getting others interested in personal development

[ckf]

This is my first time posting here, although the blog and this forum have been a great resource for me. I'm not sure if this is the appropriate category for my question, but since it involves my boyfriend, I thought I would plop it into this area.

How do I get my boyfriend to be interested in personal development? He hates self-help books, he says it makes him very anxious just to be reminded of all the things he's not doing and then he feels increasingly guilty that he isn't reading the book. I gave him a copy of Getting Things Done which he started to read but it's gathered dust on his shelf for a year now. I've given him little tips here and there, some of which have helped, but I would like to enable him to seek out new skills on his own. Does anyone have tips for alternate approaches that he might respond to better?

[Michelle]

You will not get him interested or reduce his anxiety by laying on the pressure. The best way to get him interested and involved is to concentrate on your own development.

Steve wrote a blog post about this recently - http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...relationships/

[ckf]

Thanks for the link Michelle. While reading it, I realized that I had actually already read it and thought at the time how true it was -- that was essentially the approach I took to my relationship with my mother, and it radically changed things. It's interesting to read it from another perspective -- I'll have to go chew on it for a while.

[PMcDonald]

Originally Posted by Michelle

You will not get him interested or reduce his anxiety by laying on the pressure. The best way to get him interested and involved is to concentrate on your own development.

Steve wrote a blog post about this recently - http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...relationships/

Great reply Michelle! I was thinking this exact thing as I was reading the first post before I read your reply.

I had the same situation with my wife. She was certainly not against me getting into personal development, but was uninterested when I got started. Then, she began to see the changes in me and slowly started to come around and we have now had many discussions on the subject and while she is still not as deeply involved as me, she has definitely started to come around and is beginning to see the value in it.

[ckf]

Thanks PMcDonald. That's good to hear.

[Lucas]

I have been trying to get my girlfriend into PD for a while. Then I just decided to stop, because I know that I didn't start until I made the choice. So instead of telling her how she should try something, I started offering words of encouragements and stuff when she seems interested. Like she wants to lose some weight (and health wise, she could use it a little), so when she mentions it, for the next couple days I ask her to join me in exercising. If she doesn't take me up, I don't push it any further. Or I say "You could lose the weight you want, but you have to decide to do it", and leave it at that. She is warming up to some of the ideas and concepts now.

[edwardmccaughan]

For me, I think its one of the taoist overcoming the hard with the soft moments.

OK, so I'm pretty much saying the same thing as lucas, but if you try and go the hard route people don't tend to react well to it.

However if you go the soft route and live a good life they might be interested in how you can be so happy when they aren't. Give them small suggestions, show them the path but leave it to them to decide to do it for themselves. Ask questions that set them thinking ("why do you think you keep feeling blah blah blah?") but don't try and give them too much of an answer yourself.

Theres probably better examples than those, but if you can understand the principle then world domination is an easy next step...

And add in the subjective reality jiggery pokery and don't expect things to happen right away.

[RT Wolf]

Human beings can be nudged gently, but they can't be pushed. I don't want to do this, but an analogy I think of is that of water. If you are gentle you can get through water with great speed, but if you try to force it, the water will push back at you.

And this is not just with other people, this is with ourselves, as well.