The Problem With Most Self-Development Advice And Why It Doesn't Work

I was reading an email today from someone that I actually respect tremendously.

A multi-time New York Times Bestselling Author. Incredibly smart and whose work is extremely well researched. In fact, I utilize their work in my practice often.

Their email today was talking about how to "Stop Feeling Numb".

This is actually something really important in our world right now to think about as Leaders.

Essentially, they described it as the final step in a process - from Anxiety, to Overwhelm, and finally to Numb.

In most workplaces, people are already at "Numb" which is a big part of the reason?so many people are pushing to continue working at home - they don't feel "as" numb at home as they do when they go into an office!

In the email, I got a reminder of why self-development (and especially Leadership Development) fails so often.

What Was Recommended

The second step they talk about is that you should get daily exercise and daily mindfulness.

Specifically, they recommended that you should go for a hike in the morning, hit the gym at night, and do morning and evening mindfulness practices.

They said that this should be done every day, 7 days a week.

As I read this I thought, really? This is the advice you're giving?

Of course, these are tremendously beneficial, don't get me wrong - but the way it is being recommended, while people are still feeling that "Numb"?

For the vast majority of people, this will NEVER work.

Why This Will Fail - Like Most Programs

Here's the truth, this recommendation is completely disconnected from most people's reality.

Most people struggle to even go to the gym once a week, let alone every day!

Plus you want to add a hiking trip in the morning when most people need to drop kids off before the sun rises and get to work around the same time?

Plus you want to add mindfulness practices in the lives of people who generally have never done one of these practices?

That is A LOT that you are attempting to add all at the same time!

It is also extremely hard to plan everything listed there when people are already struggling to do even 5% of that!

It requires 4 habits to be built, at the same time, requiring complete changes in schedules, which often are not completely designed by us due to the work we do.

By the science, it takes on average 66 days to build ONE habit by itself, and when we attempt to focus on multiple habits this takes significantly longer (up to 200% longer!).

When we build habits, especially multiple at the same time, we end up feeling more stressed and anxious, which is completely counterproductive if we are already feeling "Numb".

Then, when we inevitably fail one of these habits, due to the overwhelm and numbness we already are feeling, our instinct (by nature) is to quit all of these habits.

At this point, we've completely failed, and the "Numbness" we were avoiding ends up feeling worse.

This is the problem with almost ALL programs on the market - they give overarching recommendations that don't actually take into account the reality most people are facing or the science of how our psychophysiology works for those specific people.

It's not that the ideas "don't work" per se - working out and mindfulness practices can be incredibly helpful in getting rid of the "Numb" feeling.

But approaching this problem in the manner described simply doesn't work for 99%+ of people.

The First Step MOST People Need

If you REALLY want to make an impact against that Numb feeling, adding new things rarely works.

However, the reason most people feel Overwhelm (which leads to the "Numb" feeling) is that almost everyone is doing TOO MUCH useless work!

Instead of adding, we need to figure out how to subtract!

Before we can add the anxiety of any new habit, we need to lessen the anxiety we are already feeling!

By the norms, most people are spending 80% of their time doing useless work, and it creates 80% of our stress!

If you can identify this work, and offload it (or in some cases just completely ignore it), we get rid of a HUGE amount Overwhelm and Anxiety VERY quickly!

This then gives us a little breathing room to begin to create the change we need.

It can also be dramatically helpful to get an outside perspective, like a coach, who can help you identify these areas of opportunity more quickly.

When we are in any "Anxious" state of mind, our nervous system goes into "Fight-or-Flight" which prevents us from really seeing the opportunities that exist.

That outside perspective can truly pinpoint what we're missing because of the state of mind we are currently trapped in!

For true change, we need to remove Anxiety as our first step.

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