Ep.31 - Learning isn't enough, here is what you really need...

Episode Transcript

The biggest problem with loving personal development

Here's one of the biggest problems someone who loves personal development is going to face. You've completed three, maybe more, personal development courses in the past year alone. You have your eye on five more you're excited about. You really feel like you're getting somewhere, learning so much - the tools, the techniques, the strategies that all the people you look up to have used to become successful.

But for some reason you can't figure out why you're not seeing the massive strides in your business, your relationships, or your health that the techniques are promising you. At the start of each course there's a picture of what should happen, the results you should get, and you've probably seen a bit of a difference - some small changes that make you feel like you're going somewhere. But you've completed every single course, dotted the i's, crossed the t's, didn't miss a single episode, and you haven't been getting the results you feel like you should be getting.

So what do we do? We look for the next course. Maybe it just wasn't the right one for me, maybe it was too advanced, maybe I need something more unique to me. And we go on this cycle of learning and learning, feeling great about ourselves because we know all the things these successful people know. We think, I know all the stuff, so my success is bound to come, there's nothing else I have to do, I'm doing everything right.

But after a few years you really start to question what's going on, because you're doing everything right and you're still not seeing the changes you want - not the massive income jumps, not the love of your life, not the body you desire. If that feels like you, this episode is going to explain exactly why that's happening, and the biggest pitfall people - even me, when I was going through my own phase of learning and learning - fall into. No one else talks about this.

Information isn't the problem

We're so conditioned to believe that information is power. It's such a common belief that when it doesn't work, we don't know what to do - that should have been it. Because think about it: if information is power, or even potential power as I also hear it, and you're not someone who takes a course and never applies it - maybe that's happened once or twice, but not consciously - you're someone who applies what you learn. You want to make your life better, you tweak your routines, you stay disciplined, you do all of these things. So when you still don't see the results, it's not the information, and it's not that you're not applying it. What else could it be?

Here's the reason: information and application are two separate skills. This goes back to school, where we're taught what to learn - maths, science, history - but not how to learn it effectively. We carry that problem forward into our own personal growth. We find courses with all the content of what we should be doing, but they never actually tell us how we should be doing it. That's where people get stuck.

You can learn as much as you want, even apply it, but because you haven't developed the skill of how to apply it - and I don't mean repetition, I mean how to apply something effectively to get results - you may have broken a course or book down into a routine you do every single day, and still not get results. You've invested the money to buy the program, the time to learn it properly, and the time to break it down into routines - it's hard not to feel like you're the problem, because what else is there?

The actual knowledge is fine - it's what these people taught or used themselves to become successful, so you can't really doubt the knowledge. Which leaves only one more variable: the application of knowledge. This is the skill set people don't train themselves in, the same way they train themselves how to learn or how to lift weights. We don't know how to train ourselves to act effectively, so we always get the same result. Application becomes a very big bottleneck for a lot of us.

If this resonates with you, know it's not your fault. We've been conditioned since school what to learn, not how to learn, so it's very difficult to bridge the gap of how to apply things effectively. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of success all come into the mix, and we subconsciously bottleneck how we apply the information we learn.

By the end of this episode, I want you to know exactly how to open up that bottleneck, so you're not limited by your application, and you can build that skill up. When you focus more on application than information, that skill transfers to whatever program, course, or book you ever want to do in future - because you've built the skill of applying, and applying effectively, and understanding how to self-inquire why something isn't working.

Different courses will bring up different beliefs in you, beliefs that will bottleneck the application. If you believe you're not good enough to be in a good relationship, no matter what course you do, what information you get on how to have a good relationship, you're not going to get the results you want, because your application will always be blocked by that fear. Whereas if you have zero resistance around being in a healthy, loving relationship, you honestly don't even need the information, the tactics, the strategies - you'll find your own way, because you have no resistance to it. Information helps, but the skill gives you the resourcefulness to find your own way.

Step one: stop learning

I'm going to walk you through a few steps to help you understand where the bottleneck is, why it's there, and how to overcome it. The first step is going to sound weird: stop learning. Whatever course you're on, whatever book you're reading, just stop. The issue isn't in your learning, it's in your application.

It's very common to hit a wall with application and soothe ourselves by learning more, thinking, well, obviously I don't know enough to apply it. But the truth is you do know enough. Learning more isn't going to help you, it's actually going to hinder you, because you have so much information your mind can use it as an excuse not to apply it - well, I have all this knowledge, I have to find the right way to do it perfectly. So stop. Whatever knowledge you have, we're going to start with that, and learn how to apply it effectively.

Step two: understanding misalignment

The second step is the most crucial, and it will build the skill that helps you in every area of your life. When you do it correctly, you'll understand exactly what's going wrong and what you need to do to fix it - instead of going in circles of confusion, more and more learning without results.

The second step is understanding misalignment. Pick one thing from the course or book you've already applied, that you think, well, I've applied it now, I can move on. Don't move on - go back to it and ask yourself, is there anything else I can do with this step? Any other way, any other approach to apply this and perhaps get a different result? Because normally we do the homework or the task once, think it's fine - or we do it a hundred times the exact same way and get the same result, think we've mastered it, and move on.

Announcing it to the world

To give you an example: when I was starting this business, self-awareness coaching, I was doing the courses, reading the books. One of the tasks someone told me to do was announce it - announce to the world you're now doing this, because it commits you. I thought, okay, that's a little scary, but it's a good step. So I announced it on social media. That took a lot of courage, and that's how you know you're on the right track - you want to apply it in a way that makes you scared, because if you're applying it without feeling anxious, you're not expanding your comfort zone, which means you'll never get a new result, because you're always acting in a comfortable space.

I thought, okay, I've done this, I can move on. Then maybe a month later I was hitting a wall, and I thought, what's really blocking this? I went back to the first step and asked, what else can I do with this, what have I missed, what other fears are blocking the possible result I could get? I realised unveiling it on social media was a big step, but it wasn't the finish line - there was so much more I could do with that one step. I'd ignored it subconsciously because it was scary at the time: announcing it to family who might judge, old friends, people I used to know, all these other options I'd completely ignored. Doing that would give me a new perspective, which would help me see how else I could apply new information, because I'd broken through fears and opened up new possibility in what I'm capable of doing in my own head. I could take that same new perspective and apply it to the new knowledge I was learning.

So the biggest takeaway from this step is sitting down and being honest with yourself: am I really making the most out of this one step? Is there any fear blocking me from using this information as thoroughly as I possibly can? When you're truly honest, I'm sure you can think of one way to apply the information outside your comfort zone. If truly nothing comes to mind, maybe it's just a basic step and you can move on. But for every step or piece of information you learn, ask yourself, critically, can I apply this in a way that scares the hell out of me - or as much as you're willing to go?

Because it's not about the information, it's about your alignment with using it. That's one reason the people teaching the course are getting results you're not - they're applying it in ways you haven't even thought of, because your thinking is limited by your comfort zone, by what your brain knows, so it thinks of ways to apply it that are comfortable. But as long as you're applying it comfortably, you'll never get a result you haven't already gotten before. By slowly expanding your comfort zone, you start to see new pathways, new ways of applying.

To recap: the purpose of step two, understanding misalignment, is understanding whether you're limiting yourself from truly applying this knowledge in all the ways it can be applied. Because that's mastery - not solving a problem one way and moving on, but finding a million ways to solve one problem. Then you can move on, and you'll have such a new perspective that you'll be able to take on the next piece of information and apply it in a way you'd never have thought of if you hadn't done step one properly.

Step three: reducing resistance

So step one is stop learning - take a step back, understand that knowledge isn't going to solve your problem or get you the result you want. Step two is understanding misalignment - taking one piece of information you've learned and finding a million ways to apply it in a scary or uncomfortable way.

The final step is reducing resistance. Naturally, whenever you want to do something you haven't done before, or in a way you know is scary, your mind goes into shutdown - it gets anxious, closed off, because it's afraid of what's going to happen. That can be the biggest reason you don't apply the information in a way that it can be applied, and it's not your fault, it's just fear. This is why step three is so important - it helps you overcome that slowly, instead of sitting there thinking, how the hell am I going to do this, and freaking out, because that won't help at all.

Step three is essentially building up to it - practising action immediately, without hesitation. You're building the muscle of acting without hesitation, and you can slowly build up your tolerance for what you're comfortable acting on, until you can do that uncomfortable action without as much thought or fear. If you're not ready to do the action full out right now, find a way to break it down to a level of comfort that's still outside your comfort zone but not so crazy it'll make you break down. Practise doing that - repetition is where you teach your mind it's not scary. Then do that with the next step, and the next, and the next.

If you can't think of any way to break a step down - maybe it's a really obscure step with no way to break it down without doing the whole thing at once - it doesn't have to be that step, or even that course, or that part of your life. Pick something a little scary for you, honestly anything - going up to a stranger and saying hello, doing a public speech, anything outside your comfort zone that you're also willing to try. Then just do that. Remember, it's a skill to apply, and that skill is transferable - it doesn't matter what course or area of life you're using it in.

The all-in theory

One thing I did a lot of - not so much anymore, but I need to get back into it - is taking a cold bath in the morning, because it's so uncomfortable, the last thing you want to do at any time, especially in the morning. By training your mind and body to just act when you tell it to, that skill is transferable. When you're in a situation where you could apply the knowledge you've learned and get a new result, you'll have more of a muscle to just act, and you'll find yourself already doing it - and then you might freak out because you've already started, but at that point you can't back down.

It's the all-in theory. When you're standing on a ledge or a cliff, cliff diving for example, the hardest part is stepping off, because that's where the mind goes crazy, because it's so uncomfortable. But as soon as you take that first step and start falling, your mind goes quiet, because there's nothing else it can do in that situation - it can't scare you out of not jumping, you've already jumped. The mind's job is to help you survive, and as soon as you take that first step, it diverts all its resources to helping you stay alive in whatever way it can, which means it actually helps you focus on what you're doing instead of distracting you like it would before you jumped.

It's the same with this. As soon as you take the step, that's the hardest bit. As soon as you find yourself doing it, you'll do everything in your power to make sure it goes well, whether it's skydiving or an ice bath. Step three is crucial because it makes steps one and two actually practical, not just an idea in your head.

Perspective Shifting Action

I really hope this helps, because no one actually talks about this - no one talks about how to apply things effectively, they just talk about what to apply. There's a new course, a new piece of software, a new book, but no one tells you how to actually make the most of it. That's one of the reasons courses aren't always as successful as people want them to be. But with this, you're not focusing on the knowledge, you're focusing on the application, and building the skill to help you apply whatever you want, in whatever area of life you want to focus on next.

I want you to try those steps and see if you get any new results. It doesn't matter if it's not the end result, because anything is better than getting the same result you've been getting for the past month, six months, or year without any progress. As long as you're getting new results, it opens up the possibility of what can come next.

Taking that mindset - how can I apply this information in a way that makes me really uncomfortable - is one of the core pillars of what I teach. It's called Perspective Shifting Action: taking action not to apply information, but to change your perspective on how it can be applied. It's one of the biggest things we do with people who sign up with me, because it pops the bubble of what you think you know. As soon as you do that, you start to undercut all the beliefs telling you that you can't do this, or it won't work for you, or you've tried it and it won't work - because suddenly you're trying something new and getting a new result. That will make you feel so alive, because it makes you feel like your life is possibility, not just routine.

So again, I hope you found that episode really helpful, and I'd love to know what new results you got.