I have an acronym for personal development, based on the word DEVELOPMENT. We already discussed the
3 Keys to Personal Development: Decisions, Expectations and Values
The Next 3 Steps of Personal Development: Everyday, Lifestyle, Overcoming Negative Beliefs
Planning and Mindset: the 2 Fundamentals of Personal Development
Read those before you proceed with this one.
In this post, we talk about the E, N and T of DEVELOPMENT.
EAGERNESS for Change
Do you remember when it was the night before your big birthday or like a holiday like Christmas or something, or the first time you went on a family vacation, you’re about to go to an amusement park, you remember the feeling in your gut? Couldn’t sleep at night, so eager and excited for the life experience? As a child I know you experienced that but when I ask adults when’s the last time you were truly eager and excited for something they say, “Nothing man, I just get excited for the weekend.” I’m like, “Why?” “I’m not working.” It’s like, Okay, well, find another job, find another career if you don’t get eager and excited to show up every day for your life and you have to wait for the weekends, that means you’re just a walking zombie five days of the year. You’re pretty much dead. You’re not even living. You’re just existing. Be eager for change, for transformation. Be eager for a new way of life. Get excited, lose sleep, why not? Oh it’s not for you? It’s only for kids? If I only knew how hard your life was, if I only knew what you’ve experienced, do you really think people that are excited and eager and passionate all the time haven’t had similar life experiences? Do you really think that? See, it’s not a matter of what you’ve gone through. It’s how you deal with what you’ve gone through.
Everybody goes through something. Do some people have it a little bit worse than other people? For sure. Do some people experience more pain and trauma than other people? For sure. But everybody experiences something. Just the fact that we’re watching this on the internet talking right now we are ahead of probably two billion people in the world that don’t have this opportunity but we don’t think about those things. We just live in a world of fear, you know. So please, please, please find reasons to be eager for your life. It’s a beautiful thing.
If you’re not good at planning to exercise, get help from a personal trainer. It’s a proven method for success. There’s a little cost associated with it, but the reason why that works is because of the accountability piece. Now some people say when they use their dollars and their money you know it raises a level of accountability but the research actually shows that people that have an accountability partner or a gym partner or a workout partner are significantly, significantly more likely to exercise than people that don’t. So if you’re like sitting back and saying, “Well, you know she has the money to get a trainer, I wish I had a trainer, if only I had a trainer, I’d be ripped and fit too,” I want you to know that’s categorically false. The reason why this trainer is working is because she’s accountable to this trainer. It’s the accountability piece and ultimately the goal, by the way, is as she develops her psychological and emotional and physical muscles to become more consistent with her exercise routine and planning, as she gets better and better and better and better at it because if you repeat it, if you’re committed to it, if you’re consistent to it, it eventually becomes a part of your identity. We learn how to be accountable to ourselves. It’s a powerful thing. Enjoy that trainer right now. Learn as much as you can. Gather from their expertise, build a workout routine, build a few of them, and then eventually you know, 6 months from now, a year from now, you won’t even need that. And you can become the accountability partner for somebody else, and show them the things you learn. And that’s how it goes on.
How about having an open mind about the new ideas for more growth in life? I think we have to have an open mind for everything, for new ideas, for old ideas. I think a human being that closes her mind has stopped the possibility of learning and gaining knowledge and developing, all of this, everything I’m saying right now, you need an open mind for, because if you have a closed mind for any of this stuff then you’re just saying, “Hey, I’m okay with who I am and what I know.”
Learn How to Say NO
I talk about this all the time. If you’re trying to become a different version of yourself, if you’re trying to grow, if you’re trying to develop, you must develop and strengthen this. The emotional muscles and the psychological muscles to learn how to say No. Because the more you say No to other things, the more you say No to other people, the more you say No to some of your impulses, the more you say Yes to yourself, to a new way of life. We can’t overextend ourselves by saying Yes to anything and everyone in a path of personal development. It’s going to be a little selfish at first because you got to grow, you got to develop, kind of like a boxer that’s getting ready to go for a fight. They say No to everything. Temptation. They say No to their diet, they say No to their loved ones, they say No to their sleep schedule, they say No to everything. They wake up early in the morning, they grind, they eat right, they work out their mind, they exercise, they rest, they repeat, they repeat, they repeat, they sacrifice a lot of stuff, to be ready for the fight.
Life is that way sometimes. We have to say No to people, places, and things, and say Yes to ourselves in order to be able to grow and develop. And some people do it and some people don’t. The people that do it have learned boundaries. The people that do it have learned the value of saying No. The people that do it understand the importance of saying Yes to yourself. The people that don’t do it are usually codependent. They’re afraid of people’s judgment. They’re afraid of how they will be perceived if they say No. They have people pleasing tendencies and if that’s your way of life just know that you’re going to keep experiencing that.
You know you’re always going to be the person that’s being taken advantage of. You’re always going to be the person that’s always feeling like the floor mat in front of the door. You’re going to be the person that feels like nobody respects them. And they think it’s the problem of the world, when it’s just – you don’t know how to set boundaries. You don’t know how to say No. No wonder everybody walks on you because they can. I’ve said that before to somebody and they got so disrespected. They got so mad at me, they got so pissed. “How dare you say that to me?” I’m like, “You just told me that for years people in your life walk all over you, you told me that I didn’t know that about you, that everybody walks all over you. It’s not about them walking. It’s about you letting them walk. The moment you say No and choose yourself, people will learn the lesson quick. They understand the assignment but they won’t learn it until you teach it. Why don’t they just know it on their own? Because you’ve conditioned them not to. You’ve enabled them for 10, 20, 30 years that this is who you are and what you do, so that’s what they expect. They are just doing to you what you have allowed them to do and they didn’t like that either.” But it’s okay. I spoke the truth and maybe one day they come back around and say. “Hey, I started to value myself. I started to set boundaries. I started to say No to people and I feel like even if they don’t like me as much I can respect myself more.” I don’t know if they will. They’re going to go to another therapist or counselor saying that people in my life walk all over me and the therapist or counselor will say, “Oh, how does that make you feel? What do you think of that? Oh I hear that you’re really sad and overwhelmed.” Man, if you want to hear that kind of stuff this ain’t the channel for you. I’m not the guy for you.
TRANSFORM with TEAM
The last one in the DEVELOPMENT is the T. There’s an African proverb that says the following:
“If you want to go fast in life, go alone, but if you want to go far in life go with others.”
-African Proverb
We only develop and transform with other human beings. Cohesive, get in the middle of the herd, follow the direction of people that have been there, that know how to get there, that can show you the way, and get better 1% everyday, everyday, everyday.
