5 Personal Development Lessons from Van Wilder

[srinrao]

The other day when I wrote 10 ways to a prolific personal development blogger, I wrote that you should watch movies to find blog post ideas. I’ve always loved movies and somehow I always picked up some life lessons from movies, but until recently never thought about actually listening when Van Wilder said “write that down.” So I did. It turns out Van Wilder is actually giving us some very important personal development lessons despite the fact that this movie is a comedy about a guy who is in college for almost a decade. One thing to note about the character of Van Wilder is how he magnetically draws thousands of people and perhaps these 5 lessons have something do with it:

1. You can’t treat every matter as life and death: When you think about how we approach problems and the things that happen in our lives, we have almost a natural tendency to be melodramatic. We may not treat it as a matter of life and death, but just remembering that most of our issues are not matters of life and death puts a little bit peace back in your life.

2. Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something do, but doesn’t get you anywhere: I really need to put this on my wall and remind myself of this almost daily. Having had a challenging job search, the last week I started to worry. Needless to say it was self-destructive both physically and mentally. It caused massive amounts of stress and I started to feel physically exhausted. In other words, it gave me something to do, but didn’t get me anywhere.

3. Don’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out alive: If there’s anything you take away from watching this movie, it probably should be this. You’ve always heard that phrased “someday you’ll look back at this and laugh. Tony Robbins said it best when he said “why, wait?” Sure it’s easier said than done. But if we start just develop an awareness of how serious we are taking certain issues that are not that big a deal, then we can remember not to take life too seriously.

4. If you think about the future too much, you forget about the present: I’m not sure why, but I keep running across this idea over and over and over and over again in everything I read, everybody I talk to and anything I watch that has to do with being successful. Last summer when I worked as an Intern at Turbotax.com, an executive gave a speech to the interns, and she said the fastest way to rise in your career is to be present and not concern yourself with rising in your career. This is because when you are present you do a really good job of the thing that you are working on.

5. You have the potential to be great: Van Wilder tells his assistant Taj this exact thing. But, what is really notable is how he sees the potential to be great in the world around him, and as a result his own potential to be great comes out in full force. While we go through day to day life, deal with the problems of today, worry about the outcomes of tomorrow, stress over where we’ll be in 10 years, it’s important to remember to slow down, enjoy the journey, and recognize our potential to be great.

[luck27]

good stuff I'm gonna have to print this out & post it up in my room for a reminder.

[Remiel]

Originally Posted by srinrao

4. If you think about the future too much, you forget about the present: I’m not sure why, but I keep running across this idea over and over and over and over again in everything I read, everybody I talk to and anything I watch that has to do with being successful. Last summer when I worked as an Intern at Turbotax.com, an executive gave a speech to the interns, and she said the fastest way to rise in your career is to be present and not concern yourself with rising in your career. This is because when you are present you do a really good job of the thing that you are working on.

4. If you never think about the future at all, you will arrive exactly where you decided to be. Anywhere the flow of life takes you.
I can agree that if you live in the future you'll forget about the present. But if you don't decide on your destinations how can you take actions to get there? Do you simply go on a vacation by living in the present? I sure don't. I figure out where I'm going, how I'm getting there, what I'm going to do down there and how I'm getting back. If I didn't take the time to do that how would I ever get to see the things I want to see, hear the sounds I want to listen to, or do the things I want to do?

I do have the talent of Futuristic (Strengths Finder 2.0, Gallup) so I definitely have the ability to spend waaay too much time in the future. I have learned over time though that there needs to be some vision of the future in order for that vision to become true. The moon mission didn't just happen, it happened because JFK saw the future and described it in such clarity to the public that they could see that future too. Guess what? It came true.


Now that being said Actions must be taken in the present once the future has been decided on. Present Actions lead to Future Locations.

[MartinP]

Good point about worry! (point 2)
I guess ultimately we make a choice to worry or not. Its just a habit.