Anna Branten: Are the Inner Development Goals due for a self-assessment?

This week, Impact Loop reports on the criticism towards Inner Development Goals movement, a Swedish-founded organisation with the aim of supporting personal development.

There’s something almost poetic about how IDG has fallen exactly into the very simplifications it warns against. What started as a Swedish initiative has rapidly expanded to 700 hubs across 80 countries.

But does this success reflect the movement’s true value, or does it simply reveal our ongoing desire for quick, digestible solutions to deeply rooted problems? Do we genuinely believe that repackaging complexity into neat frameworks is enough to address it? Or does this approach risk making us feel productive while failing to create real change?

The same pattern emerges across today’s transformation movements. We take something inherently complex and force it into measurable, goal-driven structures – making it easier to market, implement, and scale. But in doing so, we risk losing the very essence of what real transformation requires. After all, how do you quantify personal growth? How do you standardize the deep, inner awakening needed to confront today’s existential challenges?

We take something inherently complex and force it into measurable, goal-driven structures

The paradox is striking: IDG was designed to foster the deep, transformative learning necessary for navigating our time’s crises. Yet, in its pursuit of rapid global reach, has the movement itself become trapped in the very reductionist thinking it aims to transcend?

As Nora Bateson points out, we cannot treat people as isolated units to be "upgraded" individually. Real change happens in the spaces between - in relationships, in shared contexts, in the intangible aspects of human connection that cannot be captured in a framework.

At its core, the tension between IDG’s advocates and its critics is about individual versus collective transformation. We know the world needs systemic change, yet we continue to operate as if millions of individuals checking off personal development goals will somehow add up to a larger shift.

But does transformation really work that way? Or do we need to fundamentally rethink how deep, structural change actually happens?

When we try to simplify the complex, we risk creating an illusion of progress rather than real solutions. It’s comforting to believe we can "develop our way out of crisis" by following a well-designed framework. But as Lene Rachel Andersen reminds us through the concept of bildung, true development isn’t about reaching predetermined goals – it’s about evolving by engaging with our own experiences, contexts, and relationships in a meaningful way.

So what’s the alternative? Perhaps we need to embrace the tension between simplicity and complexity – between the need for structure and the reality that real change rarely follows a straight path. Frameworks and models can be useful, but only if we remain humble about their limitations. More than anything, we must recognize that speed is not the same as progress.

Perhaps we need to embrace the tension between simplicity and complexity

IDG and social structures – have they done their analysis?

Another key dimension of this discussion is the underlying concept of change that IDG is built upon. It’s hardly a coincidence that some of its most vocal critics, like Andersen and Bateson, are women.

They highlight something fundamental: how IDG’s framework – centered on measurability, categorization, and linear progression – mirrors a traditionally masculine approach to development and transformation.

A more feminine-centered perspective recognizes that true change is relational – it happens in the spaces between us, in the conversations, connections, and shared experiences that shape how we grow, both as individuals and as a collective.

It’s hardly a coincidence that some of its most vocal critics are women

This isn’t a critique of individuals within IDG, but rather of a broader mindset – one that risks oversimplifying complex social and cultural dynamics that shape the very behaviors they aim to change.

The real question is whether IDG has truly accounted for the diverse social structures and cultural perspectives that shape people’s ways of thinking in the different parts of the world where they operate – or if they have primarily worked from their own position and assumptions, relying on methodologies that have been successful in familiar contexts.

This is where some of the most pressing questions emerge. They aspire to reshape the world through inner development, but could their own framework, by its very design, end up reinforcing the very hierarchies they seek to dismantle?

Could their own framework, by its very design, end up reinforcing the very hierarchies they seek to dismantle?

Dialogue and the way forward

One of the most promising aspects of this debate is that IDG’s representatives aren’t shying away from criticism. On the contrary, they have consistently emphasized their openness to dialogue. But this raises a crucial question: Are they willing to critically reassess their own framework? Because real transformation isn’t just about inviting conversation – it requires a genuine willingness to evolve.

IDG has already achieved something many movements haven't: sparking a global conversation about inner development. But if they truly aim to drive meaningful change, they must also be prepared to scrutinize their own structures and methods.

Perhaps the next major step isn’t about refining existing frameworks, but about moving beyond them – embracing complexity, uncertainty, and the immeasurable. After all, true growth doesn’t come from conforming to a model, it emerges when we collectively explore new ways of thinking, being, and transforming.