What’s the deal with all this personal growth and self development business? Why bother in the first place? Charles Atlas who earned himself the title as the ‘the world’s most perfectly developed man’ had this to say: ‘Truest SUCCESS is but the development of self.’

It’s so easy to treat personal development as ‘optional’ and so few people ever take the time to actively improve themselves. Your personal growth and self development is arguably one of  the most important thing you can do with your time. You can even argue that to actualize your true potential is the purpose of being here. In many ways all your actions are geared towards ‘self improvement’. Everything you do, you do with a positive intent. This, however is mostly unconscious and for the majority of people it’s a case of pursuing ‘things’ and ‘stuff’ with the (all to common) assumption that when they get enough stuff they will be happy.

You don’t have to search too far to find just how wrong this theory really is. Every day we read about ‘extremely successful’ people who end up in rehab or who kill themselves. Why? To return to Charles Atlas – true success is but the development of your ‘self’. At no point in your life can you just stop and say ‘now I am successful – I think I’ll take the next 10 years off’. Unfortunately this is ‘the dream’ that so many people aspire to.

The key to a lifetime of happiness lies in personal growth. Real and lasting fulfillment in life comes from consistently improving the quality of your life. Life is dynamic and it has to keep moving. Like in nature, everything that does not grow, dies! You will either grow or die, and although you probably won’t die a physical death, you most certainly will suffer a psychological death. Depression is but one example of the effects of failing to grow as a person. If you are not growing you will feel like you are dying.

Every day life hands us opportunities to grow. They are mostly disguised as problems and unfortunately most people curse them instead of seeing the wonderful opportunities that they present. Earl Schoff once said ‘Don’t wish for less problems. Wish that you were better’. This is where personal growth comes to play and you must do it on purpose and with an active state of mind.

So why do people fail to actively participate in their own personal growth? Well, there are certain personal growth barriers that prevent them from actively progressing in any area of your life. The key word being ‘actively’. The three biggest personal growth barriers are three interrelated behaviours that tend to keep us immobilized and locked up in inaction. The result being the failure to progress with our lives.

Personal Growth Barrier #1: Procrastination
Procrastination is the irrational delay of tasks, especially important ones. On a conscious level you might want a specific result and you know what course of action to take, but still you remain immobilized. The failure to act is what keeps you where you are. It is likely that what you are procrastinating about is what you MUST do as this will help you grow in your ability to take action and just do it. Keep in mind that you only procrastinate about tasks that you value and at some level you know you will benefit from it.

Personal Growth Barrier #2: Indecision
Every single action is preceded by a decision. The ancestor to every action is a decision and the failure to act can be traced back to the failure to make decisions. The ironic thing is that not making a decision is a decision - isn’t it? Indecision is like a disease that you have to eradicate from your life. Indecision is simply the result of a fear of failure and by not making a decision you can’t fail – right? Realize that nothing in the future has happened yet and fearing the worse possible outcome will almost certainly keep you from making the decision. If you don’t make the decisions you won’t take the actions and you will remain immobilized.

Personal Growth Barrier #3: Comfort Zones
Comfort zones are all those things that you are too familiar with – and often to the point where you don’t even attempt anything else. Inside your comfort zones everything is known and you have this sense of certainty that you can comfortably deal with anything that comes your way. You’ve done it before and you feel ‘at ease’ with it. Stepping outside your comfort zones challenge your beliefs and it challenges your perceptions. Stepping outside your comfort zones however, challenges you to grow as a person – you have to grow to get comfortable outside your old comfort zone. Most of your limitations are self imposed and controlled by what you belief you can or cannot do, what you like or dislike, what you think is right or wrong. You have to keep stretching your ‘self’ physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually to avoid standing still and remaining imprisoned by your comfort zones. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said ‘Man’s mind, once stretched to new idea never goes back to it’s original dimensions.’

All barriers are only that – they are barriers. It often strikes me how these typical vehicle barriers at boarder check points are so ‘flimsy’. They can hardly stop a bicycle, yet they stop big sixteen wheelers. The barrier is more psychological than actual. So are the barriers to your personal growth. They can stop you, but they can’t keep you unless you allow them to. Simply acknowledge them and then move on. Personal growth is a choice and it’s an active process. To ensure a happy and fulfilled life that is filled with joy and appreciation you have to consistently grow and expand your ‘self’.

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The universal law of cause and effect is visible everywhere. The effects, or the evidence, is mostly what we can see and what we experience, while the cause is often more far reaching and indirect. Nevertheless, we can always trace the effect back to a cause.  Most people end up blaming circumstances on ‘coincidence’ or ‘luck’ or ‘chance’, but in reality all these effects are nothing but a natural law asserting itself.

On a very practical level we are all very familiar with the concept of action and reaction. For every action there is an equal, but opposite re-action. This is one of the laws that Isaac Newton uncovered and is still one of the most fundamental laws by which this universe we live in is governed. On a much more metaphysical level the law of action and reaction, or cause and effect, also holds true. In the ancient eastern philosophy it was referred to as the law of Karma, where every single action will come back to you in like kind. Like a boomerang, what you put out will come right back at you, although it’s often disguised as something else.

A lot of the ‘effects’ in your life are caused by this strange human phenomenon called procrastination. Although it’s quite obvious that every action has a reaction, it’s a little less obvious that every in-action also has a re-action. It is not just what you do that makes the difference in your life, but also what you fail to do. Procrastination is that strange (lack of) behaviour where you want to do something, but still you don’t. The question that arises is ‘what are the causes and effects of procrastination?’ Well, there are many. Let’s look at three of the most common causes and effects of procrastination, keeping in mind that for every cause there is an effect.

Cause and Effect #1: The Fear Of Failure
The fear of failure is a major cause for procrastination. In fact, all forms of procrastination has some kind of fear at it’s roots. The fear of failure is a common fear that we all share. As human beings, we are not designed to fail. We are designed to consistently progress and improve. This fear then keeps you locked up in procrastination as a way of keeping your from failing. The effect of this form of procrastination then is quite obvious: failure to utilize opportunities. If you don’t act on opportunities they aren’t really opportunities are they? It is never a case of whether opportunity is knocking, but rather a case of whether you are acting on this opportunity and utilizing it.
Cause And Effect #2: Feeling Overwhelmed
We all have a limited mental and emotional capacity. Just like your physical capacity, you have a limit to what you can take on at any given time, and only you know what that limit is. When you overload yourself physically, your body usually breaks down in some form or another. When you overload yourself mentally and emotionally, your mind will intervene, usually in the form of procrastination, to keep you from a ‘mental overload’. The effects of this form of procrastination is that you start to avoid tasks, especially the important ones that you know you ‘must’ do.

Cause And Effect #3: Postponing Important Tasks
Procrastinators are actively seeking out diversions, no because they are lazy, but because at some level they fear the task that they are avoiding. By postponing a task you actually ‘lie’ to yourself. Instead of giving up or quitting – all you are doing is to make yourself feel a little better by saying ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’. By postponing important tasks, you postpone important results. Remember that for every cause there is an effect and when you postpone the actions you also postpone the results.

The are no definitive answers to what are the causes and effects of procrastination, as the effects are often far reaching. The simple fact is that without positive and constructive action on a consistent basis, you will rarely produce any significant results. Procrastination is what keeps you immobilized and locked up in where you are. To get to where you want to be, you have to break free and break out of this mould. You can overcome procrastination and you can learn to develop both your mental and emotional capacity to take your life to a whole new level you never thought possible before.

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