Go to buy milk, come home with a chainsaw. Personal Development

What if I told you that the personal development work you did on yourself last year is now irrelevant?

It’s rare to see someone change. Have you ever seen a significant change in someone and wondered how they did it? I see it less often, and I’m in the change business. But when I do see someone change, I love it. The beautiful thing about the changes I’ve seen is that it’s in a handful of ‘normal’ people, and I’m humbled to be a part of the process.

Personal Development

Good sports coaches refrain from participating in the activity their players participate in. Instead, the coach is on the sidelines, watching, examining, and testing. For sports coaches, the scoreboard tells the story of whether the coach is successful. For personal development coaches, it’s different. There’s no scoreboard and no exams or tests. The client being coached frequently needs to catch up on how they are going. It’s only when they step back that they become aware of their growth.

Go to buy milk and come home with a chainsaw.

I have a friend who loves to talk about an Aldi Supermarket near where he lives. He says, “I went in to buy a litre of milk, and I came out with milk and a chainsaw!”. Could you hold that thought for just a moment?

You’re aware of how sporting coaches work. They are constantly striving to keep ahead of the opposition—always striving to win.

Well, here’s the irony. For some reason, people and I, including you, think personal development is different. So you hop off to a workshop and sign up with a whiz coach, and you think, “Ah, my 3-months, 6-months etc. of coaching is over; I’m a changed person, yippee!”.

Real Personal Development is not ‘buy milk and a chainsaw.’

Your life is a like a game of football or basketball. If you stop, get complacent or slow down and think that’s all that’s needed, you’ll lose the game. It’s the same with your personal development; if you stop and think you have it all, you will find yourself in deep trouble.

Once you start your personal development journey, you’re in it for life. There’s no turning back, slacking off or thinking you’ve had enough.  You’ve heard of older people being sacked or laid off from their long-term job. They try to get another job in a similar industry and find they can’t. If you’re like this, you’ll likely externalise it by saying, “No one wants me; they don’t give older people jobs; it’s all for younger people!”. That’s inaccurate. It’s not because they’re old; they’ve lost or failed to maintain vital skills and experience.

When people come to me wanting help, no two people’s expectations of outcomes are the same. Of course, you and everyone would expect that. So I spend time explaining what’s happening when you work on yourself with your personal development. What happens looks something like this. You walk into my room with expectations about your chosen goals and outcomes.

Real Personal Development

You may achieve those goals and expectations and suppose they are represented by A, B, and C. As your psychic and personal development guru, I sit there and smile. What I saw and felt was something different. I saw a lot more. I saw A, B and C plus D, E, F, G, and M, a splattering of P, X and Y cream, salt, pepper and sugar thrown in as well.

What happened to your A, B, and C? One of two things happens. Either A, B, and C disappear entirely from the radar because you realise it wasn’t what you wanted, or A, B and C reappear later as different colours and shapes. A, B and C become, in your mind, modified and transformed.

Human Emotions are in the Mix

There was something you never realised about your personal development when you enrolled for that weekend workshop. You are at the centre of human nature. Humans have emotions, fear, pain, excitement, clarity and certainty—the whole kit and caboodle.

Think about what you want and what you prefer. The sugar-coated bun, the penny and the bag? Or would you like to enrol yourself to have the penny, the bag, the instructions, the stove, all the utensils, a house,  a car, wisdom, experience, and a life? You can make as many sugar-coated buns as you like with all those things.

Your personal development will become your life, heartbeat, breath, and life.