Personal development… Personal growth… Self-help… Whatever name you are comfortable with, it all focuses on bringing out the best version of self. In my quest of being the highest and greatest version of self, I have bought the programs, read the multitude of books, watched the motivational videos, and listened to various speeches and podcasts. Most have a very similar message and methodologies to achieving this goal of the highest self. Yet, each motivators tool kit is a little different than the others. How else could you package it and sell it if it weren’t?
Your job is then to set out on your own journey, gorging yourself on all this information, sticking to the methodologies, believing and having faith, and taking action in order to fulfill your self-fulfilled prophecy. It can become quite overwhelming and extremely expensive. There is something wrong to this approach besides the fact that growth and enlightenment should be free. I have to believe others have said it, including the gurus whose message you buy and believe.
Their methodologies are not actually for you. Their methodologies are what worked for them. Prescribing to their exact methodology should only be a starting point for which you gain some self-discipline, adhering to a routine that will advance your desires. Their approach may be effective for you in the short-term but it will never be maintained over the long haul because… it was not made by you nor for you. It was made by them and for them. It is what worked for them.
Again, you can use this as a starting point but you need to create and mold what works best for you. Instead of jumping from one program to the next, trying it and then ditching it for the next one, use your artistic skills to create a masterpiece of your own.
Pick and choose the components, philosophies, concepts & principles, foundations, activities, and actions that you enjoy. Pick the ones you will actually do and create YOUR OWN program. Isn’t that what the expert did? They found something that they enjoyed, were able to adhere to through self-discipline, and saw it through to the end. Then they sold it to you.
The other issue I have to mention is the assumption made by most consumers of such products. The assumption is that if you do those things, follow these belief systems, everything will change and all will be right with the world. Wrong! Personal development (or any term you dub it) is a journey that is never-ending. I hope you understand the importance of that term. It does not stop.
No matter what your level of success attained as defined by you, there is no end game. There is no end point. The moment you cease to keep pursuing and growing is the moment you regress or die. Your development is stunted and fades. All you learned will be in vain if you take your foot off the gas pedal.
Once this understanding occurs, you gain a sense of what the underlying truth is about all of this personal growth stuff. This is all a game that can be played as you see fit. It is nothing more than that. It is an approach you decide to live by that suits you and creates the existence you wish to have in your reality. When you see that, you really get your mind blown in knowing that if your reality can be created and molded in any way you want, its existence is as hardened or made as fragile as you allow it to be.
Stop doing what they say and starting doing what they do. Take what you will and leave the rest. Mold from the toolkit what works best for you. Understand that there is no finish line and accept that fact. It alleviates the pressure and the world opens up because you are no longer in a rush to get anywhere on your personal development journey. Rather you see the journey for what it is… Life.
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