What Personal Development Mistakes Are You Making?

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Hi There, Friends Of Freedom

As is my custom, I was sitting with my morning beverage today

going through my morning routine

Exercise – Envision – Read – Meditate – Pray – Empower

thinking about what messages I have received that would benefit

the communities of action that I am a part of when it hit me.

I had been sharing mind together with Mike Hobbs and the rest of the

Internet Prosperity group – as we do every week-day for about an hour

over lunch. We were getting prepared for a big week in Costa Rica with our

fellow leaders of the EmpowerNetwork and we were exchanging ideas on

how to best serve the communities we are part of during this absence.

One of the topics that we came up with, was to share a post on the subject of personal development.

After all, no less than the great Jim Rohn observed

“Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got.”

No lesser authority than the Dalhai Lama states

“If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love others. You will not be able to love others. If you have no compassion for yourself then you are not able of developing compassion for others.”

I was going to write here about the advice given by the great Zig Ziglar in his book “See You at The Top”  where he spends all of Chapter 6 providing “Fifteen Steps To A Healthy Self-Image” and notes that

“Once you accept yourself, it will no longer be a matter of life or death for others to accept you … they will be accepting the real you and the real you is much nicer than the phony conformist who tries so hard to become somebody he isn’t”

But then, as I was researching the topic for you I came across an article in dumblittleman.com entitled

Do You Make These 8 Personal Development Mistakes?

and I got to thinking. The cheapest way to grow is learning from the “mistakes” of others – so I checked it out and found so much value it would immoral of me not to share..

So what are these mistakes, you ask?

He asks, are you guilty of any of these:

#1: Are You Fixing Your Weaknesses? 

For this he recommends that we focus the majority of our personal development efforts on our top 20% of skills, strengths, and talents. For the rest of the 80% do what we can to avoid them, delegate them to someone else, or create a system to avoid doing them. If a weakness is preventing us from hitting our goals, then get just good enough so that we can continue to focus on becoming an expert at we’re good at.

#2: Do You Want to Become “Better”?

For this he asks “…What does ‘better’ mean?” Change “better” to something specific like “know how to build a website so I can share my advice.” That’s how personal development actually happens in the real world.

#3: Are You Learning Awesome Theories?

Remember theories are also like crack or girl scout cookies – they’re addictive. It’s helpful to remember this simple concept – “everything that’s not stupid works.” It’s better to just find a path that’s not stupid and stick to it. (You can always improve it later). Learning theories isn’t personal development. Implementing them is.

#4: Have You Never Had a Major Failure?

Name one successful person who’s never failed. The strange paradox is that you cannot learn much from successes, but the bigger the failure the more you learn. The only possible way to avoid failing is to not try in the first place.

Work hard for those failures, because that’s the best way possible for you to grow.

#5: Are You Crazy Busy?

Who has time to work on themselves?

Yep, it’s tough.

It’s really got to be a matter of priority. How much of a priority is it that you improve yourself, your skills, and your life?

There are 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 can’t 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.

#6: Did You Choose The Newest and Shiniest Version?

It’s easier to think that the newest thing out there is the best. The newest strategy, technique, tactic, idea, book, etc. …

Remember, most personal development is about subjects that are timeless – the mind, the body, the spirit, selling, finances, communication, friendship, love, etc.

Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.

#7: Is Your Personal Development for Personal Development’s Sake?

If “personal development” doesn’t have a result, then it doesn’t count. <– <–

By “result” I mean a tangible, objective, other-people-can-see-change kind of result. That means you have to get something from your improvement efforts.

For example,  More Money, More Confidence, More Influence.

If you’re not seeing those things, maybe your personal development path isn’t quite on track. 

#8: Do You Love to Read?

Loving to read is great, but dangerous.

With your personal development, spend maximum 25% of your time reading, learning, and researching. The other 75% (or more) should be spent taking action.

Mostly we already know, inside ourselves, what to do.

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.

So again, maximum 25% reading and minimum 75% doing.

Click Below to read the full article

 Do You Make These 8 Personal Development Mistakes?

The Bottom line…

PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE

If you’re passionately pursuing improvement and have an open mind to change, you’re almost guaranteed to succeed.

Love you guys,

Freedom, Strength and Honor TO YOU

and to all Friends of Freedom

from

P.S. Join Us Also Each Weekday Morning At 9:00 AM U.S. EST For The “Think And Grow Rich” Mindset Call.

Replay Number: 712-432-0990 (usually up for about 12 hours after call)