What Is Personal Development Really All About

The theories of personal development has been around in one form or another as good as forever, and I have no doubt the history and science of the subject would form a research subject in it's own right. My own take on this is, how can the myriad of techniques that are out there be used by the average person to improve not only ones business life, but all aspects of living in today's complicated world.

Like any conscientious person, I have long been aware that to succeed in life generally, one has to look deep into the "SELF", before things start to happen in the real world.

I think most of us are aware of the "Secret", and the impact that this is having within the "Personal Development Industry", but are these teachings any different to the theories expounded many years ago by the likes of Dale Carnegie-" How To Win Friends & Influence people", or Maxwell Maltz-"Psycho Cybernetics" and more recently the meteoric rise in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), or any of the thousands of "New" theories out there now.

For anyone who has studied the subject via the plethora of information available, one theme runs continuously throughout, and that is, "Change Your Thinking/Beliefs/Self Talk etc", and the results you are looking for will come to you, the question is, is that really true, I don't think so. I believe there are thousands of people out there just wishing for a better life, more money, better relationships, and they are being sadly disappointed that nothing is happening, why should this be. It really is so obvious ACTION. Nothing will happen until you take action, you can think and dream until hell freezes over but unless you back this up with real work, your results will be weak.

I don't wish to be misunderstood here, I believe very strongly in all of the teachings expounded by the various pundits. Yes we do have to align our beliefs with our desires, It's no good saying to yourself "In Six Months I Will Be A Millionaire" if what you actually believe is there is no hope of that happening. As the old saying goes "Whatever you believe in, you are probably right". I know all of the literature out there places a very strong emphasis on aligning our beliefs with our desires, and rightly so.

Having said all that, what does it all boil down to, and what should we actually believe about teachings such as the "Secret". What we need to do is look into the concepts concerning vibrations, energy, etc. As an engineer, I understand these at the theoretical level, but what do they mean when applied to the things we are researching.

First of all what do we mean by "Vibration" ? Generally speaking, when something vibrates, it moves from one positive energy state, through a zero point and then to another state, almost equal in amplitude, but in the opposite direction. Unless energy is imparted to this vibrating system,eventually the vibration will stop due to mechanical losses. Now take a standard tuning fork, and notice that when it is struck, a musical note is emitted, you will also notice that both prongs of the fork are moving. Interestingly, if we touch one of these prongs whilst the fork is vibrating, the other prong also stops, we are now experiencing sympathetic vibration (does this sound familiar "Law Of Attraction")

If we think of our manifesting thoughts as one prong of the tuning fork, before we can really get going we have to find the other prong, but where is that, well we know from all our other teachings, it is "Out There" in the universe but we must get in sympathy. Getting in sympathy is basically all of the techniques of positive affirmation, goal planning, envisioning etc.

But, you may say, that in a statement I made earlier, that all the "Dreaming" in the world won't do anything unless we apply action, and that is true, this is where the ENERGY part of the equation comes in.

So what is energy :- " the capacity of a physical system to do work". Capacity is the key word here, just because energy is present, it has to be dissipated before work is done i.e. it is Potential, we need to make it kinetic i.e. changing energy states.

Consider a brick lying in the earth, the brick has mass, but just lying there it will not make an indentation. If we raise this brick say one metre in the air, and hold it there, it can be said to have potential energy, but still no indentation in the earth. Now let go of the brick and what happens, potential becomes kinetic energy, and when the brick hits the earth we have a small crater. The energy has been dissipated, work has been done, now we have to start all over again.

The work we do in as we live is analogous to the brick, we have to continually do work to dissipate our energy. If we do this along with our manifesting, positive thinking, goal planning etc, then our vibrations will be in alignment with the universe, but they will need to be driven by our energy in what work we do.

Simply Put R=(GP+M+E)*W

Where R= Results
GP=Goal Planning
M=Manifesting
E=Envisioning
W=Work

I unashamedly believe that if this simple formula is applied continuously and in a focused way, then we can all reach whatever it is we desire.

last but not least, notice that the real major component, and the multiplier in all of this is WORK, if YOU don't work, nothing will work.

Regards and good luck
Mike Morrice