How Come Personal Development Books Don’t Work For Me?

How Come Personal Development Books Don’t Work For Me? Speaking with a client, on the phone, just a few days ago and an interesting topic came up in our conversation. We were talking about how to manage our thinking, how to control negative thoughts that run through our mind, with some people, incessantly and lead us in a direction, behavior and results we don’t want. Not just for ourselves but also those around us.

Dominic mentioned that he has read many self-help books, has piles of them at home and is in the middle of reading one now. “I know the answer, I read it in many books, but still I can’t make those negative thoughts disappear, my behavior and results are still the same”.  “I have all the knowledge but it just isn’t working”.

Can you relate to what Dominic is saying?

Do you read copious amounts of Self-help books but find nothing really, substantially, changes in your life?

I can remember many years ago as I too would consume many Self-help books to learn and understand how I could act, be, respond, differently to create abundance in the different area’s of my life.

This one day I was sitting on the couch at home relaxing and reading one of my books and my wife made a comment.

“Paul”, she says… “Why do you keep reading all those self-help books?”, she reads romantic novels.

Now I’m thinking, that’s an interesting question, where is she going with this?

Without too much thinking I blurted out, to improve myself and my life. Probably could have thought more about my answer before I delivered it.

Now she comes back with, “You’ve been reading those books for years and I can’t see any improvement!”

Well….If you want to start a War, that’s most probably a great response.

Once the dust had settled and I had control of my rational mind again, I reflected on her words. I would have to agree to a certain point that no real substantial change in my life had taken place.

The Awakening

A short time after this harsh awakening I had a realization that changed the way I read and applied information that I consumed and teach it to my clients who are looking to improve their lives.

Listen up…

Our mind (internal world) is great at consuming information, reading, learning, comparing, analyzing, thinking etc…

It loves doing those activities and can do it all day and night while been very happy. Now if you want to be abundant in your mind (internal world) keep consuming information and thinking about it.

We are living in the information age, so there is no shortage of information, is there?

Now in reality (external world) it works differently. We need to take ACTION to get results.

Knowing (mind = internal world) the information is just theory and has not been tested in MY reality yet. When I take ACTION on what I have learned, not once, not twice, not three times, but many times, it will become part of My life. It will become a new subconscious program.

We need to take ACTION on what we learn. The challenge is some of us will take an ACTION of reading another book instead of taking ACTION and applying ideas, techniques and skills in the previous book.

We need to take the RIGHT ACTION…

Yes, it’s hard to take ACTION and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE what we want to Become, Do or Have.

It takes ENERGY to change and that’s why I’m so passionate about health, because without a vibrant level of health and energy, change becomes more difficult.

Change is very possible and can happen in OUR lives with the right focus, energy, strategy and support.

Example:

Let’s look at one quick example to drive this home so we are very clear on what to do.

We read in many self-help books how important health is to enjoy and experience a great life. We decide to improve our health.

Now….every day or every other day we will PRACTICE ( this means take physical action) on the following:

• Physical exercise…
• Choose healthier eating options…
• Eat less…
• Drink more water….
• Reduce / eliminate alcohol

Remember this, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE what you do want in your life and you will be ahead of the game and most other people and before you know it, your healthy habits (or whatever else you are seeking) will be a new subconscious program that will run automatically in your life without you having to think about it consciously.