What is the secret to getting anything you want out of life? 

Put simply, the secret to success is continuous personal development, perseverance and hard work.

 So why isn’t everyone extremely successful if it’s so simple?

Why Do People Neglect Personal Development?

Personal development and the success that comes with it is a choice, and we all have the ability to achieve great things but only if we are willing to work hard for them.

So why do some people neglect personal development?

According to a recent article by Adrian Potter, there are several common excuses that people give for a lack of personal development that aren’t actually true, including:

• “There’s not enough time for me to take on something new.”
  
  
• “I don’t know how to make this change in my life.”
  
  
• “I’m just not good enough.”

“I Don’t Have Time”

One of the most common reasons people give for neglecting their personal development is that they don’t have enough time – but this is hardly ever the truth.

• We all have 24 hours each day, 7 days a week, meaning we have 168 hours per week.
  
  
• If we account for 40 working hours and 8 hours of sleep per night, this leaves us with 72 hours.
  
  
• If we then deduct 2 hours per day for eating, showering etc, we still have 58 spare hours.
  
  
• Take away an hour a day for spending time with friends and family, we have a total of 51 hours of free time per week.

This shows us that we have plenty of free time every week so the issue isn’t that we don’t have time, it’s what we choose to do with that time. 

As Earl Nightingale, personal development expert, once said -  “we become what we think about”. And it’s true; what we focus our time and energy on dictates what we get out of life.

If we spend all of our time watching reality TV and aimlessly scrolling through social media, it is very unlikely that we will make a lot of progress personally and professionally. Whereas if we spend more time continuously bettering ourselves, the opportunities are endless.

“I Don’t Know How”

A lot of the time when we say that we don’t know how to do something or that something didn’t work, it’s because we gave up on it too soon.

One really simple way of explaining this is to use the analogy of a camera: When you’re taking a photo, a camera takes some time to focus before you can get a clear, high-quality photo. No matter how long you patiently wait for it to focus, your time is rendered wasted if you give up at the last minute and take the photo before the camera has had time to focus, leaving you with a blurry, unsatisfactory image. 

This eye-opening analogy can easily be applied to almost every aspect of life, including personal development. 

In order to truly develop our knowledge, skills and abilities, we must be patient and persevere until we reap the rewards of our hard work.

“I’m Not Good Enough”

Nobody is born an expert, we have to actively work towards success. Therefore, not being ‘good enough’ is merely a self-destructive thought that isn’t actually true. 

For example, if you went for a job interview for the position of Team Leader with no qualifications or experience, you more than likely wouldn’t get the job and you’d probably think it’s because you’re not ‘good enough’. But that is not true, it’s because you’re not ‘good enough’ YET. 

We all have the opportunity to grow and gain more knowledge, experience and expertise if we choose to. We can all be ‘good enough’. 

What Does This Teach Us?

“We get out of life what we put into it; not a nickel more nor a nickel less”

If we want to be successful and achieve our goals and aspirations, we cannot simply wait for it to happen – we must choose to spend our time on bettering ourselves and keep working hard to get to where we want to be.