3 Self Improvement MISTAKES Keeping You TRAPPED and UNHAPPY

Ever since we were young, we were told to excel in school, focus on getting good grades and ace our exams. 

In our 20’s that works just fine, because we apply that focus on excelling in our careers… that’s why you’ve achieved the successes you have in your life.

But then at some point between 30 and 40 we suddenly become aware that there is an expense to that pursuit of excellence. 

If we stay in our pursuit of excellence it’s only a matter of time when our health breaks down, we end up divorced and we barely see our children.

But if we are lucky we awaken to a wider view of life most commonly through pain - in my case grief opened my eyes to the fact that the excellence I was pursuing was keeping me trapped and unfulfilled.

Only then did I finally direct my attention into my inner development or otherwise known as self-improvement.

Truth is – you cannot run away from yourself. The farther you run, the deeper a grave you dig because there will come a time when all those unresolved emotions will surface, leaving you overwhelmed.

What I’ve come to realise from falling into all of these traps is that there are 3 main mistakes most of us make in our self improvement journey.

They can be hard to spot so in this video I want to help you get clarity on how these 3 mistakes show up in your life. 

✨FREE MASTERCLASS DETAILS:

To find out the date of my next free masterclass on the proven 7 step process to become clear on your thoughts, feelings and actions to find fulfilment and freedom in life, visit: https://www.theconsciouslifecollective.com/registration-page-fc4ad981-4a84-454a-87f4-ebe5b03faf99

LINKS FROM VIDEO:

Stephen Jenkinson (Orphan Wisdom): https://orphanwisdom.com/meaning/ 

Dr Joe Dispenza: https://drjoedispenza.com/ 

Ram Dass - Be Here Now Network: https://beherenownetwork.com/category...

Transcript

Ever since we were young, we've been told to excel in school, focus on good grades and ace our exams. Now in our 20s, that works just fine. Applying that focus and energy, your pursuit of excellence into our careers. That's why you've achieved the successes that you have in your life.

But at some point between 30 and 40, we realize there's a great expense to pursuing excellence. The dream we were aiming for suddenly doesn't seem so dreamy. We're exhausted, and the exciting relationship, all of a sudden is a little predictable. And maybe adding parenthood in has made us realize that life has suddenly become very challenging.

If we stay pursuing excellence, it's only a matter of time when our health breaks down, we end up getting divorced and we barely see our children. We are left blaming everyone else except for ourselves, happily being ignorant and struggling to understand how life has got like this.

But if we are lucky, we awaken to a wider view of life most commonly through pain. My experience was through grief that awoken me to the realization that my pursuit of excellence was leaving me trapped and unfulfilled.

The truth is you cannot run away from yourself. The more you run, the deeper the grave you dig, because there will come a time when all of those buried emotions will surface leaving you overwhelmed. The problem comes when that old faithful, the pursuit of excellence finally finds a new way of being expressed. Except this time, it's not about your career, it's about how woke or enlightened you've become.

What I've come to realize from falling into all of these traps is that there are three main mistakes that most of us make in our self-improvement journey. They can be really tricky to spot. And so in this video, I want to help you get clarity on how the three biggest mistakes show up in your life.

I'm Richard. And before I dive in, I want to let you know that our free masterclass, the Proven Seven Step Process to Become Clear, Effective, and Impactful is still open. You can join that masterclass by following the link in the description below. And you can also submit your application for the Freedom of Being program. Be sure to stick around to the end of the masterclass, because there'll be announcements on how you can join.

The first major mistake people make on their self improvement journey is the comparison with others. I'm not talking about inspiration from others. Now that's a powerful ally on your journey. It helps you break through your struggles and challenges, and it also shows you what's possible.

For me, these are my favorite teachers, such as Dr. Jordan Spencer, and [Ramdas 00:02:38] they led the way by showing their own struggles of attaining a deeper freedom of being. This makes the journey and real. What I'm talking about regarding comparison to others is trying to attain what someone is or has.

For me, this comparison has shown up at different times in my life by a sense of frustration. Frustration at not being a certain level of yoga that I want to be. Of not experiencing deep connection within my meditation, or still experiencing struggles in my relationship. These examples represent where I was still pursuing excellence.

I was reading book after book, listening to endless podcasts and understanding the knowledge of what I told myself I should be doing. I wasn't applying my knowledge into wisdom, simply I wasn't allowing myself to be messy in the process of growth. I was too fixated on what I was still unhappy about and how slow I was being about it because the people I looked up to were way ahead of me.

Simply put, it was blinding me to where I actually was, which leads on to the second mistake people make. Lacking perspective. I always think back and sometimes cringe at that old version of me before I started my inner journey of self-improvement. I was trying so hard and I was in great pain, but at the time I thought I was thriving in life because I'd attained validation for the success that I'd achieved.

I've fallen into the trap before of being too quick to keep pushing forward. In truth, we are all our own worst critic, and that's obvious simply because we've been brought up in a culture that values pursuing excellence.

But by continuing to ignore the progress you've made, you keep yourself trapped and keep yourself in a place of suffering. By honoring that person who you were and honoring that person who you are right now, you get a wonderful perspective on the journey that you've been through.

The fact that you've actually changed, and that can show up in your life in a variety of really subtle ways. It could be that you don't work as long anymore because you value your personal family time, something that was never in your mind years ago.

It could be that you are intrigued by discomfort that you experience now, and so you allow yourself to be within it unlike before where you'd numb out on alcohol and just binge watch cringe-worthy television, just so you didn't have to think and feel. Whatever it is for you, notice those small changes notice where you were and where you are right now.

And this ties into the third worst mistake of self-improvement. Acceptance or lack of it. What I mean by acceptance is acceptance of who you are, of where you are, and how they fit into the bigger spiritual picture. Self-improvement will very quickly bring you to contact with new views and perspectives that include the universe we are all part of.

Whether you have a spiritual or religious viewpoint, or you're an atheist, the laws of the universe affect each and every one of us. Our time alive in this human experience is on average between 70 and 90 years, and then we die. If you're still watching this video, you're at least at halfway point in those years.

Without acceptance of what is, we miss the very now. And I believe that self improvement is about on one hand, holding the areas that we want to develop, that focus of where we want to go, who we want to be, and how we want to show up.

And on the other hand, holding of who we are. Holding all our flaws, all the areas that we perceive we could improve on and just holding them and embracing them with gratitude.

Steven Jenkinson is an incredible man to hear talk. He led the counseling team of Canada's largest home based palliative care program for five years. And his career in his own words has been at the death trade. He says that meaning of life is to be made by the willingness to proceed as if certain things must be. Life has to continue, not you have to continue.

Life is not your lifespan or the lifespan that you hold dear. How about holding dear that nothing you hold dear lasts? To me, that is a very powerful reminder to accept who I am, because no matter how much I grow in this lifetime, I will die and life will still continue. The straight up ego deflating sense about that is that I am not the main show, I am part of this wonderful show of life.

An analogy that you could use to describe that is that person staring at their phones, staring at social media feed, yet they're at the cinema or they're at the theater, or they're at some other event where a bigger thing is going on, but they're lost in their stories of their social media. We can just stop that. We can put the phone down of our life and take in everything that's around us.

I Make sure I remind myself to spend time noticing. One of the examples I do is when my daughter is playing in a park, I sit there and just experience what is, what do I notice? The colors, the breeze, noticing my daughter laughing. The small details are in everything around us, all of this time. It's just a matter of reminding ourselves to look for those details.

A side benefit I get from doing that is that I often get moments of clarity about my life. Work ideas, creative ideas to this sense of interconnectedness that we all have, and the saying goes, and I believe it to be true, the devil is in the detail. So can you bring awareness to the detail around you? Certainly for me, without those moments of pause, I get lost. I remain lost in my stuff and my stories, which keeps me limited and keeps me trapped.

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And to remind you that the free masterclass, if you want to watch the free masterclass, you can follow the link in the description below. And if you want to submit your application for the Freedom of Being program, make sure you say to the end of the masterclass, because there'll be instructions on how you can do that.

I want to thank you for watching this video. As always, I really appreciate you watching and taking interest, and I hope this has helped you. I'm Looking forward to seeing you on another episode.