Do You Make These 8 Personal Development Mistakes?
Most people suck at improving themselves. Even when theyre trying their hardest to become a better person, they wind up running on the dreaded personal development hamster wheel hours of effort, zero results.
Its not because theyre stupid. Its not because theyre lazy. Its definitely not because its not possible. Its because theyre making the mistakes that most people make when theyre trying to change their life for the better. Thats why theres so many people reading self-help blogs, self-help books, and taking self-help classes and yet so few people making a meaningful and lasting difference.
So heres a list of the eight most common (and most damaging) mistakes that people make in personal development.
Are you guilty of any of these?
- Are You Fixing Your Weaknesses?
Dont you just hate being bad at things? It makes you feel dumb playing tennis when youve only ever played against Wii characters. You feel small when someone mentions James K. Polk and expects you to know he was the 11th American president (not that anyone would ever expect that).
So its natural to focus the majority of your personal development time on fixing your weaknesses. Thats all well and good, but you get a much better return on that time if you focus on improving your strengths.
Think of it like this. The vast majority of any successes you have in life will be because of your strengths. Your career security will be based on the strengths you bring to the table. Youve probably heard of the 80/20 rule (80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts). Thats what I recommend here:
Focus the majority of your personal development efforts on your top 20%! of skil ls, strengths, and talents. For the rest of the 80% do what you can to avoid them, delegate them to someone else, or create a system to avoid doing them. If a weakness is preventing you from hitting your goals, then get just good enough so that you can continue to focus on becoming an expert at what youre good at. - Do You Want to Become Better?
Why do you focus on personal development? Well, to be a better person. To have a better life. To have better skills.
...What does better mean?
Every sane person on earth wants to be better in a bunch of ways. Thats a good thing were ambitious. But better is a vague goal. We all know the thing about vague goals vague goals produce vague results. Or in other words, vague goals dont produce real results.
Your personal development path must have a purpose. There has to be a reason youre working on whatever it is you want to improve. Thats the only way anything will actually ever happen. Change better to something like know how to build a website so I can share my advice. Thats how personal development actually happens in the real world. - Are You Learning Awesome Theories?
Theories are awesome and a lot of them are amazing. Seriously.
An investment strategy can sky rocket your wealth. A lifestyle design philosophy can get you out of the cubicle. A productivity system can help you get a whole heck of a lot more done.
But theories are also like crack or girl scout cookies theyre addictive.
Once youre exposed to a compelling theory or philosophy about something, its hard not to try to learn everything about it. Then its hard not to look for all the other competing theories or philosophies and learn everything about them. Then its hard to not look for comparisons to figure out which ones best.
Worst of all its hard to bring any of the theories into real action.
Its helpful to remember this simple concept
For example, there is an infinite number of ways to lose weight choose from a million diets, exercise programs, supplements, gyms, programs, etc. but nothing works if youre doing nothing but researching.
It doesnt matter if you have the #1 possible theory. Its better to just find a path thats not stupid and stick to it. (You can always improve it later). Learning theories isnt personal development. Implementing them is. - Have You Never Had a Major Failure?
Avoiding failure makes you feel successful. After all, failure is bad. Right?
Well, kind of. No one should try to fail. That would make you weird. But if youve never had a major failure, then youve never really tried to succeed. If youve got your skin in the game for long enough something will go wrong. Period.
Dont believe me? Name one successful person whos never failed.
The strange paradox of it is that you cannot learn much from successes, but the bigger the failure the more you learn. In most aspects of life, people tend to look at the successes and copy them so that they can avoid the failure. The first part is good copying previous successes is just smart. But you should expect to fail eventually. The only possible way to avoid failing is to not try in the first place.
Work hard for those failures, because thats the best way possible for you to grow. - Are You Crazy Busy?
Everyone intends to improve themselves, but its just damn hard to find the time (see New Years resolutions).
You got work, family, obligati! ons, tra vel, chores, and sleep. Who has time to work on themselves?
Yep, its tough.
Its really got to be a matter of priority. How much of a priority is it that you improve yourself, your skills, and your life? It may be obvious that thats a top priority for you, but real world implementation may be a bit tricky. Time may only allow you to settle for reading advice, not implementing it.
Theres two solutions:
First, you can schedule time for whatever kind of personal development you want to focus on. Then you guard that time with your life.
Second, if you cant do that for whatever reason, you need to find ways to incorporate your improvement in other activities you have to do anyway.
Truth be told, you should probably find a way to do both. - Did You Choose The Newest and Shiniest Version?
Its easier to think that the newest thing out there is the best. The newest strategy, technique, tactic, idea, book, etc.
Its true with a lot of things technology and medicine being two obvious examples. Its not true with a lot of others.
Want to get an amazing memory? The best current memory courses are variations on methods from ancient Greece. Want to calculate crazy math problems in your head? India had that figured out about 2,500 years ago.
We like bells, whistles, and that new car smell, but sometimes were missing the old and tested approaches to things. Most personal development is about subjects that are timeless the mind, the body, the spirit, selling, finances, communication, friendship, love, etc.
I guess the point here is no matter what you want to improve about yourself many people have gone through the same thing. Dont make it more complicated than it needs to be. - Is Your Personal Development for Personal Developments Sake?
If personal development doesnt have a result, then it doesnt count.
By result I mean a tangible, objective, other-people-can-see-change kind ! of resul t. That means you have to get something from your improvement efforts.
Whats that something.
Well, if you truly improve yourself then you should see some of the following things come into your life:- More money (gasp!) Yep, if youre more skilled then you should command a higher income whether your self employed or work for someone else
- More confidence Youre more confident when youre good at something. The more you improve, the more that should happen.
- More influence The more you improve in a noticeable way, the more others will value your opinion on things
- Do You Love to Read?
Loving to read is great, but dangerous.
Its dangerous because it takes you to another world. When youre reading your imagination sparks and you are inspired by great possibilities. The world in your head is fantastic!
...then you go back to the real world.
With your personal development, spend maximum 25% of your time reading, learning, and researching. The other 75% (or more) should be spent taking action.
Lets be honest, with most things we already know what we need to do, or at least where to start. Wanna be fit? Start with jogging before work and stop eating fast food. Wanna make friends? Start by joining a club or organization. Wanna be productive? Close your email.
For something we just dont know how to do, finding that information is simple Google it.
New information can inspire and motivate, but more often it can derail. So, maximum 25% reading and minimum 75% doing.
Testing the quality of your personal development efforts can be one of the most ! powerful things that you can do today.
Making mistakes can be frustrating (especially when it comes to something personal), but identifying those mistakes allows us to improve. Most progress starts by noticing a mistake and deciding to do something differently in the future.
The worst personal development mistake didnt make the list. The worst mistake is ignoring or refusing to do anything about failures. Its turning a blind eye to potential learning opportunities. When that happens, people are doomed to continue running on that personal development hamster wheel.
I didnt include it, because folks in that situation will always be stuck. On the other hand, if youre passionately pursuing improvement and have an open mind to change, youre almost guaranteed to succeed.
So go out there and become great.
Written on 8/9/2011 Joey Weber. Joey teaches people how to get paid to improve themselves (that sexy intersection of personal development and online business) over at www.FindYourDamnPurpose.com. If that sounds interesting, check it out by >>Clicking Here Now<<. Photo Credit: m.gifford
