5 Sneaky Ways That Personal Development Information Can Screw with Your Head
Posted in Personal Growth on 01. Sep, 2009
We all want to grow as individuals, and no one ever starts off as a true gentleman or gets there entirely of their own accord–there are always mentors and guides along the way. That said, it’s very important to differentiate between personal development and personal development information. Progress is good–but self help information that actually hinders or cripples our growth isn’t.
Earlier today, Henrik Edberg at The Positivity Blog explained several ways that this type of information can actually be counter-productive and eventually inhibit the very objectives you seek. The ways the self-help industry can be detrimental to your well-being include:
1. It helps you to overcomplicate stuff.
2. It gets you emotionally hooked on reading more and more.
3. It leaves you confused.
4. It makes you feel like you aren’t ever ready or good enough.
5. It makes you think that things will be perfect and you will be too.
All five strike me as problems that cab occur if you allow the (necessary) phase of planning for growth to become an end in and of itself. It seems like many people are content to live in this planning phase perpetually, but when I consider the reasons above I better understand why. Henrik’s observations also seem consistent with something Pascal observed (which also happen to be one of our “thoughts for the day“ posts earlier this week):
“The present is never our goal: the past and present are our means: the future alone is our goal. Thus, we never live but we hope to live; and always hoping to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so.”
I understand why planning for the future can provide us with some level of comfort, a perception of control, or even the safety of never having to actually change. It seems the best way to make lasting progress isn’t to make grand plans for the future, then, but to put one foot in front of the other and start making progress–no matter how small–today. Both Pascal and Henrik are on to something: when our daily life centers around plans for the future rather than living in the moment, real progress is unlikely and true happiness will always be out-of-reach.
So by all means, let’s use self-help books and personal development for what they’re good for–and then set them aside as we leave all the planning behind.
-tg
5 Sneaky Ways That Personal Development Information Can Screw with Your Head [The Positivity Blog via Lifehacker]
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