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Stress & Personal Development: When Navel-Gazing turns Nasty!
Generally speaking, the more we develop ourselves personally,
the lower our long-term stress levels. After all, discovering
our life purpose helps avoid the stress of pointlessness.
Developing better communication skills avoids many relationship
problems. Improving time management helps avoid feeling
overcommitted in day-to-day work. On the surface, stress
management and personal development seem to fit together
perfectly.
There are times, however, when personal development itself can
get a little out of control - when it starts adding to your
stress, rather than helping manage it. When that happens, you
can start to find yourself showing more of the signs of stress
(for more information on these, ask for a copy of our free
stress audit questionnaire), instead of less.
So should we totally avoid personal development altogether if we
want to keep a handle on stress? Not necessarily, but we may
need to look at what development we're doing and how it's
affecting our stress levels.
SO HOW CAN PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT INCREASE STRESS?
All personal development involves change on some level, and
change is a major source of stress for many people. This means
that, even if you're trying to improve something that will
eventually lower your stress level (e.g. time management or
communication skills), it can sometimes act as a short-term.
There are four main reasons for personal development work
causing, rather than curing stress:
- Too Many Areas - Lack of Balance - Unrealistic Expectations -
Going it Alone
TOO MANY AREAS
Personal development can be addictive - who wouldn't want to be
the best person they can in every area of their lives? With so
many areas we could work on, we often try to improve in multiple
areas at once. For some people, this isn't an issue. For others,
however, the old adage "chase two rabbits, catch neither"
applies.
If you're working on improving two or more areas of your life
and your stress levels rise, consider asking yourself, "Which
area is most important right now?", or, "Which area would
improving make the most difference for me right now?" and then
focussing on that area. Everything else will still be there
waiting for you when you're finished with the first one!
LACK OF OVERALL BALANCE
Personal development takes commitment and willingness to act.
Sometimes, however, we exaggerate the importance of a particular
improvement to the point that nothing else matters, and other
areas get neglected. For example, if you want to develop
spiritually, you need to take time out to do this. If you start
ignoring friends or work demands so you can
meditate to for
hours each day, it may start causing stress.
Note that you're the only one who can say what the right balance
of "personal development time". Some people might want to take
weeks, months, or years out from the world for self-improvement.
Most of us, however, want to integrate our development with our
current lifestyles. If that's the case for you, examine how much
time you spend on personal development, and consider cutting
back if appropriate.
UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
It can be hard to create a mental image of how we want to be,
then acknowledge how far we are from it now without blaming or
getting angry with ourselves. In the same vein, once we have
that clear image, it's easy to believe that we'll suddenly be
able to act in accordance with it. If only it were that easy!
In reality, that habits take time to change, new skills take
practice to implement, and little that happens overnight will
last. If you're frustrated because you're not seeing progress
(or not seeing it fast enough), remember self-improvement is a
little like building a house. The first part of the work always
happens beneath ground level - digging and then laying
foundations. On the surface, it would seem absolutely nothing
was happening. Yet if those foundations aren't laid properly,
the house itself will collapse. Personal development can be a
lot like that.
If you're frustrated by an apparent lack of progress, take a
step back and ask yourself how realistic your expectations are.
Talk to others who've made the same change - how long did it
take them? What stages did they go through? While everyone's
journey is unique, you may find that hearing from others helps
put things into perspective for you.
DOING IT ALL ON YOUR OWN
Of course, personal development is personal - no-one can do it
for you. But you don't need to deal with it alone. There's
enough support out there - in the form of communities, mailing
lists, forums, and trained experts - that no-one should feel
alone. Type "personal development" or "self improvement" into
your search engine of choice and see what comes up.
Alternatively, consider consulting a stress management coach.
About the author:
© Tanja Gardner, Optimum Life Ltd.
Tanja is a team leader with the Internet's #1 personal
development website, http://optimumlife.successuniversity.com.
For a free 30-min consultation on how we could help you live
your optimum life, please visit http://optimumlife.co.nz. Or,
for a copy of our free Stress Audit Questionnaire, please e-mail
mailto:tanja@optimumlife.co.nz with 'Stress Audit Questionnaire'
in the subject line
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