When ‘personal development’ becomes an obsession…

For a long time, I have been fascinated with personal development. Whether it’s reading self-help books, or motivational autobiographies, through to trying out the latest ‘self-care’ or ‘personal development’ fad, I’m there at the forefront of all the trends. To date, I have dabbled in daily meditation through Headspace, The Miracle Morning, Marie Kondo’s tidying tools, affirmations and visualisation, not to mention others. I have regularly started up new hobbies (netball, choir, volleyball, triathlons, half marathons, Spanish) and taken courses (yoga teacher training, a Masters in Sport and Exercise Psychology), all in the name of challenging myself, getting out of my comfort zone and developing myself personally.

To my family and friends (indeed, to the outside world in general), I look like a driven ambitious, confident woman who isn’t afraid to push beyond her limits. And don’t get me wrong, I really like that I want to do these things!

But if you look at the real story, it isn’t that pretty. It involves me starting big and difficult tasks, only to give up in despair. It means me taking too much on that I have no time for myself and eventually have to cancel something. You can find me berating myself, saying to myself ‘why are you so lazy that you can’t stick at anything? Why do you always quit things?’

Things are going pretty well for me at the moment, personal development-wise. I have a job where I’m pushing myself regularly and learning new skills. I teach yoga part-time. I have a blog where I’m posting new content regularly and developing my writing skills. I’m exercising regularly and setting new goals for myself. And yet, every now and then I find myself in an existential crisis where I say ‘This isn’t enough! You must do more! You’re only teaching yoga four times a week? That’s nothing – take on another one! And why aren’t you volunteering with a charity? How are you even contributing to the world? How are you even furthering yourself?’

I sort of came to the conclusion that the problem wasn’t how many things I was taking on, how much I’m furthering myself, how much good I’m doing for others and the world. I realised that my obsession with personal development came from never feeling like I was good enough. I realised that I could take on all of the things and run myself in to the ground and achieve achieve achieve, but I would still have that little voice in my head telling me that I’m not good enough just as I am.

That’s the balance that I – and all of us – need to strike. It’s really really good to push ourselves, to set goals and to do good for others. But when this comes from a place of inadequacy rather than an appreciation and love for ourselves, a capacity to say ‘no’ when we’re feeling overwhelmed, and the ability to feel proud of ourselves, it’s all for nothing.

I think a couple of things contribute to this. The first is social media. We can scroll through our newsfeed and find a handful of our friends who are pushing and challenging themselves in different ways, and we feel guilty for not doing that too. It’s important to remember that everyone is at a different stage in their journey and has different priorities. Also, there are a million and one different things we could to to develop ourselves; we can’t do them all! And the second is, for me, living in London. I am surrounded by people who do not stop, who pride themselves in moving and achieving constantly. It’s a lot of pressure not to feel lazy when you want a relaxed Sunday afternoon, when you know that there will be other people moving seamlessly with the fast-paced lifestyle that London demands of us. I think that this pressure to be ‘doing’ all the time can be really detrimental to our self-esteem and our mental health. I think of my parents, or indeed any of my friends who don’t live in London, and they don’t have this same affliction. I try to remind myself that living a fast-paced lifestyle is fun and awesome, but not sustainable, and that it’s important to kick back and be in the here and now regularly.

I’m taking slow and deliberate steps to be happy and thankful for who I am right now, and proud of myself for the things I achieve. I have cut down my time teaching yoga to 2 classes a week rather than 4. I make sure to only say ‘yes’ to the things I really want to do, and to tune in and listen to whether it’s coming from a place of fear, or love. When I find myself feeling inadequate, feeling like I should be doing more, I make a promise to myself not to schedule more things for myself until the feeling has passed and I can think rationally. Making a list of all the things I’ve accomplished in the past couple of months helps too.

I hope that I – and you – can strike a good balance between pushing ourselves and loving ourselves.

Do you have this problem as well? What do you find works for you? What is this obsession we have with ‘achieving’ all the time anyway?

C x