How can you explain personal development stuff when.....

[marktb]

How can I preach all this personal development stuff, including manifesting, when my life is not congruent with WHAT I KNOW AND PREACH?
I find I think I am not really qualified to help people grow and change when my life doesn't reflect what I am trying to help people realize. This frustrates me beyond belief because I do feel I am meant to help people with personal development. Like in a earlier post, I have read and still read everything I can get my hands on but my financial situation doesn't change and in fact, it has gotten worse in the last 6 months. MUCH WORSE. In my opinion and I may be way off here, a person's credibility in teaching others has to reflected in their own life and most people(maybe I am thinking of myself here) correlate SUCCESS WITH WEALTH AND MATERIAL POSSESSIONS. For example, we forum members would not listen and respect Steve as much if he made 3 grand a month and lived in an apt. even though he knew just as much information and knowledge as he does now.

I want nothing more to help people but I am having a very hard time helping myself, financially-speaking and creating material wealth. I just lost my job the other day and really have no clue what career I want to pursue EXCEPT helping people, talking to people, and teaching.

Does anyone feel this way?

Mark Baldwin

[eternomi]

I would recommend helping yourself first. By doing this, you are actually helping others as well. Don't see this as being selfish. As you said, it builds credibility. Plus, you need to see first hand what you know does work before you pass it onto others. If it doesn't work for you, how would you even know that it works at all? Don't take others' word for anything. Apply it and see it working personally.

Secondly, helping others works only if they are ready to be helped. In other words, if they are not seeking help, you can't push help onto them. If they come to you looking for help, that's fine. If they are ready to change, they will. Otherwise, they won't. You might think or know for sure that they are in need of help, but not aware of it. That doesn't matter at all. They need to personally come to the conclusion that they need to change and they can in fact change. Until then, your efforts are useless.

On the other hand, you can start a blog and channel your helping energy outward that way. That's what Steve has done for example. He makes the information available to whomever wants it. I don't think he goes around trying to get people to think like him although if anyone asks, I am sure he tells. You can do the same. Put the information out there. Anyone who needs it will find its way to it.

Lastly, if you think about the broader sense of "helping others", you are always helping someone no matter what you do. If you are a nurse or a psychiatrist, it might be more obvious that you are helping people, but no matter what you do, you are helping others. Whatever your passion and talents are, use them to help others..

[Nico Kempe]

I completely agree with outback's post.

You should definetly start with yourself.
In fact, if you're so busy with Personal Development, you'll probably know about the theory that "there is only yourself". This states that you only have prove that you yourself exist. If you look at it from that direction, you can only change you.

I tried "forcing" my advice on others of who I was sure they needed my advice, but I found out that it didn't work at all. I even got frustrated because the people I tried to help, only seemed to resist it and fell deeper and deeper in the hole they were in. At one point my good intentions endangered our friendships, and that's when I decided to stop helping so actively.
I noticed that with all my well meant efforts, I only made things worse, even for myself.
Now I focus mainly on myself. I feel better, and I notice people around me start feeling better too. In fact, they seem to pick up on my newly aquired knowledge of personal development and now people around me are open to my good will.

You know the law of attraction: you get what you think of.
Well, if you think or feel bad, you'll get bad things, and you might notice bad things happening to others as well.
Now let's say you start working on yourself first. So you focus on your problems, your emotions, your health, etcetera. There are numerous ways to be found that can help you with that.
Once you start feeling better (you can feel good even when life "sucks"), you will emit that positive energy. You will attract it too, and very likely, eventually, people around you will be influenced by that.

You can not change yourself without, in some way, affecting others. The other way around is also true.
By making yourself better, you'll make others better as well.

If you are in essence thesame as "they" (if you believe in that), then the only point of attention you'll need to be able to change "the world", is in yourself.

[Steve Pavlina]

If you're a yellow belt in personal development, you can still teach white belts.

[rene_stpierre]

Someone (I think it was Zig Ziglar) once said ... "You will get what you want, if you just help enough people to get what they want."

Seems like you have the "helping other people" mind set covered.

I agree with previous posts. I think you need to take care of yourself. Determine what you want and set specific goals. You also need to make sure your mind set is right. Readings on the Law of Attraction (or the movie The Secret) will help. When it comes to money, I also know that financial stability is important in order to be able to build wealth.

From your post, I have the feeling you are meant to be a life coach. If that is the case, once your priorities and mind are set, helping other people as a life coach, could get you what you want.

However, I know things don't turn around overnight. I have been introduced to Personal Development about 1 year ago. Although I have made various changes in my habits, beliefs and mindset, I am yet to get the "rewards" I want. But I know I have the bases in place to get what I want.

Hang in there!
René

[icesar]

I understand your feeling completely; I'm still pretty green at personal development and sometimes when I'm talking to people I will tend to preach something that I'm not practicing.

I think the simple answer to this is, I've been trying not to preach. Leading by example makes a lot more sense and in any case it is a lot more rewarding to grow in your own life than to spend your time telling other people what you think about personal growth.

[빈센트]

For example, we forum members would not listen and respect Steve as much if he made 3 grand a month and lived in an apt. even though he knew just as much information and knowledge as he does now.

I like to see people who've tried their own methods on themselves before other people. It just makes sense that way. PD obviously isn't a well laid-out path. It's more or less, take what you need, and use it. That's why I think the site is laid out in a blog format.

[joshbickford]

You don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great. -Les Brown

[Marc Greve]

Have a read of Steve's article

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...relationships/


I think it covers what you're talking about very well, Mark.

[PMcDonald]

In Oprah's show on "The Secret", towards the end James Ray talked about how he intended six years ago to be on Oprah and Larry King. He basically said that when he made the decision to put that out there so that he could continue to teach the LoA and help others, the main thing he focused on was simply to become a better person. He worked on himself, learned more, grew more, and became the person that he needed to be in order for the intention to manifest.

So my response to you is to keep working on yourself. Dig deep and accept who you are right now, uncover what you can learn from your experiences thus far, and then make a commitment to get better - each and every day from this point forward.

[A.K.Light]

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

"Well done is better than well said." - Benjamin Franklin

I think that when you take yourself to the next level, you'll be much more likely to attract people who are actually ready for your help. In my opinion, people tend to question the motives of other people who don't look out for themselves. Even if what you say makes complete sense, it's just not the same. You can't help other people until you help yourself.

I have some friends who I think need help. I try to offer them advice and encourage them a lot and it doesn't seem to be helping them at all. (Or maybe it does a little bit.) I think that I sometimes only manage to make them feel worse about their current situations. I make them feel like they are doing everything all wrong. This is totally not my intention. If I do have light, I shall not shine it on them anymore. I'll focus much more on getting myself to shine, and if they see the light, they come to it at their own pace so that they don't feel overwhelmed.

This makes sense to me and maybe you agree, but what will we do with it? The time is now.

[dadeon]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

If you're a yellow belt in personal development, you can still teach white belts.

I couldn't agree more!

We tend to loook up to our mentors and only see how far 'behind' we are. Meanwhile there are a lot of people struggling with things we've been through. Some of the best teachers in history taught only one single simple little message, but they LIVED it...and that's how you do it.

[dadeon]

We are ALL teachers

We are students!

[RT Wolf]

I think its also a matter of direction. You may not be very far along a certain direction, but you are in that direction and you can always influence others to go in that direction. If you're familiar with vectors, I'm talking about the direction component versus the magnitude component.