3 Reasons Why Developing Yourself Needs to be Your FIRST Priority

Lemme guess. You want to develop yourself, but you are unsure if sitting down and asking “the hard questions” is your area of focus right now. You may find yourself saying…

“I am happy right now, so I don’t need to develop myself. Nothing’s wrong.”

“I don’t have time. I have to focus on my work.”

“I have other things I have to focus on right now”

Sound familiar? Little do you realize, there’s a method to your madness… and it has NOTHING to do with the amount of time you have, or how happy you are, or what your main focus is.

SO LET ME TELL YOU WHAT IT DOES MEAN.

If developing yourself is not your absolute FIRST priority, you either: have never put your toes in the personal development waters and/or you have a fear of change so you resist growth in all areas of your life to stay safe.

Before you start beating yourself up or getting defensive.. we all do this in some shape or form, regardless of how “aware” or “enlightened” you are. Even if you have developed yourself, it takes time to fully convince yourself that understanding your limiting beliefs, actions, habits, and where they come from are worth knowing and should be put above anything and everything.

I spent years being dependent on others’ validation. I spent years being paralyzed by insecurity and not contributing what I had to say in a conversation. I spent years being a victim of my circumstances. I spent years chugging vodka on the weekends and then drinking green juices and doing yoga during the week without thinking anything of it. I spent years sabotaging myself, controlling my food, and taking things way too personally. I spent years thinking that developing myself was about me.

The sad thing is, I had no idea any of this was happening until I made the choice to WAKE UP to what I was doing to myself.

WHEN I DID, EVERYTHING CHANGED (more on this later)

At first, it was like culture shock. It was uncomfortable not doing the things that fueled my ego. It was uncomfortable saying no. It was uncomfortable actually FEELING my emotions, instead of constantly numbing. It was uncomfortable expressing myself.

In the first phase of my personal development, I would only develop myself when I “needed it”. I looked at this work as a place to go when I was feeling lost and helpless, when something traumatic happened, or use the material as something to talk about in my yoga classes. For about a year and a half, I was stuck in a cycle of doing things that pulled me further away from who I wanted to be and then diving deep into developing myself when that didn’t work out.

developing yourself matters all the time

Why? Because you’re happy.. and then you’re not, forcing yourself in a cycle of numbing, fighting, resenting, suppressing, and reacting. You start to project your emotions and frustrations onto other people and you wonder why you’re not getting any lasting results with the “work” you’re doing. Even worse, the people closest to you will say stuff like, “You do all this “inner work”, but it doesn’t seem to be paying off.” Then you react, blame, and fight the people who make you feel like you “aren’t enough”, when really, they may just be calling you out. These emotions cloud your reality and force you to make up stories about “what’s happened”, or what “someone else did to you”.

You feel like I’m speaking to you because I am you.

It’s similar to being a professional football team trying to win the Super Bowl. They aren’t going to win by taking their off-season completely off and watching Netflix all day, just waiting for the first game of the season to start. If they did, they would show up to that game de-conditioned, unprepared, lost, and not ready to face their competition (life’s challenges).

In order to make it to the Super Bowl, they have to train CONSISTENTLY throughout the year in order to maintain the strengths that they’ve developed over the years, which also take time to develop. They have to do stuff that doesn’t feel good sometimes, but they do it anyways because it’s contributing to the bigger goal.

Developing the discipline to do the things that you don’t want to do, but doing them anyways because you know it’s contributing to a better life, a better workplace, and better relationships, is the kind of discipline that will take you ANYWHERE you want to go. When you develop the quality to truly look at yourself when you are not being who you want to be (which is a lot of the time, even just in our day-to-day lives), it will give you access to move through life’s challenges with ease.

Personal development has very little to do with you

When I was in high school, I went to trainings that forced me to take a DEEP look into my trauma, understand coping mechanisms and beliefs that kept me safe, and gained immense confidence in who I was becoming.

Going to these trainings for a while, felt selfish. I kept thinking, “most people don’t have the opportunity of going to multiple weeklong intensive trainings to develop themselves. So many people are making sacrifices for me to do this and I’m the only one that’s benefitting.”

All along I thought I was developing myself FOR myself, when in reality, I was developing myself for others, my business, my students, my future, my relationships, my leadership, and my sanity.
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THE ripple effect

So, you’re still not sure if you want to develop yourself or you think it can wait?

Think again.

YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.

The quality of your life and your ability to achieve the things you want is a DIRECT REPRESENTATION of how much you are willing to look inside.

When you develop yourself, your relationships will flourish, you will love more, you will feel deeply fulfilled, you will start saying no to the things you don’t want to do. You will start attracting people that you actually want to be in your life. You will become confident in who you are becoming (living into your purpose)….

When you are confident in who you are becoming, you will have confidence in your work. When you have confidence in your work, you will be a better leader and teach others to do the same. You will be a better speaker, lover, and communicator. Ultimately, you will thrive in both your personal and professional life.

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Quarantine Regards,

Tay Lauren