Working on self-improvement is like bodybuilding. Unless certain principles are respected, results may be negligible or almost nonexistent. Having vast knowledge about the entire self-improvement art and science is absolutely worthless unless it is used.
Knowing without doing is dead. Some of the most knowledgeable people in the self-improvement world are abject failures. They have become self-help junkie. It has become their drug of choice. They use it to escape reality. They feed on the dream of becoming the next Tony Robbins or whoever their favorite guru happens to be. Swaying crowds and making millions. Sorry, not going to happen.
The major problem in implementing what has been learned in the science of success is the inability to take action. Learning is the easy part. Taking action is the crucial albeit the hardest part. Faith without work is dead and knowledge without action is also dead.
So, what needs to be done, is to spend at least as much time and efforts on breaking inertia and taking action as is spent on studying and learning. A person could read everything that was ever written about swimming, but unless that person jumps in the pool, swimming will never be mastered.
An excellent way of getting ourselves into taking action is by not sharing whatever wonderful new theory or technique that we may have learned in the self-improvement department. When we come across one of those wonderful personal breakthroughs it fills us with excitement and energy. There are two ways that this energy can be spent. It can be done by taking action and starting a project or pursuing with more intensity an existing one. Or we can share that new and wonderful information with others.
Taking action will improve our condition. Sharing information will deflate the pent up energy and leave us on square one. It is great and noble to share whatever we have learned but it simply must not be done before we have personally experienced and used it first.
The second principle that must be respected if we want to truly benefit from what we learn in self-help is that we must accept the fact that knowing without integrating is useless. In other words, it not enough to learn. What is learned must be integrated in the wiring of our brain. It must become a part of who and what we are.
Not and easy task but an essential one. We must literally brainwash ourselves with the new and pertinent information. Sounds drastic. It may be drastic but it is essential. Self-improvement is not about learning new information. It's about changing the self. It's about becoming someone we were not before. It's about growing and expanding who and what we are.
How then can we benefit the most from our self-improvement efforts? It is by understanding that the objective is not simply to increase our knowledge of the subject but an effort to change who we basically are. It is a slow and progressive process. A process that can only be accomplished through regular and constant efforts where the theory is balanced with practical applications.
Not unlike the bodybuilder who is striving to create the near perfect body, the self-improvement enthusiast must seek, through constant discipline and repetitions, transform what nature has given him into the successful mover-shaker that he wants to become.
There are not shortcuts. There are no secrets or magic bullets. Only work, focus, enthusiasm and dedication will make up the perfect recipe necessary to reach the higher echelons of self-actualization.
Dr. Raymond Comeau aka Shamou is the Author of ShamouBlog and Owner Administrator of Personal Development for Personal Success Forums.
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