The #1 Mistake People Make on Self-Improvement

They tell you self-help is so good and that you're developing yourself and that you're improving and blah blah blah,

IT'S ALL FLUFF

Some people aren't concerned about you and your problems, they just want to make a quick buck,

And you keep giving them a payckeck one month after the other by viewing content, buying products and giving attention to people and things that don't even give you a return of any kind.

Now if these things are helping you get to where you want to get to then by all means, keep doing what you're doing,

But most probably they're not.

Remember, you're the main character in your own story, you're the superhero, so why are other people telling the hero what he should be doing? 

The Problem

Now be honest, most of the things you consume (not just eating and drinking) are probably either a waste of time or just useless,

And that's the problem. You're consuming way too much, you're watching, reading, listening way too much.

You'll find people who'll tell you 'I'm so disciplined, I listened to an entire three-hour podcast, I was being productive, even though they learned absolutely NOTHING from it.

So many people are happy consuming 'productive' and 'educational' content that they forget what actually gets them results, they forget what actually makes them get better and that's by doing, through experience.

I can tell you from experience, you will feel so much more alive and actually feel like you're making progress when you do stuff.

There's a famous quote I like;

'Some people think about what they should be doing, other people are already doing it'.

Who do you think will get further?

We became too information focused and forgot that learning is something you do actively, not passively.

Too much 'learning',

Not enough doing.

So get out of your head and go out into the real world.

The Old Man

Think of an old man, he's wise, he's full of experience and stories to tell and mistakes he made and good things he did.

Let me ask you a question,

Do you think he's so wise because he 'studied' it, or do you think he's like that because he learned something after an experience?

I love my grandpa, he's full of interesting stories, of things he built (he was a carpenter), people he met, shenanigans him and his friends did, trouble he got into and so many things which add to his character.

Do you realise that every experience you go through adds to your character??

You may not notice it but go back through old memories and see how much you've grown from that time until now.

He's telling me all these stories and I'm there listening like ''Damn he knows so much, he's done so many things and I'm here thinking I know something cause I 'learn' and read and all that stuff'', but in reality I am not even intelligent enough to tie his shoelaces by comparison.

Now don't get me wrong learning is great but somethimes we only ever get to learning and never actully get to doing anything.

Imagine studying for a test you never take.

What's the point of knowing if you never use what you know?

The Trick We Always Fall For

Now I get it, doing things is harder than consuming 'helpful' content and that makes us trick ourselves into thinking we're doing something productive.

That's why it's a trick, we think we're doing something good but in reality we're not, I call it productive procrastination, cause we know we're delaying the important work by doing other so-called 'important' work but deep down we know that what we're doing is not going to help us.

So what I want to tell you is go out there (cause you're not going to learn anything from inside), speak to people, go to events, go swim, go for a walk, experience life, just do something and actually put what you learn to use.

What's the point of reading a book on social skills if I never actiually speak to people?

Learning and doing go hand in hand they need each other, they supplement each other, together they create experience which gives you wisdom.

Conclusion : We get so hung up on learning that sometimes we forget to actually put what we learn into practice, so go out into the world and experience things (Don't be stupid though, you know what I mean when I say 'go experience things').

Learn by doing and then examine what you did right and wrong and try to fix it next time, that's how you actually learn.

It's a never-ending journey.

Each experience is added to your character.

Think of it like levelling up in a video game, everything you go through will give you EXP points on your character, if you spend all your time inside how can you ever gather these EXP points?