Cultivate GREATNESS | Leadership Training

by Aaron Potts

Don’t even bother trying to improve your life via personal development methodologies, because those systems don’t work. Yes, there are great tools available. There are books, audio programs, seminars, eBooks, and general “life hacks” that you can use to effect some positive changes in your life. However, none of those things are the real fuel behind personal development success – or lack thereof.

As a general rule, people are fruitlessly scouring our existence looking for the latest and greatest ways to get what they want out of life. For some people it is a new weight loss system, for others it is a financial success method, while still others are simply looking for a way to have rewarding personal relationships.

Regardless of the particular goal that you are trying to accomplish, however, YOU are the fuel for success in that endeavor, not the method that you choose in order to effect those changes in your life.

The best personal development program in the world will not help you if you are not truly ready to make positive changes in your life.

Please read that again and make sure you understand and internalize the meaning of the word truly.

Everyone wants their life to be better in some way. It is our own human drive and hunger for continual growth that is one of the defining characteristics of who we are as human beings.

However, wanting change and being truly ready to actually create change in your life are two completely different – and often opposite – concepts.

So before you decide that the latest personal development program is not all it was cracked up to be, or before you spend thousands of dollars to attend the next motivational spirit-building weekend, or before you declare to all of your friends and family that “this time is going to be different,” first stop and ask yourself if this time truly is going to be different.

Why are you going to lose weight this time around, even though you have consistently met with limited results in the past?

How are you finally going to attain a comfortable financial status even though you have been living paycheck to paycheck your entire life?

What is going to be different about your next relationship that is going to allow it to grow into a state of bliss, even though none of the relationships that you have had in the past have lasted?

Despite the fact that there may be “forward looking” circumstances regarding the improvements that you are planning to make in your life, does the fact that circumstances are looking good for you really ensure your success?

Does the newest and most high-tech health and fitness program ensure weight loss, or is it your state of mind that will guarantee success regardless of what program you use?

Just because you have a great new job lined up, does that mean that your relationship with money is going to change in a positive manner, or are you just going to find ways to spend the extra money that you will now be making?

Since your new boyfriend or girlfriend is everything that you have ever wished for in a mate, does that mean that your own self-limiting beliefs about whether or not you deserve relationship success will automatically vanish by just being in this person’s presence?

Personal development doesn’t work unless you allow it to actually be personal development.

It’s not about the diet, the career opportunity, or your picture-perfect new significant other.

Personal development is about you.

Unless you truly grasp that fact, and unless you truly make a commitment to yourself, no amount of positive circumstances or good luck are going to help you to develop into the person that lives the life that you want to be leading.

Consider the following quote, and then decide if you really need to spend the time or the money on that new personal development resource:

“Success is something you attract by the person you become.”