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.