to launch a big offer that week than the same launch would cost two months later in a phase built for output. Kate recommends mapping your own cycle dates onto your actual calendar and checking them before you commit to a launch, a shoot heavy season, or a big creative swing, the same way you would check the weather before planning an outdoor event. None of this asks you to abandon ambition or your deadlines. It asks you to stop forcing growth on a timeline that fights your own energy and start building your biggest moves around the seasons where they will actually land.
What Else Is In This Episode
Kate and Renee also get into what it actually looks like to lean into a leap instead of forcing one, why the word nourishment fits better than self care for what your body is actually asking for, and the real difference between someone who is simply tired and someone who is fighting their own current. There is a reason Kate calls the Growth Cycle something you live rather than something you learn, and that difference becomes obvious the moment you hear her walk through it. If you have ever felt out of step with a calendar that was never built with your particular rhythm in mind, this conversation hands you real language for something you have probably been sensing for years.
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FAQ
What does it mean to stop forcing growth in your business? It means recognizing when you are pushing against your own energy instead of working with it, the way Kate describes fighting the water instead of letting it hold her. Forced growth usually costs more energy than it produces and rarely lasts, while growth that matches your actual season tends to compound over time.
What is the Growth Cycle framework? The Growth Cycle is a twelve phase, four season framework Kate Vanden Bos created to help people know where they are right now and what to focus on today, rather than trying to learn an entire personality system at once. Each person’s cycle runs on their own personal dates rather than the calendar year.
How is the Growth Cycle different from Human Design or astrology? Kate built it as a companion to those systems rather than a replacement. Human Design and astrology tell you who you are and why you are here, and the Growth Cycle answers the more immediate question of what to actually do with that information today.
What is the difference between being tired and fighting your own current? Being tired usually resolves with rest. Fighting your own current is a deeper pattern where you keep pushing against a season your body and energy are not aligned with, which shows up first as irritation, then resentment, then eventually a complete loss of motivation.
How do you find out which phase of the Growth Cycle you’re in? Kate offers a free phase report and a paid Growth Cycle map built from your birth details, both available through her website. Renee’s listeners get a discount code for the full Growth Cycle system.
Why does Kate start the Growth Cycle at phase 11 instead of phase 1? Because seeds get planted underground before anyone sees them grow. Phase 11, Horizon, is where a new cycle actually begins, long before the results of that new intention become visible.
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