Why Does Personal Development Fail?

I hate to be one of those women, who complains about her period, but frankly, it sucks, big time. I learned recently it’s normal for your monthly cycles to become more virulent as you get older, and alas, unfortunately that has been my experience. Not cool. It’s not just the blessed event itself. It’s the nose dive my energy takes days before and days after, the cramping, the headaches, and mostly the homicidal urges.

So, imagine my sheer delight when earlier this year, I learned Qigong is apparently the antidote to all the horrors of my monthly cycle. When I’m practicing Qigong on a regular basis, that time of the month comes and goes without much excitement or bother. So, why, you might ask has my monthly cycle been more like a crime scene than a bump in the road recently? It’s not because Qigong quit working. It’s because I’m not practicing Qigong.

To be clear, this post is not intended to be all about extolling the virtues of Qigong. There are many, but that’s not the point. The point is, tools work. They fail when people quit working them.

There is no mystery there. There’s no magic. There is just dedication and discipline.

In my world, I like things easy and fun. I have a feeling, I’m not alone. So, when my Qigong practice quit being fun, I quit practicing it. But guess what, cramps and a crime scene-like cycle aren’t fun either.

I recently read an article that was an indictment of the personal growth field. It went so far as to say the personal growth field was a field of broken dreams and broken promises. In my experience though, what’s broken is the resolve to change. Everyone is looking for the overnight fix or the magic pill or tool that’s easy. However, tools don’t change anything, if you’re not willing to change, as in to be permanently different. You can’t throw a new tool or process at your life for a couple weeks or a month and then go back to being the same as you were before and blame the tool when nothing is different.
Certain words get a really bad wrap. I think discipline is one of them. Most of the time discipline isn’t about doing what’s hard. It’s about doing what’s easy, even when it’s dull. Many years ago one of my early yoga instructors refused to use the words “yoga practice”. He referred to his practice as a his discipline, not like a punishment, but more like something he was devoted to, as in disciple. I get that now, in a way I didn’t when I was twenty.

The thing is, I’m worth some devotion and so are you. I’m worth the effort it takes to avoid a hormonal landslide. I’m worth the time it takes to meditate. I’m worth the discipline required to build my life intentionally - and so are you. It’s not about the hard work of discipline, it’s about the devotion, not to the tool, or pill, or practice, but to myself. And when I look at it that way, Qigong still doesn’t feel fun, but it does feel important.

Where in your life, are you worthy of more of your own discipline and devotion?