PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT FAQ! ALL YOUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS ANSWERED HERE!

So I am constantly coming upon people who have the same questions in personal development, or oftentimes they are not even questions, but ignorant thoughts that would be better phrased as questions so that they could become more enlightened.  So I decided to do a FAQ for all of the common introductory personal development issues out there that someone might have coming into this self improvement work, for anyone thinking about starting this great journey of self actualization.

These questions are fairly numerous, so I’m going to cut out all the fluff and any feel good new age crap you will hear from so many other people in the self help industry as they try to coax those they see as weak minded into engaging in this work with them.  Luckily for you that is not how I operate, and I do not see anyone as weak minded, just misled.  So I am going to keep my answers short and to the point and talk to you all frankly so that you can get the best understanding of personal development possible, and be put in the right state of mind to get yours under way.  This will be a “call to action” type vibe delivered in a “no nonsense” manner.  I hope you can appreciate being spoken to in this manner, and if you cannot, there are plenty of new agey types who love to deliver a lot of content-less fluff who would love to take you under their wing so they can mislead you further and turn you into their disciple of new agey-ness.  It is my goal however to turn you into an independent thinker on a path to self actualization.

So then lets get started!

True Life Development’s Personal Development FAQ

1.) Do I really need personal development?  I don’t think I do…can personal development be for anyone?

Answer:  Everyone needs personal development at any stage of their life.  To think that you are “all set” is a ridiculously self limiting and self sabotaging attitude.  There should be no point in which you tell yourself that you are no longer going to improve or progress any further in life, especially if you have not yet gotten into any formal personal development work or training.  To decide that you are not going to advance yourself is the stupidest decision you can possibly make in life and has absolutely no real rationale behind it, unless perhaps you are a 70 year old retired business owner who has done everything they want to with their life and is just looking to relax until death…but other than that you’d better believe that developing yourself and self actualizing is the ONLY way to live if you do not want to feel extreme regret about your life when you reach that point.   If you have not gotten into personal development yet there is no good reason why you should not.  And if you already have been practicing personal development, no matter how advanced, self actualized, or successful you are, there is still more you can do with your personal development.

2.) I feel hopeless and do not think I can be helped…is it worth trying?

Answer:  I talk to a lot of hopeless people who want to get into personal development, but also do not want to.  They want to because they want to believe there is hope.  But they do not want to because it would require too much effort.  All in all, hopeless people have chosen to be hopeless because it is the easiest viewpoint to have on themselves and their lives that they can.  It is the only way they can completely resign from life and abandon all of the work that it takes to do on one self in order to be happy and successful in your life.  Understand that hopelessness and happiness are both choices.  If you have chosen to be hopeless, either unconsciously or consciously, then you are in fact helpless as well.  I cannot help you, no matter how much you pay me, without you helping yourself.   And hopeless people have chosen to be hopless because they do not want to help themselves, which makes them helpless.  I have had clients who have chosen this way of thinking pay me to try to “fix them”.  And they th ink that by paying me to fix them that they are absolved of their duties in self help and that I will give them some miracle cure or measure that will magically fix all of their problems.  This is not how it works.

Personal development is work, and if you are not willing to engage in it, then yes you are in fact hopeless.  So if you think you cannot be helped, you are probably right, because every attitude is self perpetuating.  I cannot help someone who has already made the resolution that they cannot be helped.  It is a self fulfilling prophesy, and subconsciously you would not allow me to be of help to you anyways.  People like that fight my coaching with their negativity at every step of the way, so I do not take them on as clients.  However if you are willing to have faith in yourself and in the personal development process, and me as your coach, I can help you NO MATTER WHAT LIMITATIONS YOU MAY BE FACING, inner or outer.  Those who have a tremendous amount of limitations and problems to work through, but have a positive attitude can be helped much more quickly and effectively than those who have few, but a negative attitude.  So if you do not think you can be helped by me or anyone else out there, then that is probably correct and I would say no it is not worth trying, just keep on living the way you have been until you reach rock bottom and are finally ready to work for positive change.  However if you think that you are a hard case but you really do want/need some help and that its worth giving it a shot, then we are in business my friend, and you’ll find that its not hopeless at all, and that success and happiness will come quite quickly.

3.) I don’t know what I want in life, how do I know what I should be doing with myself?

Answer:  This is one of the biggest things that prevents people from engaging in their own personal development – not knowing what they want to do/be.  They think that they have to figure out exactly what they want to do with their life and every step they want to take along they way before they can set out on this journey.  However they do not realize that the map is not the territory.  You cannot just map out your whole life before setting out on the journey of living it.  And even if you did, you will find that to have been a waste of time.   The journey up the mountain of life will for the most part carve itself out as you take it.  And figuring out what you want to do with yourself in life is one of the largest parts of personal development and self actualization.

If you do not know who you want to be, and what you want to do with yourself in life, then do not wait to figure it out to engage in personal development, that is the first stage of your personal development, and you should start out with some identity and purposeful living work.  Such as a workshop in Ontology and Logotherapy, like the one that I have in my “Power Of You” coursework.  But also do not wait to have this entirely figured out to move on to the next step.  Because this is something that will always be in the making.  Just like a business plans for a business is a live document that is constantly changing.  It may be the life force for a business and the first and foremost thing needed for it, but you cannot wait for it to be fully completed and in its final edition to start your business, nor should you ever consider it fully complete and in its final edition.  It must always be changing with the times.  And so should your sense of identity and lifes purpose/lifes work.  You are an ever changing being, and that is what personal development is about.  So you will always be figuring yourself and your life out more and more throughout the course of your personal development work.  You just have to get it started!

4.) I don’t think I have the skills/intelligence to change or succeed or do what I want in life…aren’t I always just going to be this way?

Answer:  No one is set in stone.   People are always changing and growing in life.  When you were a young child you may have not had the knowledge or skills to do much of anything, but that soon developed didn’t it?  Many people think that they do not have what it takes to do what they want in life, and while they may not be succeeding now, that does not mean that they can’t in the future.  TO think that you will never have/do what you want because you do not now is erroneous.  Just because something is not happening now does not mean it is not entirely possible in the future.  Just look at the airplane.  Before airplanes came around people thought flight was impossible and that those who dreamed of it were crazy.  Now it is entirely commonplace and we do not think it any strange phenomena to see a plane go by overhead.  If I were to tell you I was going to take a trip to Thailand you would assume that I was going by plane, and not even bother asking me how I was getting there.

So you see how quickly things can change and a new norm can be established.  And what is most important to understand is that nothing is ever  going to stay the same.  Things are always changing.  Especially the human brain.  The human brain is rewiring itself every second of every day.  Your brain is going to be changing constantly whether you consciously engage in being a part of your change or not.  So why not engage in being a part of this change?  You are either going to progress foreward or backward, and grow upward or downward, you might as well take charge of your life so that you can develop yourself in the ways you want, and not be developed in ways you do not want.  Because if you are not in control of the way in which you are changing it may very well occur in ways you do not want it to.   The only thing that will definitely not happen is you staying the way you are.  And if you want to and actually try, you can develop the knowledge and skills necessary to do whatever it is you want in life and succeed in all the ways you want to.  That is what personal development is about.

5.) Shouldn’t I just accept myself the way I am and stay that way? Isn’t it inauthentic to try to change yourself?

Answer: Everyone is constantly changing in life. If you weren’t, and were to just “stay the way you already were”, you would still be an infant. Perhaps you would rather still be having your parents doing everything for you, however most of us really enjoy the process of growing and improving in life, as it gives us the capabilities to do more with ourselves. Saying that you aren’t going to change and should just accept yourself the way that you are is simply an excuse to be lazy, ignorant, and unsuccessful in life. Self improvement and growth is a natural part of life and is in fact “being who you really are” because it is going to happen regardless. But when you are in charge of yourself and your life you get to choose the ways in which you change, and whether they are growth or regression, because one is going to occur one way or another. So accepting yourself is great, but so is improving yourself. Both are important in life in order to live it to the fullest. Because if you do not accept yourself then you are changing for hte wrong reasons. You should accept the things about yourself that you cannot change. However the rest is there to improve. It is a balance between the two. And that is what constitutes personal development. It is not about completely changing yourself and becoming something entirely different that you weren’t already. It is about improving upon what is already there so that you grow. Self actualization is not about being something you arent already, but becoming the greatest possible version of yourself, which you already had the potential to be. It is about fulfilling your full potential. That is why it is called “Self actualization”, because it is about being the best you! If you do not want that then that is fine too. But most people are here to fulfill their potential so that they can become the idealized self they have always wanted to be, and be as successful as possible and live the dream life they have always wanted to have. And that is what I am here to help the people who want it to do with True Life Development!

6.)  How do I get out of depression?

Answer:  By changing your diet to recalibrate your mental chemistry, and focusing on your personal development work.  Depression has power over you because you are enabling your mental chemistry to be poor, and you are focusing on your depression and not your success.  When you recalibrate your mind and maintain a focus on positive things in your life and your productivity and progress towards success, you will find yourself very much uplifted.  You just have to get started and then keep going until the vicious circle you are in reverses itself and your state has permanently changed.

7.)  I do not like working on myself.  How else can I succeed?  What is the quick fix or easy route?

Answer: There are many ways to make your success much easier and quicker.  However there is no substitute for doing hard work on yourself and your life to become the person you want to be and develop the life you want to live.  If you are not willing to do serious work on yourself you cannot possibly get the life of your dreams.  However if you are willing to do the work, there are many ways to make your success much more quick and easy.  This is where the more creative technical sciences I employ such as NLP come into play.  But in order for these things to work your mind must be in it fully because they still do require a lot of thought.

8.) “Can this stuff help me in my specific situation?  Because I have a very specific situation with very specific needs…etc”

Answer:  Yes.  Personal Development is not just a general set of guidelines that only apply to general situations.  It gets highly specific and technical and can be applied to any specific situation.  You just need to find a specialist who can deal with those sets of circumstances.  I myself found that not a lot of “general coaches” were very effective in their work because most peoples circumstances were more specific than they knew how to deal with, which is why I have chosen several areas of very specific and highly specialized knowledge and practice to focus on in my work such as holistic health, NLP, Social science, entrepreneurship and spirituality, and in those fields I know how to adapt to most of the specifics that can be found in them, however anytime I cannot I can provide some referrals or direction elsewhere to someone else who can help you, or whatever resources you may need.  Just contact me for a consultation.

9.)  Nothing seems to work for me.  Why is that?  Am I a lost cause?

Answer: The only reason why “nothing seems to work” for some people is because of one or more of the following reasons:  1.) They have a poor attitude about the work which has caused a self fulfilling prophesy, and they in fact are not allowing the positive effects to take place and enabling themselves to remain the way they were.  2.)  When trying something they do not do so in the right way.  They either do not have the full technical knowledge of how to do it (or are not applying it) and are not doing it properly, but just go through the motions and “wing it”.  Or they do not give themselves totally to it either in energy or duration, and do the work in an impartial or incomplete fashion before they give up.  3.)  They have not actually tried “everything”, but are only telling themselves that they have.

I thought I was trying everything when I was trying to heal myself from my long term incapacitating illness that was seeming to go no where.  Nothing seemed to work.  Until I found my cures.  Then I realized it was silly to think that I had tried “everything”.  So if nothing seems to work, you just need to do more.  Either do what you have been trying better, or try new things you have not tried yet.  There is always something you can do to help.

10.) Can I just skip over all the health stuff and just work on my mind, career, relationships, spirituality, etc?

Answer:  No.  Many people do not want to have to work on their health because people think that  it is the hardest, or the least satisfying.  However your health is the foundation of all your other capabilities and everything else that you do in life.  If you do not have the physical stability, vitality, and energy to do the other forms of work you simply will not be able to.  How can you expect to have a healthy mind if you do not have a healthy body?  How do you expect to succeed in your career or anything else in life if you are in pain or lack energy and are constantly needing rest or remedy?  How do you expect to have a healthy relationship or spirit when you do not have that foundation of physical health?  It is simply not possible.  And what you should know is that working on your physical health is not actually as unpleasant as you may think.  Changing your diet does not have to mean giving up indulgence in food.  Changing your lifestyle to be more healthy does not mean a less pleasant one, it means giving up your pain and gaining more energy and pleasant sensations in your body.  If you actually give it a try you will find that working on your health is very satisfying, and will make everything else that you do much more easy and conducive for success.

11.) “What is “holistic health”?”

Answer:  “Holistic Health” is the practice of treating the whole person.  Holistic means “whole”, coming from the root word “hol”.  Humans are multidimensional beings, we are not 1 dimensional.  This is why modern western healthcare is failing us, because they only treat one facet of our being, the biological, and they even treat that in a completely incomplete manner.  Holistic health treats people as the multifaceted beings they are.  In the physical, psychological, and metaphysical, and in my case, like my guru’s Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra, the sociological as well.  And also holistic health, in its most effective practice, treats root causes of problems as well, and not just symptoms.  This means not just engaging in therapies but in curing the problems that make them necessary.  Some holistic healers and health practitioners may want to keep you as a client, just as a doctor would, and so they will treat your symptoms, I however teach you how to cure your root causes so that you never have to come back to me for the same problem again.  It may be bad business for me but I’d rather move on to other issues than have to continue focusing on the same ones.  And that is what holistic health gives us the ability to do, actually heal you and make you better for good, so that you can move on to other areas of self help.

12.) “Why should we do “Alternative remedies”, they don’t sound very credible.  Shouldn’t just go to the doctor like a normal person?”

Answer:  What is called “Traditional medicine” is called that to trick you.  It has only been around for about a hundred years.  A little more if you want to also take into consideration forms of it which were completely erroneous and archaic, like the giving of frontal lobotomies for people suffering depression.   It is called traditional medicine to make it sound more credible and normal.  And by the same token, those in this form of medicine, which I call “modern western medicine” because that is what it is, will call the actual “traditional medicine” from holistic traditions, “alternative medicine” to also trick you into thinking that it is less credible and abnormal.  However the fact is that what they are calling “alternative medicine” is actually the most traditional medicine on the planet.  These forms of medicine and healing have been practiced for millennia, and with effectiveness, which is why they continue to survive and gain more and more popularity over the newer forms of medicine today, which are actually based in toxic synthetic chemicals that may mask symptoms, but actually make you worse.  These are actually the alternatives to traditional medicine that has always worked.  Sure you may be subscribing to a newer more progressive world of medicine, but you are actually poisoning your body.  I would much rather practice something that has always worked for thousands of years among literally countless people, and works in accordance with the bodies natural functions, rather than something that is new and has no real track record, and goes against the bodies natural functions.

13.) What is NLP?

Answer:  NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming.  It is a science of hypnosis that deals with how people are programmed by language patterns and behavioral models and works with these systems to reprogram and individual to be more successful.  You can check out my number of other articles and videos on it for more information.

14.) Why be an entrepreneur?  Why not just get a real job?

Answer:  If you are looking to get paid a minimal amount to help with someone elses life’s work that is fine.  But people become entrepreneurs because they want more control over both their life’s work and the pay they receive for it.  Entrepreneurs get to choose what they do with themselves completely and fully, including how much they are going to make, and their schedule and lifestyle.  They make more than employees and find more fulfillment and joy in their work as well since it is centered in their life’s purpose.  If you do not consider this a “real job” because you do not  work an 8 hour day in which you clock in and out at the beginning and end, and receive a paycheck at the end of the week, then you are trapped in a limited paradigm and have been programmed by the powers that be to be a mindless slave to the system.   And if that is what you really want to do then fine.  But being an entrepreneur is a “REAL job”, and it is how those owners of the businesses you would be working for built that business, and make millions off of it, while you help them to do so for a meager paycheck at the end of each week.  And if they are credible enough for you to work for, then being an entrepreneur is a credible enough of a trade for those who have the work ethic and intelligence to engage in it.

15.) Is money and monetary gain corrupt?  Should that not be a part of my personal development?

Answer:  Many people have complexes about money and feel as though it is corrupt and that those who focus on it lack integrity and are superficial at best and evil at worst.  This is not true.  While this CAN be the case it does not have to be.  If you are focusing on other parts of your personal development and money is just one part of it, but not the only part, how is that superficial?  If you do not let yourself get corrupted by materialism then how is that evil?  The fact of the matter is that money exists in this world for a good reason.  Because the barter system did not work, it always left one person taking more and another giving more.  We needed a medium for money, which would serve as a solvent for our work.

Money is just a transmutation of your labor and creative output in life.  And thus the more you output the more money you will have.  And this is not just a measure of your success and capabilities in society, but something that you NEED in order to re-invest in yourself.  Money is important in personal development because it is what you need in order to do the things you need to do to develop yourself.  Be it investing in a new diet made up of organic whole foods and new supplements and natural remedies, or investing in a business project or venture as an entrepreneur.  That is why I help people to develop themselves professionally and teach entrepreneurship as part of the courses I offer at True Life Development, because your professional life and success are a very important part of your personal development, and you cannot succeed if you have any kind of adverse views about money.  Though of course, these should not be the only focus in your self improvement, they are only one facet.

16.) Why should I be working on social skills?  Shouldn’t people just accept me as I am?  Why is all this social and networking stuff a part of success anyways?

Answer:  Social skills and networking are a part of success because it takes a village for us all to survive.   We banded together into societies to pool resources, because we all need one another’s resources to make it in life, even in the most basic way.  Try living in isolation and you will find that there is a very low threshold of living that you will reach, but cannot transcend.  However when you live among an abundance of other people who are sharing resources, everyone can achieve a much higher level of existence.  However in order to do this, we all must be doing our best to succeed individually, and contribute to society as a whole.  This is why society was systematized as such so that everyone contributes to it.  And when you drop out of the race so to speak, you loose your success.  And when you are not doing your best, people see your potential to bring them down, and thus they begin to dissociate from you.  This is why people will not just accept everyone as they are.

You need to be behaving in a manner that is conducive for success in order for others to accept you.  It is just evolutionary psychology.  And this means having good social skills and being a socially intelligent person, so that you can communicate in a much more conducive way with others as well, because this is very necessary for success in society.  And you will find that when you do work on your social skills and social networking, you become wildly successful.  Because the greater the size of your social network, the more resourcefulness you have in society, because you have more “social currency” as it is called.  This means you know more people who are able to give you work, more people who are able to vouch for you and give you professional references when you need it, more friends who are able to help you out when you need a favor, more suitors who you can court, etc.  Your success is measured by the size of your social network, and your social network is measured by your level of social intelligence and skill (and your application of it).  So while many intelligent people are introverted, and there is nothing wrong with being introverted, if you want to build a healthy social circle, or succeed in society, you need to work on your social skills and learn how to network.  This is exactly why I started True Life Relationships.

17.) I want to get the romantic partner of my dreams but do not want to have to work on myself.  I feel like women/men should just accept me for who I am no matter what.  How do I get a partner who is going to accept me for me, flaws and all?

Answer:  While in a basic theoretical philosophy everyone should just accept others for who they already are, you will find that there is good reason why this does not happen.  If this were the case, civilization would not advance, because no one would be driven to better themselves or the world around them.  We live in a society based upon advancement and success.  This means constantly improving things and calibrating the standard of success, or in other words “setting the bar higher”.  And it is by that same evolutionary psychology that attraction and sexual selection and courtship occur.  People are attracted to others based on what they consider to be healthy.  Everything that is found attractive is actually an indicator of health (or perceived health) or other forms of prowess, social dominance, or indicators of potential or success.  This evolutionary psychology of mating is there to ensure that our species advances.

So it is not that men/women are not attracted to the “real you”, it is that they are attracted to the BEST YOU.  And isn’t that the real you?  If you are sitting around all day eating potato chips, gaining weight, not keeping good hygene or gooming…is that the real you?  No.  That is not you “just being yourself”.  That is you just doing whatever.  And is that SUPPOSED to be attractive?  No…and why not?   Because it is not the real you.  The real you is an idealized self.  The real you is self actualized.  This means that you are being the best you.  And that is what people are attracted to.

People are not supposed to be attracted to you when you are just doing anything, and stating that you are “being genuine” because you are just doing whatever you want does not change the truth that you are actually just being lazy and irresponsible as a human being.  And you will find that times when you are not being your best self and being self actualized, the mates you attract are not healthy ones, and if you settle for them, even under the guise that they are right for you because they “accept you for who you are”…the reality is that your relationship is not going to be healthy.  The mates that settle for you when you are not being your best, and do not demand that you be your best, are not actually good for you.  And not just because they will not motivate you to succeed, but because they are settling for you when you are not an idealized person because they too are not an idealized person, and thus they have no real value to offer you, other than the fact that they allow you to be lazy and unhealthy.

The mates that are good for you are the ones who demand that you focus on self improvement and self actualization, because of the fact that they have a lot of value to offer you in a relationship and want to make sure that the dynamic is going to be an equal and mutual exchange of value.  And these mates are going to be attracted to the genuine you, that is, the self actualized you.  Men and women are attracted to those who are their best selves, because that is the real you.  And if you are not focusing on being your best self, then you are not being true to yourself, and that is why you will not get the romantic partners of your dreams, much less any healthy ones at all.  If you want to get ideal romantic partners, you absolutely must be working on yourself so that you can be your idealized self.  That is why I have laid out everything in True Life Development first and foremost and it is meant to be focused on before the content in True Life Relationships.

18.) I am already very successful, do I still need this?  Can it still help me?

Answer:  Yes.  To think that you have gone as far as you can in your personal development is doing yourself no good.  There is always further you can go.  The most successful people of all time were the ones who never had a “stop here” point.  And to suddenly tell yourself that you are as successful as you are going to get is doing a great disservice to yourself.  There is literally no ceiling on personal development, so why would you put one on it for yourself?  Why limit yourself in your potential?  There is always more you can do and further you can go in life.  So keep on going!  Just imagine how far you can go in life if you continue advancing!  Your can achieve all of your wildest dreams!  And that is exactly what I started True Life Development to help people do!

I hope that this has been of help to you and answered any general questions you might have had.  If you have any more specific questions please feel free to comment them below or if they are personal you can contact me with them at Info@TrueLifeDevelopment.com, but otherwise go ahead and get started on your journey of personal development and self actualization by perusing the rest of the blog here and my free video’s selection, and browsing The TRUE LIFE DEVELOPMENT STORE as well!  And be sure to check out my flagship personal development course “The Power Of You – Self Actualization Blueprint” as this covers every aspect of your self improvement is the best step by step way to get you the life of your dreams!

And otherwise good luck on your journey to self actualization!