Addicted From Self-Development
Obsessions, charlatans, and personal experience
Do you like to jump from one self-improvement method to another? Meditation this month, a self-help course the next? Are you buying one self-development book after another? Are you constantly looking for ways to develop your personality through coaching and training?
If you answered “yes” in some of these questions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re addicted to self-development. Getting “addicted” or obsessed with self-improvement methods and techniques could do more harm than good, and that’s why it is useful to know some of the reasons, indicators, and underlying reasons for such behavior.
Speaking from experience, I was a self-improvement junkie myself, but I found a few solutions to the problem which you can read below.
Distinctive features of obsession
To show you some typical characteristics of addictive or obsessive behavior, let’s compare:
Normal approach:
- Read a book, attend training, participate in a workshop, or visit a psychotherapist
- If the information from these sources is useful to the person, then he/she may analyze and reflect on it
3. Implement in real life if possible
Obsessive approach:
- Read a book, attend training, participating in a workshop, or visit a psychotherapist
- Like to analyze the received information, but don’t put it into practice
- Quickly start to read the next book, attend another training, participate in more workshops — rinse and repeat
Have you seen the difference? Addiction from self-development is similar to reading culinary books but never cooking.
Instead of really developing yourself and changing something in your life, you continue to live with the same old habits even though you surround yourself with all the self-help literature and guidance by gurus. People who are blinded by the idea of constantly developing, but in reality not doing it, could experience neurotic problems that influence their relationships, work, or study and finances.
Such behavior could often lead to a feeling of boredom, anger, frustration, and depression. Spotting this type of obsession or even addiction is challenging especially because of society and the self-help industry greatly selling the idea that one should constantly work and develop to achieve set goals.
What are the causes?
Everybody has their own unique situation, but some of the common reasons for becoming obsessed with self-development:
- Never happy with what you have
- Low self-esteem
- Problems with self-regulation of emotions
- Creating a perfect picture of yourself or the self-development gurus you follow
- Peer pressure and trying to meet others’ expectations
- An abundance of choice and inability to take action
To grow and develop, it’s good to find a balanced approach as well as understand your own psychology and how it affects your everyday life. Instead of looking for the ideal solution that doesn’t exist, you have to tackle the problem and not avoid it.
Warning: Charlatans!
The self-development industry is booming, more and more new-coming coaches and trainers are offering their help in making people’s lives better. One of the issues, however, is that the market for personal development services is not regulated legally. Everyone can sell their self-help courses and books. Both experts in the field and self-proclaimed gurus give advice and promote their services. It’s up to the consumer to figure out who to believe in.
To increase your chances of finding the right professional, you can make research and check a person’s accreditation and qualification before paying for their course, book, or services. For example, you can use the website of ICF -International Coaching Federation to find experienced accredited coaches.
Fake personal development coaches could go into extremes as in the example of cults or sects led by spiritual leaders. One such case happened in Russia, where 61-years old Alexandr Kurenkov, a guru and teacher of esoterics, meditation, and religious rituals attracted young adults and teenagers to his teachings. Later on, he was jailed for physical abuse and rape of some of the members of his group.
The dangers of such situations are real and people should be aware of the possibility for cult leaders taking advantage of the naive under the mask of personal development.
My personal experience
I was also obsessed with self-development and constantly visited different seminars with my mom since I was 7 years old. I read the whole home library with books about how to earn millions, become successful, and affirmations to heal your mind or body. In university, my friends started making jokes that I spend my food budget on development courses as I was earning certificates from programs all the time.
Looking back, I wouldn’t say that I suffered from addiction but perhaps went overboard with the number of courses I attended at certain times. Even a psychologist at a conference told me that I overthink things. With time, I understood that this “mental chatter” is an obstacle to taking the necessary actions.
The main thing which helped me was to start taking more action instead of thinking too much and over-analyzing the situation. Besides books on self-development topics, I also started to read more fiction books as per a recommendation by a psychologist. Additionally, I decreased the number of courses I attended significantly.
I can’t say that I regret going to courses or learning about different personal development topics. Oppositely, it was a good life lesson and my priorities simply changed while realizing that I didn’t need a self-help teacher telling me that I can do things on my own. I unsubscribed from all the newsletters about esoteric topics, spent more time practicing English, and concentrated on things that mattered and were important for me.
