5 Spooky Truths About Personal Development

Even though Halloween is just about over, let’s talk about some spooky truths around personal development. To most people, these are 1638x scarier than ghosts, monsters or candy with raisins!

Only successful people accept these 5 hard to swallow pills.

That’s why they’re able to create extraordinary success.

Unless you accept these truths and live like it, you’re never going to achieve your true goals! Just like most people, you’ll end up settling because the journey of personal development is “too difficult” for you.

Let’s get into it:

1. Nobody Is Coming to Save You!

Most people prefer not to accept this simple fact.

You’ll see and hear things like:

• “The government should make sure I have a comfortable life.”

• “I’m not achieving my goals because the rich won’t let me.”

• “My life is shit because [insert political figure] is ruining things.”

• People looking to get into a relationship with the goal of fixing their lack of self love and respect. Thinking a partner will somehow fill the void.

• Waiting for that “lucky break” that will change everything.

I’m sure you know people like that.

Perhaps you are people like that…

Hate to break it to you, but real life isn’t like a Disney movie. There’s no shiny prince showing up his white armored horse to take you to a whole new world! No magical rabbit hole that will take you to Wonderland!

If you are to achieve your goals, it’s up to YOU!

The sooner you can accept this, the sooner you can take back control of your life! Take 100% responsibility of achieving your goals. Nobody else is gonna do it for you!

Crucial Sidenote: 

This does NOT mean that you have to do everything alone. The bigger your goal is, the bigger the need for outside help. By all means: network, look for support, collaborate with others, join a great community, lift each other up!

You need the support of others, and they need yours.

However, nobody is going to do the work for you! Nobody is going to ring your doorbell at 6 AM to pull you out of bed to go to the gym. Nobody wakes up thinking “Let me go and fix all of Maikel’s problems today”.

You need to take full responsibility for your life and act upon it.

NOBODY can help you until you actively start helping yourself!

Recommended reading: Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink.

2. You Are EXACTLY Where You Deserve to Be!

Fuck victim mentality, brutally!

I have definitely been guilty of this in the past, I think most people are at some point.

It’s literally human nature to do this.

To our mind, mental pain can feel just like (or worse than) physical pain, and our mind wants to steer us away from pain. Accepting full blame for misfortune is painful. And because of that, our instinct is to blame everything and everyone else…

You will NEVER get anywhere as long as you blame others!

That’s because you give away your power when you do it.

• If you say it’s the economy, what can you do?

• If you blame your boss, you’d have to change HIM somehow.

• When you point at your past, you guarantee your future stays the same.

• When you blame luck, you’ll be waiting a long time for your break.

What it comes down to is this:

When you blame outside factors, you’re literally saying you’re not in control over your life!

The Spooky Truth:

You are exactly where you DESERVE to be at in life!

You’re here because of all the choices you made in your past and all the actions you’ve taken. Your current life is the result of the habits you’ve had in the past. Your life today is the result of your achievements as well as all your mistakes.

If you had taken different actions, you’d have a different life now.

You can look at this in two ways:

• You can feel down and out about yourself. Sit quietly in a corner and cry yourself to sleep over all the mistakes you’ve made.

• Or you can feel empowered! The fact that YOU created your current life means that you also have the power to change things!

Personally, I’d choose what’s behind door 2, but that’s just me.

3. Optimizing Life for Happiness is a Terrible Idea!

Life is a rollercoaster (just gotta ride it).

Finding happiness should not be the goal in life. It’s an emotion, and like all emotions they can change from one second to another. If you’re trying to constantly be happy, you’re going to have a ton of rude awakenings when life happens.

Life is too volatile to aim for happiness.

Moreover, the strive for happiness ironically leads to a worse life…

Here’s why:

Personal development is NOT about feeling better and better about yourself!

All growth is deeply uncomfortable! To improve, you’ll have to fail (a lot) and learn from your mistakes. You have to confront beliefs and memories you’ve stuffed down. You’ll have to stare at your inadequaties. You’ll look at the long, winding road towards your goals.

Because of this, personal development brings up emotions like:

• Frustration

• Fear

• Insecurity

• Anxiety

• Shame

• Doubt

• Overwhelm

• Guilt

• And more…

I told you this newsletter was gonna be spooky, didn’t I?

The truth is that personal development often doesn’t feel like you’re getting better. You usually go through a valley first, oftentimes a deep one.

The ‘I should be happy” mindset prevents you from making real progress.

And as a result, you’re not going to achieve your goals!

4. Nobody Cares About Your Excuses!

Do you know what the worst part about excuses is?

They’re VALID!

Chances are, you’re completely right.

• The economy isn’t in the best shape right now.

• Perhaps you really are too young for your dream career.

• You may indeed have had a poor childhood.

• The educational system might have completely failed you.

• Maybe you’re not as “talented” as others.

And?

What are you gonna do about it?!

Even if every single excuses you’ve given in your life is 100% true, what then? Are you just going to give up? Complain about the unfairness of everything? Accept a life you hate?

Or are you going to succeed anyway?

Because here’s what I can promise you:

People who came from worse positions than you have already succeeded at the same goals you have right now! They had the same conditions that you do, but they did not complain, but overcame them!

My favorite example is The Great Gatsby.

According to critics (I don’t know squat about literature), it’s one of the best works of the 20th century. But, did you know that the author was dyslexic? Seems like quite a big handicap for an author, doesn’t it?

Most aspiring authors would have given up!

Most aspiring without dyslexia have given up on their dreams!

Scott Fitzgerald didn’t!

No matter what excuse you’re currently making for yourself, check out the other resources in this newsletter to overcome them! The audio lesson tackles the biggest problem. The action steps at the end will help motivate and inspire you.

Sidenote: I still can’t believe I spelled dyslexic correct the first time around!

5. You’re Simply Not Good Enough (And That’s OK!)

The worst advice in the world is to “Just stay as you are, you’re soooo perfect!”

Question: Are you a dog?

If the answer is “No”, you’re not perfect!

Self Acceptance vs Self Improvement:

That’s what it ultimately comes down to. Should you love yourself unconditionally and not even try to grow? Or should you constantly strive to get better? Doesn’t the latter imply that you’re not good enough now?

There are two ways in which I look at this:

Question: Are you already WELL on your way towards your goals?

If you have to admit that you’re not well on your way, it means at least one of the following things is true:

• You’re lacking the right mindset to achieve the goal.

• You’re missing one of the required skills.

• You’re doing the wrong things.

• You’re not doing (nearly) enough.

• You haven’t been doing it for (nearly) long enough.

In short: You’re not at the level you need to be at, YET!

Remember Truth #2 above?

You are the perfect person for the life you have today! That’s why you’re at your current position in life. If your dreams and goals are bigger, you’re not yet good enough for tomorrow.

That’s perfectly fine.

You can grow.
You can learn.
You can outperform.
You can outlast others.
You can stay consistent.
You can get better.

The Mindset Shift Around Self Acceptance:

Imagine two brothers, one being 7 and the other 17.

Question: Is the 7-year-old any less of a person because it cannot do the same things that his older brother can? Does that mean the younger brother is unlovable until he catches up to his brother?

Of course not!

Replace age in this example with learning and you have your situation in life.

Audio Lesson: The Mindset That Haunts Most People!

The biggest mistakes in personal development are those we’re not even aware of!

After all, you can only solve an issue once you know there is one (duhhh).

In today’s audio lesson I’m going to tackle a mindset mistake that you are probably making right now! It’s a devastating mistake that completely prevents you from becoming the person you want to be.

Press listen and start fixing this mistake TODAY!

Screw “Fake” Personal Development

Back when I was young and dumb, there was a crucial mistake that prevented me from making a real change in my life. It kept me stuck for years…

This short video details this common mistake and the solution:

Find Inspiration for Your Goals!

We have talked about excuses being valid.

Because of that, it’s crucial that you provide your mind with proof that it’s possible! Things like positive affirmations aren’t usually enough to convince yourself that it’s possible for you to achieve your goal.

So, what can you do?

There are 3 things I highly recommend:

As part of your proof, you can use your past successes to highlight how you’ve already overcome challenges in the past. This way, you can put the fear, doubt and excuses your mind gives you into perspective to overcome them.

Additionally, start celebrating your wins!

This way, you’re providing proof to yourself that you’re already on the right track.

And thirdly, go to Google right now (ChatGPT works too).

Make a search like this:

On the first blank, fill in the goal you have.

On the second blank, fill in the belief you have of why you can’t do it.

Above, I gave you the example of Scott Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby. If you were a dyslexic aspiring author, your search would be “famous authors who were dyslexic”. And you’d find examples that prove your excuse is overcomeable!

Start reinforcing these kinds of proof as often as you can!

Action + Positive Reinforcement = Change.