7 Self-Development Keys to Thriving in 2017

Throwing money at self-improvement opportunities and hoping for the best, simply because they sound good or worked for someone else, is no way to get the most from your self-development dollars.

Pursuing your leadership development in one way, your relationship development in another, and your personal development in yet another, is a painfully inefficient use of your time, energy, and money.

You deserve far better in 2017.

Is this the year when you will REALLY get what you’ve been seeking from your personal and business self-development investments?

• Are you wanting to manage your self-development strategically, instead of continuing to use the woefully inefficient “oh that sounds good” make-it-up-as-you-go approach?
• Are you tired of paying good money only to receive true-but-not-useful mindsets that you already pretty much knew, instead of practical skills and step-by-step procedures that could really make the difference you’ve been seeking?
• Are you wishing you could simultaneously leap forward with your personal wellbeing, your relationships with loved ones, your career or business success, your leadership effectiveness, and your ability in help create positive change in the world… all in a far more efficient integrated way?

If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you’ll want to know about a strategic integrative self-development framework that helps you avoid the 7 Common Self-Development Traps and more effectively achieve the results you seek. This white paper illuminates those traps and reveals that framework. In common-sense ways that you’ve likely never before seen all in one place. Until now.

Here are the self-development traps and solutions I’m about to illuminate for you:

The Traps & Solutions in Detail

1. Stop Being Controlled by the 4 Spells That Are Sabotaging Our Society & Your Success — Become a Spell-Breaker to Uplevel Your Authenticity Instead
   • Spell #1 — The Societal Spell: A faulty happiness formula was installed in the 1950s that is continuing to sabotage our society’s wellbeing and most people’s life fulfillment. It redefined the “pursuit of happiness” in the original version as excessive consumerism. It substituted freedom with conformity to that faulty version of happiness. And it redefined responsibility as over-working to try to make the money needed to fill the bottomless pit of excessive consumerism. This faulty happiness formula sabotaged our notions of human potential and it continues to harm our society’s foundation to this day. (For more on this, way the video of my TEDx Talk on “The Hijacking of the American Dream” at www.HijackingOfHappiness.com.)
   • Spell #2 — The Power Spell: We have as a society developed profoundly destructive versions of power that have given the very notion of power an undeservedly bad name. There are 3 main self-sabotaging and socially harmful versions of power — manipulative power, rebellion power, and power phobia. These faulty power formulas have been undermining many people’s home life, work life, and community life, not to mention our society’s fundamental underpinnings. Yet, not having a clear vision of what ethical power looks like and requires undermines the success of our self-development activities. (For more on this, watch the video of my Reconciliation Roadmap webinar at www.ReconciliationRoadmap.com)
   • Spell #3 — Your Survival Spell: When we’re kids trying to figure out how to deal with undesired or outside-the-box life experiences, our survival needs to become a far higher priority than thriving or integrity. The purpose of the Survival Plan we develop is to find a way to make it to adulthood so we can choose something better for ourselves. The problem with this is that by the time we become adults we’ve been using it for so long that we believe this formula is who we are. This lifesaving formula for managing childhood turns into a faulty formula for living as an adult. We unwittingly use self-development methods to try to succeed with this faulty formula. In the end it either never gets us the success we seek, or it does enable us to get that, but only to discover that this version of success doesn’t fulfill us nearly as much as we thought it would. (I first wrote about this in the mid-1990s as the principal author of a book that won two awards, including mental health book-of-the-year: Sensible Self-Help. It’s out of print because an updated version of this framework is included in my more recent 6-award-winning book, The New IQ. You can find out more about this book and its accompanying workbook at www.TheNewIQ.com)
   • Spell #4 — The Self-Development Spell: Most people use a make-it-up-as-you-go self-development approach even though it almost never produces the progress we seek. We throw self-development resource spaghetti on the wall hoping it will help and then being disappointed when it doesn’t. This faulty self-development formula needs to be replaced by a strategic framework that guides your self-development with the same effectiveness and efficiency as a top quality business strategic plan helps guide a company toward success. (I was trained in long-range strategic planning a decade before I completed my doctorate in psychology. For more on strategic self-development see my book on this that won 6 diverse awards, not merely in psychology, health & wellness, and self-help, but also in conscious business & leadership, social change, and current events in politics & society: www.TheNewIQ.com)
   • Getting the Results You Seek From Your Self-Development Activities Becomes Far Easier Once You’re Free From Those 4 Spells: Congratulations. you’ve just taken the first step of recognize that you’ve been under these spells and that it’s time to get free of them.There are 3 Keys to Spell-Breaking: 1) Recognize you’re under one and decide that it’s time to get free from it; 2) Understand its anatomy well enough to spot it when it’s active; and 3) Replace it by embedding a more compelling, authentic alternative that enables you to truly thrive instead of merely survive.
2. Stop Segmenting Your Self-Development — Efficiently Integrate Your Self-Development Efforts Instead
   • For decades now, people’s time, energy and pocketbooks have been stretched way too thin because the Human Potential world is fractured in a bunch of largely disconnected focus areas. This Self-Development Silos approach is extremely inefficient. Doing inner work through one resource, relationship development through another, leader development through yet another, and so forth, sucks untold amounts of time, energy and money. It also creates massive confusion and resource overwhelm because most people don’t know how to connect the dots among all of the silos so each one can benefit them in all parts of their life. Inefficiency wastes your time, energy and money… and creates Resource Overwhelm… while making resource providers rich at your expense.
   • Here’s what Self-Development Silo providers haven’t figured out how to fix, and in some cases don’t care to fix: The same foundational self-development skills that are necessary for personal fulfillment and great relationships are just as necessary for your success as a corporate or nonprofit executive, an entrepreneur or socialpreneur, a market leader, a thought leader or movement leader, or a helping professional who assists these folks. It’s time to get efficient by utilizing an integrated set of self-development resources that equally addresses all of these aspects of your human potential. You won’t get these from Self-Development Silo providers.
   • Think of this long-overdue shift as being similar to shifting from conventional medicine into integrative medicine, but with a strategic planning twist. Because I have a background in long-range master planning, was an administrator in the mid-1970s for the first organization for integrative health and medicine (the long-defunct Association for Holistic Health), the founding president in 1998 for an international nonprofit in the field of integrative psychology, and continue today as a Board member for the California Institute of Human Science and a Guest Faculty for Academy for Integrative Health & Medicine’s Fellowship Program, I believe I understand how to help shifts from silos to integration occur.
3. Stop Disconnecting Your Purpose, Paradigm, Presencing & Procedures — Align Your 4Ps of Self-Development Success Instead
   • Strategic Integrative Self-Development revolves around the Four “Ps:” Purpose, Paradigm, Presencing, and Procedures.
   • Purpose is your deepest sense of why you’re here, and it impacts all aspects of your life: inner wellbeing, relationships, career, social responsibility, and so forth. Purpose might include such things as personal growth, loving others, impact mission, legacy (leaving the world at least a somewhat better place than it was when you came in), and so on.
   • Paradigm is your worldview: your core beliefs through which you assign meaning to what you see, experience and do. Your Paradigm is meant to support your Purpose, but when your Purpose and Paradigm are not properly aligned, your Paradigm will sabotage your ability to consistently embody your purpose.
   • Presencing is about the focus and energy you bring to give life to your Purpose and Paradigm. It includes how well you remain spiritually connected and self-responsible, how effectively you manage your life energy, how discerning you are, the lifestyle you choose, your charisma (how effectively your authenticity magnetizes your tribe and your opportunities), your approach to collaboration, and how you generate money.
   • Procedures are the skills you use, within yourself and with others, to effectively Presence yourself in ways that keep you aligned with your Purpose and Paradigm.
   • The more your self-development efforts enable you to keep your Purpose, Paradigm, Presencing & Procedures aligned, the more useful they are. Yet, because of the silos that pervade the self-development world, most self-development methods don’t show people how to use them to build and nourish this alignment in themselves.
4. Stop Misusing or Avoiding Your Power —Step Into Irresistible Ethical Power Instead
   • Because our society has a profoundly distorted relationship with power, most people wonder if there’s even such a thing as healthy personal power. They know that if the only types of power that exist are manipulative power, rebellion power, and power phobia, this must mean that power itself is irretrievably corrupt.
   • Fortunately that’s not true. One version of power is not merely healthy — developing it is a huge part of why self-development is as important it is. What’s ethical power? Your ability to have positive impact in ways that are fully aligned with your cherished values and highest intentions. Imagine a world of people who: A) Are aligned with love, mutual respect, and other high spiritual-ethical values; 2) Utilize self-development methods to align their Purpose, Paradigm, Presencing and Procedures, and C) Have an uncannily compelling ability to collaborate with others to help bring about positive impact in the world. Well, that’s the fourth version of power: having positive impact through using effective presencing and ethical procedures that authentically embody your highest purpose and are heartfully supported by your chosen paradigm. I call this Irresistible Ethical Power™
   • Self-development that you can’t effectively use to uplevel into Irresistible Ethical Power™ is a waste of time, energy and money at best, and is downright harmful at worst.
5. Stop Being Sidetracked by the 4 Big Self-Development Pitfalls — Successfully Sidestep Self-Development Pitfalls Instead
   • A) New Age Denial is misusing willpower to sidestep the need to face and neutralize whatever is blocking your ability to turn your positive thoughts into positive results.
   • B) Woundology (as Carolyn Myss so aptly named it) is sidestepping the need for positive thinking and thereby becoming lost in an Endless Problems Parade that results in perpetual misery or therapy-without-end.
   • C) Chasing Situational Highs is endlessly seeking new workshops, adventures, and other growth experiences in the belief that having enough of these will create lasting transformation, when all these experiences are for is opening our eyes to expanded possibilities that we then need to learn how to embody outside of those situational highs.
   • D) Confusing Skills Development With Healing is believing that developing psychological, relationship or life skills will make it unnecessary to get free of old baggage. As I’ve said for decades, when we place sweet smelling stuff on top of crap, all we get is sweet smelling crap.
   • Here’s the Bottom Line About These 4 Big Self-Development Saboteurs: Living your life and building a business, nonprofit or cause at the level of your self-development limitations will frustrate you, alienate your people, and sabotage your success. What I call Strategic Integrative Self-Development™ avoids all of these self-development saboteurs that are all-too-common with Self-Development Silos approaches.
6. Stop Trying to Get Results From Self-Development Modalities That Are Not Designed to Provide Them — Get the Most From What Each Modality Excels at Offering Instead
   • There are 4 Main Self-Development Modalities: inspiration, altered states experiences, durable baggage freedom, and skills development. Each excels in providing certain aspects of what successful self-development requires. None are substitutes for the other three. Knowing what each is (and isn’t) designed to do elevates our Expectation Management, which is a key component in successful Strategic Integrative Self-Development™.
   • Inspiration is about seeing new possibilities, accessing the beginning of inner permission to pursue them, and making a commitment to succeed.
   • Altered State Experiences provide temporary access to expanded awareness, so we can begin to trust that what we’re inspired by might actually be possible.
   • Durable Baggage Freedom provides the root cause healing that establishes full permission to succeed at embodying what inspires us that we’ve then gone on to temporarily taste. It also includes embedding full inner resonance with consistently embodying the expanded ways we want to see, feel, act and live.
   • Skills Development replaces our dysfunctional societal programming and childhood survival plan skills with procedures that enable us to turn our good intentions into consistent actions that reliably help to bring about the intended positive results.
7. Stop Being Seduced by Shiny Self-Development Resources That End Up Disappointing You — Strategically Sequence Bitesize Chunks With Your Most Magnificent Ends in Mind Instead
   • Not all self-development resources are created equal. They range from world class garbage to world class magnificent. Stop being seduced by shiny self-development resources that have glossy marketing but that your gut tells you will only end up disappointing you.
   • Not all self-development resources resonate with all people. Some that are great for others won’t be for you, and vice versa. Stop selecting self-development resources solely because others have gotten good results with them.
   • Not all wonderful self-development resources that are right matches for you are right-timed for now. It’s one thing to know how to spot wonderful resources. It’s another thing entirely to know how to utilize those resources in an order that maximally supports your success. Stop throwing spaghetti against the wall & hoping for the best
   • Self-Development Silos are likely to frustrate you for reasons I previously mentioned in this white paper. Silos are an outdated and broken approach. On the other hand, the better you get at approaching your self-development with the kind of strategic planning precision and high leverage sequencing decisions that businesses use to create success, the more successful you’ll be at getting the results you seek in the most time-effective, energy-effective, and cost-effective ways possible. It’s all about Strategically Sequenced Bitesize Chunks With Your Most Magnificent Ends in Mind™.

Self-Development That Serves Us All™ | Irresistible Ethical Power™ | Making Integrity Profitable™

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