The Philosofer

Advancement in life always predicated on the nurturing of skill. For example, if you’re a mechanic and want to be a better mechanic and consequently make more money, you need to further your skills and knowledge. The beauty of life is that everything can be learned. In this day and age if you want to learn something there are dozens of ways for you to acquire, master, and apply that knowledge. Some professions require hard skills like fixing a car, building a house, programming software, or being able to crunch numbers. Others require soft skills like being a salesman, customer service rep, or business owner. Granted there are always carry-overs between the two categories. But personal growth is the overarching designation for the set of soft skills that make people like me and lots of my peers more money. Knowing how to talk to people, knowing how to listen, knowing how to really listen, how to persuade someone, how to think outside the box, how to find the opportunity in the obstacle, these are the skills that, if mastered, can take us from good to great.

Problems can arise when personal growth and becoming a better person become trendy and popular vs. necessary and pragmatic. I’ve seen this rise and fall in popularity in the past and seen people wash in and out of the discipline of personal growth. From that I’ve assembled a short list of rules for myself to keep myself in check while learning from my mistakes.

1. Make It Uncomfortable (No Pain, No Gain)

It’s really true that if it’s not difficult you probably aren’t making progress. I learned this in running when I would run a 10 minute mile for hours. I wasn’t really challenging myself and I wasn’t improving my running time, it was basically turning into a distracting activity. Sure, I burned a few calories but I wasn’t gasping for air and my heart rate was way too low to even call it a workout.
For me if I want to make adjustments to my inner scripting I have to make it aggressive and invasive. If I am working on being more comfortable around people I don’t know I will make it a point to conversate with 4 people before I leave the grocery store. Is it uncomfortable for me? Absolutely. Is it digging deeper than just smiling and saying have a nice day? You bet.

2. Make It Measurable

How do you know if you’re even making progress? It’s a truism that anything that can be measured can be improved. Back to running again, if I don’t time myself and instead do my level best there will be no standard to measure success or failure. Without a clear win/lose scenario disappointment, disillusionment, and surrender are close behind.

3. Don’t Flaunt It (no self-help selfies)

People of the world, we appreciate and respect that you’re on day 3 of the P90xinsanitycrossfitpaleojuicediet, we really do. But for crying out loud can you keep the sweaty selfies and narcissistic updates to maybe 10 per day? I know people have a prerogative to post whatever they want via social media just like I have a prerogative to have an opinion about it. But really, who do you respect more? Someone complaining about being sore 4 days into P90x or someone who says they just finished the 3 months that make up P90x without missing more than a day?
One of the main tenants of personal growth is humility and it’s easy to sabotage oneself by constantly reminding the world how much better we are than them because we just finished How To Win Friends And Influence People for the umpteenth time. I am just as guilty of this as anyone, if not more. Just think of it like personal growth inside personal growth. I am learning, growing, and becoming a better person and I’m not going to tell the whole world about it every waking moment. It’s like self-helpception.

4. Remain Relatable (don’t be a dick)

This could be Part II of the above point. It’s also another point that I have failed miserably on in the past. To be honest, all of these are highlights of my failure, which is why they are on this list. Things I have screwed up and found a better way to overcome.
Again, this is where humility shows her gentle spirit. It can be hard to feel like you are living in a world where no one cares about becoming a better person. Trust me, I’ve often felt that way for the past 6 years. However, I’ve found that a poor response to a legitimate issue can be the same as if you never had any superior knowledge to begin with. Not everyone makes personal growth and the development of soft skills a priority. Don’t believe me? Go to WalMart and try to get some help out of their employees. But we show consistency with what we are learning by being careful to not always hold people to our same level of maturity. This is, of course, easier said than done…especially in WalMart.

5. Have A Purpose (what’s the point?)

I’ve saved this till last because I think it may be the most important. Personal development is completely pointless unless you have something to point it towards. I’ve spoke previously about my possibly inflammatory definition of masturbation here and I think the same logic applies. Anything done without meaning and purpose is masturbatory, something done for the pure pleasure of it with no long term goal. Honestly, it feels really good to read books about personal growth, go to monthly seminars, hang out with people who talk about it, and build up your little resumé of all you’ve accomplished by being a better person. But at some point if you are not applying that information to a real life scenario you are wasting your time and a bit of a fake. You’ve got to DO something! Step out, start a business, take a risk, set a big goal, start really chasing your dreams, be rationally reckless, make it all count for something.

These are the rules I do my best to live by as I continue the journey to becoming a better man, husband, son, brother, and friend. It’s not exhaustive by any means but it’s what I’ve found to lead me forward with humility and grace. Hopefully you can find something useful in it. If all of this is new to you and you are feeling a stirring that is saying, “Yes! I want to work on my soft skills, I want to be a better person” I would highly recommend buying this book (not aff link). If you only ever read one personal development book in your life, this would be the one. And good news! It’s currently on sale (limited time) for $3 with free shipping! Come on, what more motivation do you need than that?