Innerbaia First Color Dream Generally speaking, the more we develop ourselves personally, the lower our long-term anxiety levels. After all, discovering our life purpose helps avoid the tension of pointlessness. Developing better communication skills avoids many relationship problems. Improving time management helps avoid feeling overcommitted in day-to-day work. On the surface, tension management and personal development seem to fit together perfectly.There are times, however, when personal development itself can get a little out of control – when it starts adding to your tension, rather than helping manage it. When that happens, you can start to find yourself showing more of the signs of anxiety (for more information on these, ask for a copy of our free anxiety audit questionnaire), instead of less.So should we totally avoid personal development altogether if we want to keep a handle on anxiety? Not necessarily, but we may need to look at what development we’re doing and how it’s affecting our tension levels.SO HOW CAN PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT INCREASE Tension?All personal development involves change on some level, and change is a major source of anxiety for many people. This means that, even if you’re trying to improve something that will eventually lower your tension level (e.g. time management or communication skills), it can sometimes act as a short-term.There are four main reasons for personal development work causing, rather than curing anxiety:- Too Many Areas- Lack of Balance- Unrealistic Expectations- Going it AloneTOO MANY AREASPersonal development can be addictive – whowouldn’t want to be the best person they can in every area of their lives? With so many areas we could work on, we often try to improve in multiple areas at once. For some people, this isn’t an issue. For others, however, the old adage “chase two rabbits, catch neither” applies.If you’re working on improving two or more areas of your life and your tension levels rise, consider asking yourself, “Which area is most important right now?”, or, “Which area would improving make the most difference for me right now?” and then focussing on that area. Everything else will still be there waiting for you when you’re finished with the first one!LACK OF OVERALL BALANCEPersonal development takes commitment and willingness to act. Sometimes, however, we exaggerate the importance of a particular improvement to the point that nothing else matters, and other areas get neglected. For example, if you want to develop spiritually, you need to take time out to do this. If you start ignoring friends or work demands so you can meditate to for hours each day, it may start causing tension.Note that you’re the only one who can say what the right balance of “personal development time”. Some people might want to take weeks, months, or years out from the world for self-improvement. Most of us, however, want to integrate our development with our current lifestyles. If that’s the case for you, examine how much time you spend on personal development, and consider cutting back if appropriate.UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONSIt can be hard to create [...] Continue Reading…