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When it comes to the world of personal development there is no lack of discussion these days. Over the last twenty years, and especially these past two or three, the market of self improvement has exploded with the rise of superstars such as Anthony Robbins, James Ray and the ever admired Steve Pavlina. We’ve seen the meteoric rise of the Law of Attraction from Esther Hicks, her Abraham, and “The Secret”. In the last two or three years everybody and their mother has begun to tell us all about how we can make our dreams come true with a thought and make money in the blink of an eye. They packaged it, made it mass-marketable, slapped the label “Personal Development” on it and shipped it off to our living rooms. But just what role does out financial success play in our self improvement? Labeling more money as personal development is a slippery slope into a trap filled with disappointment and stagnation. If you can avoid this trap, you will be rich. Fall into the pit and you’ll always wonder why the money is just out of your reach.

Money Is Not Growth

Anyone who tells you that money is not important is either lying or has money. If you’re like me, money is one of the most important factors in your life. We worry about making rent, we wonder how to fix a broken appliance or handle the rising gas prices. To say that the pursuit of money is not important or worse, an unworthy pursuit, is insane. You need money, I need money, but to confuse your own improvement with an increase in your bank statement will only serve to stunt your growth and bring a halt to your gains.

The problem is that we’ve become a society that is (not unjustly) focused on the monetary bottom line. If we can’t see a financial gain, we just don’t think it’s worth our time. We’ve grown accustomed to measuring our hours in terms of our wage and our self worth in terms of what that wage can buy. Time is money and we’ve got very little of either to spare. Because of this, we’ve become numb to the proposition of growth in any other way than our bank accounts. Ever notice that every “improvement” suggested by all of the books and blogs you read is put in terms of how much more successful it will make you?

• Wake up at 5:00am every day and you can get more work done!

• Become a vegetarian and you’ll have more energy to get more work done!

• Take time to meditate every day and you’ll attract more money into your life!

Notice we never mention how waking up at 5:00am every day can give you more time to relax without any distractions or how meditation can lower your stress and your blood pressure. To fall into this trap of classifying your life in terms of money and career success is to cut off the very means of that success. Without creating new habits and developing new talents and knowledge, you’ll always be stuck getting the results you’ve always gotten. You can spend your life chasing your results, or you can take control of yourself, master the skills you need and hunt down those results like they called your mother a dirty name.

Steps You Can Take

If you want to be one less statistical failure in the world of personal development there are a few crucial steps that will open the door to your unlimited growth. Start taking them now, start moving forward every day and you’ll see the results you’re after in no time. The point however is that your growth doesn’t come from achieving results, results come only from your continuous growth.

1. Realize that You are Not Your Bank Account - Sure, money is important, I’ll be the first to stand up and admit it. Money is damn important in this world and that’s why we all want so much of it. But the first step in focusing on your real personal growth is to finally realize that you and your bank account are two different things and only one of you has a consciousness. In your relationship with money, you are the only thing that ever makes the decisions. It’s a slave to your will and can be nothing else. Unlink your progress from the growing or decreasing numbers in your bank account. More money doesn’t mean you’re any further along in any aspect of your life except maybe the restaurants you can go to.

2. You Are All You’ve Got - At the end of the day, you are the only thing you will always have. All the money you earn could be gone tomorrow, all of the things you amass could be swept away in the blink of an eye, but you can never separate you from you. This means when you start trying to decide what needs to improve in your life, start by looking inside yourself instead of outside at your surroundings. Most of us will automatically find the situations in our environment that we would like to change, rather than those aspects of ourselves we’d like to make better. The problem is that this type of thinking is just another way of passing the buck. Until we take responsibility for our own lives, we will forever be looking in the wrong places for the wrong solutions to problems that are unimportant. Never lie to yourself. The reason you don’t have enough money is because you’ve done nothing to deserve it. Develop your talents and habits to the point at which you will deserve to earn the income you want to earn.

3. Realize that You are Dying - Get scared and get scared now. Realize that the time you are spending sitting on the couch and vegging-out in front of the television is passing you by. All the time you’re worried you might waste while, say, reading, meditating, or planning, is time that is going to be passing you by one way or the other. You could have something to show for it or not. Ten years from now you are going to be ten years older, you could choose now to be ten years wiser as well. You could choose now to have an accomplishment to show for your time other than a few gray hairs. The choice is yours. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

4. Hunt Down Your Imperfections - We all have those little habits that, while perhaps not the best for us, give us too much simple pleasure to get rid of. Perhaps yours is a drink at the end of a long day, or a slice of cake after dinner. Whatever it is, do not mistake this for a fault or an imperfection. Too often we miss the forest for the trees when it comes to our habits and faults. We tell ourselves how bad that piece of cake is for us, but miss the fact the we are constantly late for work, or constantly chatting with our co-workers when we should be at our desks. Make sure you find those faults that are really causing you problems and hunt them down mercilessly. Take no excuse for doing otherwise. Identify what holds you back and take definite, measurable steps toward putting a stop to it. In this day and age there is no excuse for not finding the solution to your problem considering the resources that can be found in your local library or on the Internet. Type in a Google search for your problem and stand in amazement at the knowledge that everyone has an opinion about everything. Your imperfections are not unique, but they may be standing in your way. If they are, find them and stop them because if you don’t stop them, they will stop you.

Pursue Excellence and Money Will Come

Equating your success with the amount of money you make in any given week, limits you to only one kind of happiness. If your enjoyment of your life hinges on how many zeros are at the end of your paycheck, you will forever be a slave to your job. Your weekends and vacations will be tainted by the fear and knowledge of not having enough money. The fun and pleasure that you attempt to give yourself will forever be shouted down by seemingly empty pockets, warning you of everything you lack the means to do. Perhaps you already know what this is like. Maybe you’ve lived this way for years.

You will never be able to free yourself from the bonds of money. No matter how much money you make, you will never rid yourself of the need for it. Given this, it’s clear that the pursuit of money alone is a worthless endeavor. Pursue excellence. Pursue worth. Make something of yourself and the money will come. It has never failed. Name one great man who, his mistakes aside, failed to become a success? Certainly a few handled their money poorly, but the money came to them none-the-less.

The point of self improvement is to (no kidding) improve yourself. Forget all the mumbo-jumbo about how to improve your magnetic attraction to money–you can be as magnetic as you want, you’ll still have to find some way of earning your cash. That’s not improving yourself, that’s improving your situation. That’s like treating a gunshot wound with a day at the spa. Sure, your surroundings are more desirable, but the chest wound still leaves something to be desired. Your finances are never truly under your control, but you are. Learn to take yourself by the reins and relentlessly make yourself better than you think you can be. You can fight against the world to change your place in it, or you can start deserving your spot on the pedestal. Improve yourself first and your bank account cannot help but follow along.