Gregory Harris

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.

To be an effective leader, displaying an executive presence is an essential characteristic of authentic success. There is an art and science to executive presence. While some people have a natural executive presence about them, it is also a skill that can be learned. There is vast potential in discovering your inner treasures while softening your business mask. After working with thousands of executives, I can assure you of the inestimable value this self discovery brings to your self-mastery and leadership growth. Accessing your personal essence definitely improves your executive presence.

It is true that you cannot give what you have not received or experienced. Major inner discoveries require consistent attention to self. Leaders who learn to lead from the inside elicit better results and transform their company culture, with grace and ease.Transformed and inspired people, who happen to be leaders, are equipped to transform and inspire others. Discovering your inner radiance naturally projects an outer reflection that IS your unique brilliance. When others observe your brilliance, it often empowers them to discover their own.

As Mahatma Ghandi said, “We must be the change we want to see in the world. “When you become a leader in your own life, empowered with purpose and energized with passion, you will not only change your world but you will change THE world. Such leaders exemplify the transformational wisdom and self-mastery dynamics. With the active seer in mind, I consciously chose the butterfly symbol as the model’s promise of transformation. While the butterfly is beautiful and brilliant in itself, at the same time it reflects the beauty and brilliance of its beholder, the one looking, the seer. In other words, the seers of the change, the seers of transformation, will become the “be-ers “of change in the emerging “Executive Evolution.” Successful leaders are changing the world by their leadership style which is inspiring and riveting.

Let’s be clear. I have some serious ‘tude this week! What follows is a channeling of my inner Andy Rooney.

It’s well and good to offer suggestions. Yet, a growing group of self-help profiteers do that and more. They claim to actually inspire and motivate as they collect their fees, sign books, and sell even more programs and products. I don’t know about you, but how can they know what will or will not inspire and motivate me? Are they mind readers too?

This weekend I read one such person’s posts about success. He uses examples. Persistently stand in the line of what we want once we figure out which line to stand in. Sacrifice, persist, and swoop, there it is? Is this news to you? It wasn’t to me either.

While I suspect that this writer gives thought to what he writes, I suggest that he, and others like him, miss the point. Rather like a growing crowd about the Emperor and his new clothes, it appears that some are so busy selling positivity to themselves and others that common sense takes a holiday. I suggest that this slight of hand is positively dressing and redressing the same set of what sells to buy and/or pay for their compounds in Maui, Sedona, San Rafael, and elsewhere.

Self-help is big business. If we want to be successful like them, we better listen up and do exactly what they tell us so that we can also be wildly happy, successful, fulfilled, well, etc., right? Well, there is a sticky wicket in this. It’s called perspective. One man’s positive may well be another’s negative. One’s fun, another’s nightmare. Osama bin Laden and Hitler’s fun was a bit different than most, for example. So the foundation of positivity is speculative at best; yet, there’s more. If positivity is defined as not questioning or analyzing the self-help guru, that removes sales obstacles for the entrepreneur and begins a process of, dare I say it, brainwashing and/or mind control!