Personal development is a wonderful thing. It can help you improve your health and body, your social life, your happiness and financial situation. But there are also a few pitfalls. A few, pretty serious problems I have run into myself. Stuff that can really hurt you and your life instead of improving it.

Here are two such sneaky traps.

1. Personal development information becomes a place where you can hide.

There are many ways to escape reality and the suffering/pain/uncomfort you may be experiencing. Drugs or too much shopping, TV, exercising or World of Warcraft can be such ways. So you may realize that and have started to get interested in personal development material to leap out of such escapist behaviour and improve your life.

Just be careful so you don’t jump from one such way of escape into another.

If you are reading a lot of personal development books but are not taking much action to improve your life or if you feel a sort of high every time you read a about a new, exciting idea that you think will “fix” your problem then you may be using personal development as an escape. Just like WOW or shopping each new article or book may give you a temporary high that you start chasing. Instead of a tool that you use practically in your own life.

Now, I think a lot of people get stuck in reading for some time when they first start learning about this stuff. That’s pretty natural since you’re new to it all and perhaps a bit confused. But at some point you have to review what you have done with what you have learned so far. And become aware that you may have to start reading less and doing more.

2. You take in too much information and can’t focus on anything.

This problem can come from reading too many personal development blog or books at once. You get all these great ideas and tips all the time and want to improve everything right now. So you focus on improving too many things at once.

The problem is just that your mind isn’t really built to focus on many things at once. And change is slow. If you try to improve many areas of your life at the same time it is very easy to get emotionally and mentally drained from that process. It may work well for a week or two but at some point – in my experience – it just becomes too much and you start slipping back into your old behaviour or start rationalizing why you don’t need this change right now anyway. After a month you are pretty much back to your old ways.

A better – but less exciting – way is to for instance focus on one thing each month. That may sound too easy and simple on paper but it’s better to use this month to get one thing right instead making little progress in three or four areas. The main focus is to actually improve something in real life, not how many things you can fit into your schedule.

For instance for me, January was about focusing on what I’m eating and my new workout program. For me, the eating – portion sizes and what I eat – is now is now pretty much on auto-pilot and nothing I have to think about that much. The same goes for my workout combination of weight training and bodyweight cardio circuits.

Putting this stuff on auto-pilot and as something I just do just – like brushing my teeth and taking showers – leaves me with more energy and available focus for more interesting things right now.

Many of us who want to be successful in life find ourselves reading self help books and other personal development material. I strongly believe that studying success like any subject you want to master is a necessary pursuit. But unlike learning a language or any other new skill the process of studying success also provides many benefits which actually enhance our ability to learn the subject. Here are some additional benefits to reading and studying success and personal development:

• Reading success and personal development material has the natural side-effect of inducing feelings of optimism and desire.
• Self help books and success literature encourage you to focus your viewpoint on the future and not dwell in the past.
• When you read personal development books you want to set new goals for yourself.
• Reading about success and successful people gives you something to aspire to.
• The stories and lessons found in self help and personal development books provide hope that there is always something better waiting in your future.
• You – are forced to focus on what is good in your life and despite any challenges you are currently facing you are led to feel good about yourself and your current situation – there are always others who have had it worse and still persevered and were successful in spite of their situations.
• These books and material encourage you to imagine and picture what you want for your life. These positive images make you feel good.
• Personal development books open your mind to new ideas, opportunities, and ways of looking at things.
• They teach you to relate to others in a more positive and productive way.

If you truly want to be successful or accomplish whatever you desire I recommend that you surround yourself with success and self help books, audio programs, and magazines. Although the specific skills you will learn will be useful, the many side benefits of actually reading them will help you attract what you are seeking.

Additional Success Resources