5 ways to Avoid Going Down the Self-Help Rabbit Hole

The wave of personal development content is hitting us like a tsunami day in and day out. Everyone is striving to offer us a world of possibilities in which all of us can achieve the same goals as others.

Hundreds of hopeful messages on the Internet influence people to feel like everyone can achieve anything they set their mind to in their life. Likewise, many phrases in the personal development industry inundate people with powerful words, inspirational stories, moving videos, and spectacular motivational speeches. Part of the optimistic thinking industry also conveys the message that people are solely responsible for feeling good.

Many who follow get there while many more are still struggling despite all the money they have spent “investing in themselves” and all the time spent studying.

Human beings have different experiences, ideas, places, environments, or people that can cause changes in their beliefs. So, one person's goals are different from another's, and they cannot measure their success by achieving the same goals as others.

Here are five ways they can use to avoid falling into this rabbit hole of personal development.

1. Learning when to let go.

Generally, letting go is not an easy thing to do, and in life, you leave a lot of stuff behind. Letting go is a painful process that is part of personal development. These processes are sometimes done on one's initiative and sometimes because there is no other solution.

Sometimes letting go is not necessarily a failure or a goodbye, but rather a "thank you" for all learning. When a goal is not one's own and does not fit the person's interests, letting go is helpful to allow them to be more accessible, authentic and thus receive what has to come.

Letting go is part of the process of life. It is natural because all people are obliged to choose what and in whom they invest their time and effort.

Letting go of what no longer serves us, this can be people, old thinking, opportunities, etc, makes room for new ways of achieving what our heart truly desires.

2. Working smart instead of hard.

The vast majority of people work under routines and paradigms created in the industrial era. They believe that working hard and tirelessly will guarantee success, but the truth is that hard work without a sense of meaning or purpose risks leaving us unhappy, unfulfilled and exhausted.

To see results from the daily effort, people need to define clear objectives and define a purpose that guides the actions. Smart work means working by goals and objectives, not by the hour. Regrettably, the world is full of people who are going nowhere fast and merely surviving.

When you work without a clear focus on what you want to achieve, you are likely to feel frustrated, tired and stressed because you don't feel like you are moving forward in your life.

Working smart is simply working hard while being inspired.

3. How to stop being a people-pleaser?

Frequently, people don't know how and when to say "no" to whatever demands come their way. But, even if it causes discomfort or anxiety, they must learn to do it if they want to stay focused on their goals.

Saying "YES" to everything so as not to appear selfish or to please is wearing and brings more troubles than benefits, especially when you need to focus on consolidating a goal.

Don't say "maybe" when you don't want to. Likewise, don't say "suddenly" when you know the answer is "NO." By learning to say "no," the person will improve their quality of life by setting healthy boundaries. The key is living free from being controlled by other people and external circumstances.

4. Discover how to measure the ROI of the investments you make in yourself.

For people to have control over their personal development, they need to measure their performance. However, achieving a good ROI in personal development provides additional benefits beyond completing a simple profitability percentage.

Measuring ROI in personal growth is necessary to know how much they have learned and applied it in their daily work. In this way, people will avoid falling into the personal development trap where they seek to follow motivational tools that are very general or are not aligned with their capabilities since these aim to impose the objectives of those who teach the workshops or disciplines, not their purposes.

With the measurement of ROI, the person is told which programs and practices are ideal for them and save time and money. In addition, they will feel more encouraged by obtaining continuous progress towards their personal development and goals.

5. Manifesting what you want.

When people try to follow the ideas and dreams of others, they waste a lot of time correcting their way of being to suit goals that are not their own. Therefore, ideally, people should focus on their own goals and incorporate habits that fit their unique personalities and wants. Living authentically is a practice that helps with maximizing personal development.

Through intuition, you can make the most appropriate decision based on past experiences. In this way, by not wasting time on external objectives that can generate distractions, unconscious knowledge is activated and develops that feeling that helps to follow the right path.

Therefore, intuition allows you to reach places where conscious thought cannot even peek. But, to learn to develop intuition, it is necessary to be centered and calm to make the decisions that are best aligned with your interests and with who you are.

Finding the right path to personal development is difficult because of the amount of information that many want us to replicate and follow. The truth is, people need to find their own goals, focus on themselves and follow these habits mentioned above, so they stay on track and achieve a life of happiness and purpose with ease and grace.