How I Became Obsessed With Personal Development and Why You Should Too We can all benefit from practicing daily personal development. The rewards are huge for those who invest the time to grow mentally.
By Tim Denning Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
This article previously ran on Nov. 15, 2016.
What is this dark art of personal development you speak of Mr. Tim? Put simply; it's the thing that will change your freaking life for real. No joke. Throw away the college books and forget about Google because all you need to understand is personal development.
It's become my obsession and it's what I do every single day that I have air in my lungs. It's the difference between the losers and the winners that wake up at 4 a.m. with their game face on ready to obliterate their goals with an Elon Musk like way of doing things.
You aren't broken, and we can fix you. Heck, we can fix each other! Empty your beer in the sink, grab a green juice and let's knock the benefits of personal development out together.
Here are the nine reasons why I became obsessed with personal development and you should too:
1. It actually worked.
I'm only preaching this magical thing called personal development because it works. If it didn't work, then I would shut the hell up about it. It's because it works though that I scream from the rooftop to wake up and get on the bandwagon.
Related: The 7 Gifts of Adopting a Personal-Development Mindset
It's the one thing I tried which actually worked. All the woo-woo chanting, affirmations and pretend positive thinking did nothing! It's all a hoax. Before personal development, I had an ugly scarcity mindset. When I learned to believe in the greater good and change the way I think, everything changed and I believe the same can happen for you, amigo.
2. Serving others becomes a must.
From the outside, it appears that personal development is all about you. The deeper you get into it, the quicker you realize that it's about serving others. Your success is about what you do for others. Before you can do anything for others, though, you have to get yourself in order.
After you learn the basics, you'll no longer settle for selfishness or an inflated ego. All you'll think to yourself is "How do I attract like minded people to come and change the world with me?"
3. Progress is addictive.
If I had to break down personal development into one piece of information it would be this; it's all about progress. That's it. You make one small change per day towards your vision and then you take action. The action you take is automatic and often requires almost no thought.
The lack of thought comes from trusting yourself and learning not to over-think. As you start to see results, guess what? It's addictive. You become addicted to success.
All you need to do to master your life is to commit to being just a little bit better than you were yesterday. Don't fall for the delusion that you need to make humongous changes every day because you don't. If you try and do that early on in your transformation, you will burn out and give up.
Related: The 3 Personal Development Goals Successful People Pursue Habitually
Start small. Try lot's of new things and act like a kid again that doesn't give a damn about anything other than having fun and discovering new things.
4. You meet cool people.
Before I drank the personal development Kool-Aid, everyone around me was ordinary. They were all failing and like me, they were pretending they weren't. Together we would post silly photos of us at nightclubs sculling beer and pretending life was great. It wasn't. We were miserable.
When I started learning about personal development, I met others in the same situation. Together, we grew and smashed our goals. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, cool people magically started entering my life because they to wanted to share the good vibes.
Like attracts like, so do you want to attract the dregs or an infectious energy that will propel you beyond your wildest dreams?
5. You can deal with pain easier.
Before personal development, I would experience pain like everyone else, but then I would allow myself to suffer. The pain is guaranteed, but the suffering is a choice. My default reaction to pain was to let it consume me, and I had no other references to get me out of a tough situation.
After beginning to embrace personal development, I learned the ancient art that goes back thousands of years and has never really changed. I then began to embrace fear and become vulnerable. I learned that our flaws are what make us awesome and we should never be ashamed of them.
Pain still comes around, it's just now I have the tools to deal with it.
6. Our brains prehistoric flaws are revealed.
Our mind's software is millions of years old, and it's never had an update. Through personal development, you learn how to force a software upgrade and understand the flaws of the way we are designed. The flaws are not all bad and are often there to protect us and shield us from danger.
Without going into the whole subject of our brain, the most important thing you will learn is that our mind spends most of its time thinking negative thoughts. The default response of our brain to any situation, without intervention, is to think in a negative way. No wonder we're so messed up.
Related: Why Business Ownership Is an Exercise in Personal Development
By simply understanding this fact, and learning how to override the autopilot mode, you can win back your happiness, take back your life, and kick some serious butt!
7. Less time is spent with negative people.
I became obsessed with personal development because it taught me to avoid negative people and not try and please everyone. Even with personal development, some people will refuse to change. It's their choice, and we should respect that.
8. Your income increases.
While you should never let money be your driving force, personal development will double if not triple your income. That's what it's done for me and I'm positive it can do the same for you. Customers and companies want to pay you bucket loads of money when you become a magnet for everything that is good in this world.
The feeling is infectious and everyone wants to be around it. The money can help you make a bigger impact and enjoy life more. It can give you the resources you need to do extraordinary things. Most of all, you'll realize, the money means nothing, and you feel the same. All that matters is your dream.
9. You appreciate what you have already
It's very easy to take what we have for granted. We all want more money, sex, power, and good feelings. When your mind shifts from wanting more to realizing you already have enough, a subtle shift starts to occur.
You'll start to be grateful and express your gratitude towards others more often. You'll learn a secret weapon which is that whenever you feel horrible, you can shift your state by practicing gratitude.
In states of gratitude, the world slows down, your mind stops racing ahead and you see beauty in the simple pleasures of life. Now that's something to celebrate.
