Is Personal Development Ruining Your Life?
This newsletter might rustle a few feathers…
But I encourage you to keep an open mind.
Without an open mind you will not be able to zoom out and receive the teachings that I’m about to share with you today.
Let me start off by telling you that the personal development industry is a $40 billion dollar industry.
That’s a lot of money.
That’s a lot of people attending events, buying classes, and hiring coaches and mentors.
It is also a highly unregulated industry. Isn’t everyone and their cat a life coach now?
What does it take to be a coach these days? How about the Uber driver who coaches young men on how to be an Alpha Male. Is he qualified?
Side note for my male identified readers - if you have to claim to be an Alpha Male, you’re not.
Let’s be clear - I am not here to convince you that this is an entirely capitalistic industry striving to lure vulnerable people who are looking to improve their life - but it is an industry that requires some critical thinking skills before diving in.
I am not here to convince you that personal development is bad, or that making money off of a coaching program is bad. It’s actually quite the opposite.
Personal Development changed my life. It changed my relationship. It changes my business. It changes my connection to spirituality.
But not in the way you might think.
Let me paint you a picture of the traditional path of the personal development junkie.
You are scrolling through facebook one day and you see a very powerful looking man.
Jumping up and down on the stage.
With thousands of people up on their feet begging for a better life.
Fancy lights, cameras, music, and one simple promise.
If you attend one of these events, it will change your life.
Next thing you know you are indoctrinated into the world of personal development and signed up for your first Tony Robbins live event.
Listen - I love Tony Robbins. I believe he has done some of the best work in the industry and I have nothing but respect for him.
So… after your first event, you head home to change your life.
Except, you find yourself settling back into bad habits, old patterns, and next thing you know a few weeks later the dopamine has worn off.
So you go looking for it again.
You begin researching the latest books, podcasts, and YouTube videos on personal growth.
You get hooked.
You go from one piece of content to another looking for the next big hack to pull you out of your state and into a life of fulfillment.
Now, you’re getting served more ads on social media. You attend more free webinars. Read more books.
You have the perception that you are growing and healing.
Life is good right?
Wrong - you begin to ask yourself why you are feeling worse. I thought this was supposed to make me happier?
Meanwhile, you don't even remember what you were learning 2 weeks ago because you are just flying from one resource to the next.
Here lies the trap that many go down. And are left not knowing what to do next.
The Personal Development Paradox.
I’m about to share with you what the industry fails to communicate.
Action is more important than knowledge.
It doesn't matter how many books you read, how many podcasts you listen to, or how many coaches you hire.
If you only consume information, all you are doing is identifying areas in your life that you aren’t happy with - but not actually doing the work to solve them.
Reading a book on meditation doesn't make you an expert of meditation.
Listening to a podcast on relationship patterns doesn’t make you an expert in creating awareness around your behaviours with your partner.
Hiring a coach to teach you about inner child work doesn’t get you any closer to healing.
Want to know what fosters change in one's life?
Action.
If I had a dollar for every half finished book, audiobook, podcast episode… I’d probably have an extra few hundred bucks.
I didn’t start to see changes in my life until I stopped the personal development hamster wheel and started sitting with the few areas in my life I wanted to deeply work on.
Here are the few areas in my life that I chose to work on:
Embodying depth, presence, and integrity within my relationship.
Improving my mental health & physical health.
Healing my childhood wounds.
I’m about to walk you through a few actions that I take in each of these areas of my life so you can get a better understanding of what I mean by “the work”.
Depth, Presence, Integrity
Doing daily meditations & masculine embodiment breakwork to ground my energy and expand my nervous system capacity.
Practicing feeling my feet on the ground and breathing deep into my lower belly. This works to keep my nervous system calm and takes me out of my head (I tend to ruminate on dumb shit)
Journaling on the parts of my life I am excited about improving and reflecting on the past behaviors I have taken. Making a plan to work on these aspects of myself.
Mental & Physical Health
Eating a low sugar, high protein diet.
Limiting my caffeine intake.
Sleeping 7-9 hours/night.
Exercising 4-5 times/ week.
Meditation.
Releasing stress in my body (through breath/movement exercises)
Healing Childhood Wounds
Taking an inventory of where my childhood shit is showing up in my life.
Cultivating an awareness around my triggers, and sitting with the difficult emotions as they come up. Rather than suppressing them like most of us men are taught.
I hope that this letter has given you some insight into the trap that most of us fall into. I’m 100% on board for growth - I believe if we are not growing we are dying.
I just want to spare you the pain of trying to “fix” yourself through 100 podcasts or books and coming up empty.
If you are looking to make changes in your life, my recommendation would be to pick 1 or 2 areas in your life and go deep on those for 3-6 months. This will give you enough time and space to actually see results and not feel overwhelmed.
Know that the journey to growth is life long. There is nowhere to be. There is no end goal.
There is only moving towards expansion.
Much love.
- Ian
