Four ways you may be defeating your personal growth efforts May 9, 2018
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in personal development ideas.Tags: achieving goals, goal setting, inspiration, life, personal growth program, philosophy, procrastination, psychology, self-actualization, writing
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Personal development, like any other sustained objective we are trying to reach, requires some discipline and guidelines, otherwise our efforts will be ineffective and counter-productive; especially if we fall into certain habits and practices.
(1) Too much theory, not enough action
Because self-improvement is such an interesting subject we can easily become over-absorbed in the research and study of various materials, to the point where we are not putting into practice what we are learning. The action steps are as important, and perhaps more so, than the theory.
(2) Scattering our efforts
Instead of picking a self-improvement program and sticking with it, we try to incorporate too many different ideas or concepts into our program, with the result that our action steps lack focus, leading to frustration with our goal-directed activities.
(3) Working in bursts
We have all probably “crammed” at night to pass a test, but if we try this technique with self-actualization, the result will be disappointment. Any long-term goals require what Seth Godin calls the drip-drip-drip approach for success.
(4) Procrastinating with the hard stuff
Reading the books and expert blogs, watching instructional videos, and listening to podcasts are all helpful, as are all the appropriate action steps. But often with personal growth, the hardest part can be the internal work we need to do to achieve attitudinal change. And that’s the part we often put off doing, because it’s probably the toughest part of personal development.
— Dennis Mellersh
Personal growth challenge: Less theory, more implementation October 26, 2017
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth.Tags: achieving goals, focussing, life, personal development potential, personal improvement, philosophy, procrastination, self-actualization, writing
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Study is important, but there’s not much use in having an ambitious personal growth program if we spend more time on the theory than we do on taking actions to actually improve ourselves. Spending too much time on the theories of self-actualization reduces the time available to accomplish our goals.
We can fool ourselves into thinking that studying can substitute for “doing” when in fact studying too much theory can be an enabler for procrastination.
Excessive time spent on studying “how to be organized”, for example, serves little purpose if we are leaving the action of paying our overdue bills until tomorrow.
Unless the act of studying is, in itself, a major part of our self-actualization program, then we are better off making action the biggest part of our focus.
— Dennis Mellersh
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