Welcome to the second part of the “is the self- development industry” a scam. Be sure to check out the first post before you read this one (you can read it here). In the previous post, we ended by saying that you can’t always learn from other people’s mistakes and that you need the learn the hard way sometimes (aka life experience). That being said some people love to be on the self-development bandwagon of course. Why? Easy, through social media information is easily accessible and it’s hard to make a distinction between who’s legit and who’s not because people don’t look at the information that’s being shared. They rather look at the number of followers, likes, or the word “self-made billionaire” in the bio. I mean, it has to be true if it’s in the bio right? Who would lie on the internet pretending to be better than they are, just to make money?!
No one! Now, this is only for the people who make money out of it. But what about the ones that don’t make money? Well, they will tell you stuff like this…………
Imaginary: self- development: but Alex I’ve grown as a person.
You know the drill: wake up early, meditate (stopped doing that a long time ago), read books (most books are not worth it), take cold showers, write daily, etc and soon you.ll be a billionaire. Although writing daily is a good thing most people completely miss the point of all of this. Reading a lot of books might make you sound smart but doesn’t necessarily make you smart. It’s theoretical knowledge that has to be applied and then you gain practical knowledge through trial and error. Most people have the first kind of knowledge but never achieve the latter. Reading books also won’t turn you into a better person.
The fact that you have to share your amazing growth monthly indicates that there isn’t growth at all. your environment will tell you when you’ve changed.
Self- development, and the reality of growth.
They claim to be on a personal development journey but in reality, there’s not a lot going on so letting people know they’ve grown is the perfect way to keep up the facade. How would you otherwise keep on getting likes on your favorite social media accounts?!
In reality, growth is a slow process that’ll be only noticeable for other people over a longer period. The person who’s growing whether physically or mentally won’t notice it until it’s pointed out. Telling yourself that you’ve grown as a person is just putting a bandage on a wound that needs way more than a bandage. You didn’t improve in any area of your life so you just tell yourself you’ve grown as a person.
Why? Well, it’s because according to you:
- Money is bad and you don’t need that much anyway.
- Relationships are too restrictive, you’re just born to be single. Or you don’t want to give up your freedom.
- Having a job is modern-day slavery so it’s better to live off your parent’s money if you’re broke. Or someone else’s money.
- Pursuing a career in any endeavor is useless because things didn’t work out as you planned although you work so hard. Or it just wasn’t for you or the universe gave you signs it was time for something else.
- fill in your excuses.
Here’s the reality. you will change as a person if you live life and learn along the way. How you change and how you deal with what happens along the way is entirely up to you. You can keep telling yourself that you’ve grown as a person but deep down you know that your life is a giant mess with little to no accomplishment at all.
How do I know if I really changed as a person?
That begs the question of course, is it really impossible to see your growth as a person? It’s not impossible. A good way to see if you’ve grown is to take a look at your beliefs. Most people have a certain set of beliefs in life that doesn’t seem to change over time. A change in beliefs will be a sign of you maturing as a person. They might change quite a lot over time. So why don’t people do this more often? Why don’t people try to change their beliefs? The answer is simple: Cognitive dissonance. This means that you will do everything to keep your set of beliefs or assumptions even if it’s contradicted by new information. This can lead to some illogical but very creative answers just to not change the set of beliefs/assumptions.
Read this blog to read more about cognitive dissonance and how it affected some people who joined a cult. Very interesting read. Scroll down to the part “the creativity of the illogical hater” to read the particular part.
A self- development blog post that you might like to read.
Back in 2018, I was training and blogging for about 2 years but nothing was working and I got frustrated. I still didn’t have a fight and the money I was making from blogging was barely enough to buy a coffee. During that time I had invested in a mentorship program (won’t mention the name) but let’s keep it at the fact that it was overpriced and not worth it. Back then I was doing everything right on paper, I putting in the work, meditated, read, and so on. My coach was so proud of me but there was one thing lacking.
RESULTS.
I was accomplishing nothing and deep down inside I knew. I hated my job, was training at a gym with a good coach but it was not a fight gym, etc… That lead me to write a blog called “the year of pain, change, and a lot of growth.” Back then that blog made a lot of sense but looking back on it I wrote a typical self-development post. In summary: life was not going great, I talk about becoming better, add some warrior motivational bullshit, yadda yadda, end post.
Training at a Muay Thai gym and getting a fight. Funny enough the Muay Thai gym was more of a tourist gym rather than a real fight gym. It was a good place to start though since they had some fighters, and later I joined a real Bangkok fight gym.
My life changed because I started thinking about getting results rather than “enjoying the journey”. Funny enough my life also became more enjoyable once I started focusing on results rather than “enjoying the journey”.
End of part 2. A sneak peek of part 3.
Now I realize this post was quite long and doesn’t really get you anywhere. In the end, I just debunked some beliefs that I heard or had myself the past few years. So in the next part, we’re going to debunk some beliefs and after that, I’ll offer a solution to actually change your life.
The topics of the next blog include:
- Talking about people who claim it’s all about the journey.
- The one time I got in a small Twitter beef with an online guru.
- Psychedelics: good or bad.
- How do you actually change your life?
That post will be released next week. (read it here).
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Till next time
Alex
