Personal development or self-help is generally among bookstores’ most popular book sections.
I guess we just love the idea of a book that can provide us with the answers to our most pressing problems. How wonderful it is to imagine that I can read a book about being disciplined, successful, or wealthy and become disciplined, successful, or wealthy.
I’ve been on both sides of the ‘reading’ debate. Some people believe reading books makes you wise, and some say theoretical knowledge is useless. I’m sure the truth lies between these two extremes.
Can ‘you’ truly develop by reading personal development books? And what actually develops with personal development? I’ll try to share my understanding.
All knowledge is experience
In my opinion, all real knowledge in personal development books is derived from experience. Humanity was not given any divine knowledge to start with. We figured stuff out ourselves.
Whether it’s about ‘winning friends and influencing people’ or about ‘thinking or growing rich’ or learning ‘the secret’, somebody somewhere experienced what’s said in these books.
The point I’m trying to make is that what we call ‘theory’ was, to some extent, an authentic experience, especially in the case of personal development knowledge.
Somebody experienced certain things, learned from them, and then presented their findings to us in a book, podcast, or video. So it’s not theory but experience we’re learning from.
Learning from experience entails adopting the story’s ‘thought process’ or ‘moral’ without necessarily following the advice line by line.
It’s your mindset
Our mindset or thought process is what actually develops with personal development.
In my opinion, even if you eventually forget everything from the books you’ve read, the mindset shift you get by reading those books makes you a better person. It’s like that subconscious programming in your mind that dictates your actions without you having to actively think about it.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari is one of my favorite books. I don’t remember much of the content itself but it drastically changed my world view and how I take decisions in certain situations.
I’ve experienced that when I face a particular situation, my ‘instict’ suddenly helps me decide, even though I don’t remember how and where that thinking came from.
Personal development books, videos, podcasts and workshops preset us one of the best opportunities to develop our mindset.
Why should you care?
Many people can ‘earn’ riches, but it takes wisdom to ‘keep’ wealth. And wisdom is a mindset.
You can’t be wise only when you choose. In most cases, either you are wise or you’re not. At least to different degrees.
Personal development is essentially developing a mindset of wisdom that transcends the knowledge itself. And you should care because only a person with a developed mindset can be successful irrespetcive of the situation.
Somebody who does not have a developed mind will be successful only until the situation favors him. Such people crumble once they face difficult situations they haven’t faced before.
This, in my opinion, is the biggest difference between ‘rich’ and ‘wealthy’ people. Wealth requires time and only a developed mind can bear the biggest test in this universe – the test of time.
Developing your mindset is the only future-proof way to succeed
I’ve heard somewhere that ‘only the good are happy’. And you can be good only by being virtuous.
Whatever we take for granted in life could be taken away at a moment’s notice. So the only thing that can reasonably ensure that we’ll be happy and successful all our lives is our mindset.
With the right mindset, you can weather any storm, learn anything you need to, and most importantly, know which fights are worth fighting.
Our mind is the most incredible gift nature has given us, and with personal development, we can develop it to the limits of our time and maybe even beyond.
Now that you know, what will you do?
