Learning A Lot But Life's Not Changing?

For years I was in a vicious and discouraging cycle. I was trapped thinking that I was growing and improving because I was spending so much time on it listening to podcasts, reading books, going through content. I’d put hours every day into my self-growth yet my life wasn’t changing, and I stayed stuck at the same level while I saw everyone around me succeeding.

I call this being a “personal development junkie”, and this was my problem. I felt like I deserved to improve, was “doing all the right things”, and was frustrated it wasn’t happening for me. And it’s only by working through it that I can see I was missing the most important ingredients.

Knowledge isn’t power, it’s potential power, and in most cases our fastest path to improvement is to apply what we already know.

It might feel productive to learn new things, but really it’s distracting you from making the most of what you already know by putting it into practice. And since I know this problem so personally, I want to offer my perspective on it and suggest a way to support you with it.

First, make sure your learning has a purpose. For some people, listening to a podcast while you prepare dinner is entertaining and motivating. It’s perfectly fine to learn for those reasons, but call it what it is and don’t convince yourself it’s anything else.

Second, if there is a knowledge gap, put your time into the right resources that will bridge it. This is the action step to take when you don’t have the right ideas or understanding you need to pursue forward. And when that’s the case find the knowledge source that does, consume it intentionally to get your questions answered, and move quickly into implementation.

Pat Flynn makes the distinction between ‘Just In Time’ information, which is exactly what you need to know when you need to know it, and ‘Just In Case’ information which isn’t immediately actionable or applicable to your current situation.

But again, more often than not, someone’s limited success isn’t a matter of not knowing what to do. It’s about helping them follow through. It’s not enough to read “Atomic Habits” and expect to have good habits… You need to put the knowledge into practice. Your learning works when you work it, and that’s what causes your life to change.

I was able to initiate that shift for myself when I started my night time performance tracking routine. I knew feedback was important, but I didn’t have a system to receiving it. I knew having a daily schedule was important, but I hadn’t gotten in the habit of it. I knew gratitude journaling was life-changing, but I hadn’t gotten consistent with it.

But once I did, I started becoming the resilient, disciplined, productive, and happy person I wanted to be. And if you want to see the process I’ve used and perfected over the course of a decade, and for me to teach you how to implement it for yourself, watch this video where I go through the whole thing step by step.