A little crying and a nap also count as personal development

Wake up at 5:00 a.m. Write three things in your journal, be grateful for, drink warm water with lemon, run 10 km, lift weights, meditate for 20 minutes, read a chapter of an inspiring book, prepare a healthy breakfast with oats and protein, work on your millionaire side hustle… and, after all that, start your workday.

Oh, you didn't do it today? Then you're not investing in your personal development. You're a loser.

And I wonder 🤔: What kind of person, the kind we'd like to emulate, does those things consistently and without breaking down? With the typical end-of-September exhaustion, this week brings a list of obvious and uncomfortable truths: Personal development is not a perfect checklist. Much less a ritual designed for robots with infinite batteries.

MYTHS OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT (TOXIC VERSION)

We live in an era where crypto-bros and adult content creators turned "holistic coaches" have turned "growth and improvement" into just another product sold in installments and memberships. And in that process, they've slipped in several myths that need debunking:

YOU ARE WORTH WHAT YOU ACHIEVE/PRODUCE. Welcome to "time capitalization": every hour counts, every minute has to be productive, every break is a lost investment. The result? Identities translated into Excel spreadsheets.
IMPROVING/EVOLVING IS GOOD AND FEELS GOOD. But change… stings, the journey… hurts, improvement… itches and tires. Sometimes it means feeling uncomfortable and disoriented for months. It's not a serotonin high, it's emotional puberty.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT = READING, MEDITATING, RUNNING MARATHONS AND MAKING MONEY. Anything other than stacking up greenbacks, miles, and powders "doesn't count." Welcome to the Monopoly of life.
SUCCESS IS LINEAR AND ASCENDING. Actually, it's more like a subway at rush hour: you go up, you go down, you get dizzy... and sometimes you even get off at the next stop and trip over your foot in the hole, even though you knew the station was coming around a curve.
THE KEY IS CONSISTENCY WITHOUT COMPLAINT. Hegemonic masculinity and a ticking time bomb. Better to keep quiet, produce, and not show any emotion. Until you explode, of course. Nobody knows why.

In short: we've been sold an unattainable (and quite dangerous) model of improvement. And of course, when we compare ourselves, we always feel like we're falling short.

WHAT DOES PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT REALLY LOOK LIKE?

Spoiler alert: we have no idea what it looks like because, if we did, we'd already be evangelizing and announcing the good news. NOBODY has a clue. We all do the best we can… until we “know better.” But we do sense ingredients that need to be added to the classic recipe for personal development:

IT HAS MOMENTS OF ABSOLUTE CATHARSIS. From crying yourself to sleep, to screaming in the car with the music blasting, or letting out what you've been bottling up for weeks with a touch of self-destructive behavior. Emptying yourself is often the most direct way to make space for something new.
IT NEEDS LAZINESS. Time that isn't productive, time to BE. Time to relax, sleep in, or spend time with people just because; not because it benefits you or you have to give anything in return.
WITH SUPER AFFORDABLE MINIMUMS. Because on the day you can't even get the hell out of bed, managing to put on two drops of moisturizer is a gesture of infinite power.
WITH STOPS AND PAUSES. Ignoring WhatsApp messages, putting the phone in airplane mode and saying "I'm passing today, I'm not going" without giving further explanations.
WITH MORE ACTION AND FEELING THAN REFLECTION. You can intellectualize and psychoanalyze it to a certain extent… but there comes a time when it's time to build muscle; and fear, anger, or sadness… deserve the same repetitions as joy. They are the “leg day” of your emotional week.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT MAKEUP

Sometimes personal development is less like that before vs. after Instagram photo with 25 kg less and much more muscle... and more like today I survived Monday.

The difficult thing isn't doing yoga at dawn; it's allowing yourself to stop without guilt. The revolutionary thing isn't keeping a perfect schedule; it's calmly acknowledging that you can't do everything today. And what's truly valuable isn't always what shines on the outside, but what you hold within.

Personal development is chaotic, everyday, and above all, human.

P.D. : This week's post is sponsored by Wowyoung. Because maybe today you don't get the bars to change your world, but by applying our anti-aging serum you remind yourself that you did something worthwhile for yourself: taking care of yourself.