For this article I thought I would write about not allowing the pursuit of personal growth to consume you. Personal development is good and all, but too much of it can keep you stuck. Becoming mired down in self-help blogs (even this one), magazines, books, CDs and videos can force you into a sort of analysis paralysis by way of information overload. Personal development should only be focused on when there is some aspect of yourself or an area of your life that you want to improve on. Maybe you want to become a better listener for improved intimacy in your relationships or you want to become more assertive so that you can better negotiate your work salary; otherwise, your time is better spent by taking action.
Making changes in your life doesn’t have to be this long, arduous process of emotional excavation. Now I am not saying that some problems don’t take longer than others to resolve; I wouldn’t minimize your pain in that way; however, I do think that we get in our own way by making things harder or more complicated than they need to be. Simply put, we are not willing to risk letting go of our problems of the past so that we can experience something new. Maybe we feel like we deserve to feel the way that we do or maybe the unfamiliarity of what we don’t know is just too much for us. Or maybe we enjoy the struggle along the way. Yes, people become addicted to struggle. Could this be you?
Ask yourself whether you feel better about your accomplishments when there has been a bout of struggle. Does it make you more proud? Would you be just as proud if it came easy? Really think about how long you have been dealing with some of the things that have been bothering you and why they haven’t been resolved. Could it be that you are afraid?
You have a choice
Resolving an issue can be likened to taking an annoying pebble out of your shoe. You have a choice whether you want to walk miles and miles in pain with the pebble in your shoe or take it out and be completely pain free. If you are not happy in your job, change how you view your job, change what you are doing in your job, or get another job. The same goes for your relationships and other areas of your life that are causing you discomfort.
For example, I wrote a series on becoming a better listener. I wrote that series because I felt like by listening better, I could create more intimacy in my relationships. I was feeling a bit disconnected and that was the pebble in my shoe. Personal development is not about being better or more evolved than someone else. It isn’t even about being a perfect you. It is about creating the life that you want. In fact, the second you think that you are better than someone else, you are actually less evolved. We can learn from EVERYONE.
You can learn from everyone
Thinking you are better than someone else also sets you up for thinking that others are better than you. This hierarchy is false and completely driven by the ego so that you can feel better or worse about yourself. You must ask yourself why you need someone else to be worse than you in order to feel better. By worse I mean your perception of them is that they are not as far along as you are in whatever you deem important–. Their job isn’t as good as yours, they aren’t as happy as you, they are not as enlightened, etc…
Comparing equals a false identity
Comparing yourself to others is the root of unhappiness. Sure, notice others, see what they do, learn from them, but don’t try to be them. You can’t be them anyway. The only thing that you can do is to be the best YOU as you have defined it. Each person has talents and gifts to offer the world that are uniquely theirs. If there is something about you that you want to change, then change it. Look at it this way, make changes that will make you good for today and each today will add up to another tomorrow.
Update: A few months ago I wrote an article about incorporating more about my joy of running into the blog, but after a redesign and much thought, I decided to separate the topics and start another blog. I am not updating it as frequently as most of my time is spent on this blog. I just couldn’t make it fit in with this blog the way that I wanted to. Sometimes we have to make the change and see the results to know whether it was the right one.
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Hi, My name is Lisa. I am a mother, girlfriend, blogger, runner and happiness seeker.
I started blogging in March 2010 as a way for me to grow and help others by sharing what I learned.
My personal development journey began about 15 years ago.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Great challenge to thinking Lisa and boy, one plenty need I say. You know it’s always struck me insane how many folks still move from book to book, ideology to ideology, method to method, and development tool to development tool WITHOUT ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING. The clue is on the tin – Personal Development. You i.e. the personal have to develop, so when you gonna put down The Secret or The Law of Attraction and start growing and evolving and get taking action and not just feeling good reading about it at bedtime? Self-help needs to be more help self for me!
Hi John,
Thanks for stopping by. Yes, I know exactly what you mean and I don’t want people to fall into that trap. It is an ugly one because reading, listening and viewing self help materials can make you think that you are actually doing something. You are doing something up to a point, but when you have become saturated with information, it is no longer beneficial to keep going. It is time to put the principles you just learned about into practice.
Hi Lisa,
I would say that I’m a big offender of this. I do get caught up in trying to become better far to often. I do believe that you need to find a way to take the focus off yourself for a while and focus on others. After all this also makes you a better person. :)
Thanks for the timely message.
Hi Vic,
I can completely identify with what you are saying. Like I responded to JK, I was also an offender of that when I first started to make changes. I was one of those people who would emerge myself in self help from sun up to sun down. After about two weeks of doing that, I was completely burned out. I burned out to the point that I didn’t want to see another self help book, tape or video again. Since then I have learned that personal development must be done in moderation. Sure you ALWAYS want to practice what you have learned, but as far as reading, listening and viewing self help materials, I think there should be balance around that. After all, if you are reading, listening and viewing, you are not doing.
Hi Lisa,
I love how you closed this piece by saying “comparing equals a false identity.”
It’s like I tell people, comparing yourself to others is like comparing books. No character’s journey is meant to be the same.
Thanks Bryce.
Well said! There is no one else in the world that is exactly like us. We must embrace and celebrate our uniqueness.
Hi Lisa,
My approach to personal development is a bit different.
“Personal development should only be focused on when there is some aspect of yourself or an area of your life that you want to improve on.”
There’s never a time in my life that I don’t want to improve. I realize how little I know in this world and how very much I have to learn.
I believe that piecemealing personal development on a as needed basis is selling ourselves short. To me it would be like going to school on for the subjects that we thought we needed as a kid. In reality, what ends up happening is that we grow in many areas that affects every aspect of the developmental course. For instance, in school we have to take english and we have to take math. If we only took math then our ability to answer word problems would be considerably low – and not because of math, but because of the over-arching knowledge from the collective study. . I’m not saying that it’s bad to have concentrated focus – but I believe that development naturally occurs in the areas that we need it most, if we’re willing to develop.
Like working out. I don’t just do chest and only chest when I think I want a bigger chest. Nope, I workout the entire body, spreading out my workouts throughout the week and maybe hit the chess harder than normal. If I were to let everything else go and just do chest, then I’d create a constant issue of chasing what I previously neglected.
So for me, balance is the key!
Great article. Made me think!
Hi JK,
Thank you for stopping by and for adding so much to the conversation. Yes, I struggled a bit on how to put that in the article. I think that it is more about balance–that there is a time to focus on personal development and then there is a time to just be. I remember when I first started making changes in my life and I thought that the more time I dedicated to personal growth the better I would be, what happened is I got burned out. I was spending too much time looking for ways to improve myself and not enough time just living. Thanks for the great points. :-)
Hi Lisa,
Its funny, since I started my blog on personal growth I haven’t done as much reading or listening to much personal development material as I used to. I can attribute this though to reading and commenting on PD blogs on a regular basis.
But, too much of anything isn’t good for us imho. Blogging in itself has been a major growth change for me. How about you?