Personal Development Ideas

Evaluating the programs of personal growth experts April 30, 2014

As we work on various ways to increase our satisfaction with our life situation, many of us reach a stage where we begin to think more critically or analytically about the concepts and programs offered by those people considered to be experts or authorities in the field of personal development.

If you are at this stage, here are seven questions you might want to consider investigating:

(1) Is the program or basic theory being offered a practical approach to actually improving the areas in your life in which you want to see better results? Or do the suggested principles of the program seem to you to be overly vague and hard to pin down?

(2) Do you agree with the basic principles or underlying assumptions of the improvement program being suggested? Or would you have to “force” yourself to act on these principles without really believing in them?

(3) Do the personal improvement techniques being suggested by the expert depend for success on a faith-based or religious set of operating principles? If so, can you accept these principles?

(4) Does the expert’s public personal life-behaviour history reflect the principles outlined in their theories? If not, can you still follow and try to implement the ideas of this expert, despite this inconsistency?

(5) In the case of personal growth experts discussing mental health from a medical perspective and offering advice, do they have the necessary medical educational credentials to warrant them being considered an authority?

(6) Is the program or plan easy to understand with straightforward implementation steps? Is the program believable in its claims?

(7) Do the theories, concepts, and ideas expressed by the authority/expert mesh with your own value system?

Finally, it can be helpful to find out what other people think of the ideas offered by the expert you are considering following. One of the ways to discover this is by looking for third-party unbiased online reviews, criticism and articles about the expert and their personal growth informational materials.