Finding the Best Personal Development Program

We all have our own personal preferences about the way we learn to grow spiritually and physically.

How to find the best personal development program for your own needs is often a very individual process that will differ from your friends, family and people you know.

To give you some idea of how this process works, I'll let you in on how I developed my own preferences and what I found that worked best for me personally.

Starting on the Road to Personal Growth

When I first became acutely interested in re-training to become a hypnotherapist, I had to learn a lot of things that were not directly related to simply "putting someone under".

I think I needed to do that in order to become the "therapist" using hypnosis as the primary tool rather than merely a "hypnotist" who could perform party tricks to amuse their friends.

Part of that learning process involved gaining an in-depth understanding of psychology which meant a long period of adult education at university to gain the necessary knowledge to obtain certification and later, the all-important degree in psychoanalysis.

That's because something like this is not learned in a few weeks or even months. At the same time, I was also taking a hypno-analysis course with the International Association of Hypno-analysts (IAH) based in Bournemouth (UK). That course was about hypnosis second and about understanding Freudian psychotherapy first!

Gaining the Right Knowledge is Important!

I needed to gain that important knowledge first before I could realistically begin working as a therapist to help people overcome their psychological problems.

Such problems responded extremely well to psychotherapeutic methods which were greatly enhanced by using hypnosis as a kind of accelerator to gain access to the deep rooted subconscious issues that were manifesting as physical conditions.

But you can read more about that side of things in other articles I have written and published in my hypnosis-based website that I will provide a link to at the end of this article if you are interested.

Suffice it to say that during my search for knowledge related to psychology, I came across much information that is also related to self development and how our thoughts determine our personal growth. Indeed much of what the top teachers in life laws are telling us is very much related to how the subconscious mind of a person works as we understand it.

The Subconscious Mind

It is no secret that everything we do in our lives is governed by what is going on inside our minds. Our bodies are controlled completely by the mind and in fact these physical bodies we all live in can ONLY do what he mind tells them.

So it makes a lot of sense to be acutely aware of what is going on inside the mind. That's because when we can predominantly control what goes on in there, we can control what these bodies do in terms of their health while also taking control of our choices and decisions that affect the way we live in every respect.

We now know that while the conscious mind is responsible for our active, present thinking, the subconscious is actually a large set or program of habits or paradigms. The thing is that we didn't write that program. Other people, such as our parents, siblings, teachers and friends wrote it for us.

When we are present in consciousness, we can shape our lives the way we want, because we are in control of our thoughts.

However, when we are not present, the subconscious rules everything about us, including our potential. When that set of paradigms set in there, the majority of which were placed there before age seven, are self limiting and destructive, our lives can only follow the program!

The foundation of all personal or self improvement is in developing the ability to monitor and control our thoughts to the best of our abilities. It teaches us to get into the present mind and rewrite thos old, limiting beliefs and programs.

When we are able to control our minds, we control our destiny!

What Resonates With You?

So on to finding the best way of developing that mind of yours through teaching programs and courses created by the best teachers in that area. Again, I'll cite personal preferences and describe why I chose the path of learning that I did.

With a background in psychology and hypnotherapy already under my belt, I was drawn to that book called "The Secret" that appeared in the early part of this century.

At first I was sceptical about its claims and after watching the associated movie my predominant gut reaction was that it was a lot of contrived information passed over to its audience by slick, well-groomed salesmen that spun a very compelling story!

I was ready to reject it as so much mumbo jumbo at first, but something stopped me. I decided to investigate further, because I didn't want to dismiss out of hand something that I might later find had more to it than I realized at the time.

It wasn't that I didn't embrace the idea of the Law of Attraction. It made perfect sense to me and I recognised it as being a very real force that could affect our lives when used properly. It was the way it was being sold that didn't quite do it for me.

The Opportunities We Miss

Like most people, I had missed plenty of opportunities in life. Yet the older I was getting, the less rash I was becoming at ignoring things that might turn out to be better than I initially thought they were. That is pretty much how most opportunities are missed for most people, after all!

I was intrigued by one the people featured on the movie more than the others as coming across more matter-of-fact than the slightly more pie-in-the-sky approach of most of the others. That person was Bob Proctor and at the time I couldn't put my finger on it but I knew I was drawn to him as a teacher more than the others.

I found his website and got hold of a copy of one of his books, "Born Rich" and read it cover to cover. I liked his approach, especially where it comes to the fact that when you're focusing on financial growth and making money, the process is mostly not even about the money.

It's about the growth!

Personal Growth as a Science

I also read the little book by Wallace Wattles called "The Science of Getting Rich" that was published way back in around 1903. Again, the philosophy was not about getting money.

It was about the way in which you go about improving the self and working in such a way that is conducive to the attraction of the circumstances that would bring about greater remuneration for the work you do in going after that wealth and the manifestation of money.

He focused on doing things in "a certain way" in order to achieve the results you want to see. In other words, improving your life in whichever area you choose to focus on is not so much about what you do, but in the way that you do it.

Something was emerging for me here and without even realising, I had found a means of improving myself that resonated with me to the extent that I was suddenly hungry for more knowledge. I discovered Bob Proctor's introductory videos to his program called "The 11 Forgotten Laws" and wanted to know more.

Finding My Own "Best" Program or Method

I bought the book featured in that program called, "Working with the Law" by Raymond Holliwell. It describes the Law of Attraction along with a further 11 Laws that compliment and augment that area of teaching.

I couldn't put the book down, reading and re-reading it several times. Incidentally, I still refer to that book (and another one: see below) regularly today.

Following the information, I came across more writings and revelations from Dr. Joe Vitale, the bestselling author and motivational speaker. He created a practitioner certification law of attraction course that teaches how to become an educator in the field of New Thought in your own right. I purchased it and found it to be excellent.

Dr Vitale is also the author of the fascinating book called "Zero Limits" in which he reveals the once secret Hawaiian prayer technique to cleanse the mind. This lead me to another of his certification courses, that teaches the ancient Hawai'ian healing teachnique called ho'oponopono. It allows those interested in this to become adept in the technique and teach it to others.

I got hold of the above course by Bob Proctor and Mary Morrissey and found it to be a very compelling audio program that I kept listening to over and over. That lead me to get hold of another book called "Think and Grow Rich" by Napolen Hill. This is the book that Bob Proctor carries around with him and reads every day as he has done for the last 40 or so years.

There is a powerful lesson in there that I learned and adopted that has made a huge difference in my life. It is the one lesson that anyone considering any kind of development of the self should learn first before they buy their first book or audio/video course.

The Most Important Lesson to Learn

Did you catch what that lesson is? Before you continue reading, go back a few paragraphs and see if you can spot it. It will change your life and the way in which you develop yourself.

If you don't want to do that (and I recommend that you do), I'll tell you what it is and why it is.

The most important lesson you will ever learn in life is that if you want to learn something, you have to learn it comprehensively. You do that initially by hammering it into your mind by repetition. But there is more.

When you were at school and you needed to take and presumably pass an exam, you crammed for it, right? You read everything there was that you needed to know and then re-read and re-read until it was fixed in your mind.

That's how the human mind learns best. By repetition! We all knew that was how to pass an exam and in fact it was the ONLY way to pass an exam because without the knowledge fixed in the memory, there is no way we can know the answers to the questions we will be asked.

We did that back then, but why don't we do that now? I mean now as in when we have just purchased the latest, greatest personal improvement course or program and we are going to use it to improve ourselves.

What?

Think about this. I'm sure you have read at least one book that teaches you how to improve yourself or your life in some way or another. It might have been something by Anthony Robbins (one of the best around, I might add) or maybe you have a copy of "Think and Grow Rich" and you read it and now it sits on a shelf with all your other self help books.

The clue is in the part where you read the book and then put it away and then read another book, put that away and then the next book etc. You only read them once and maybe you though they were amazing and you maybe said to yourself, "I will put these teachings into practise." But you never did, because you then skipped onto the next great book and kept read and reading but never did anything with that knowledge.

Oh sure, you probably did some practical things while you were reading the book. You maybe even got some positive feedback from positive changes that occurred in your life.

But the thing is, you did what most people do and that's to keep looking for the next all-important nugget of information that will finally change your life. You might have bought a dozen or so great training courses and they were all great.

But if you're still looking for the best personal development course, you're likely going to keep looking but you'll never find it!

Why?

It's because you already had it way back in the first one, two or three courses you took or books you read and you didn't know because you didn't use them to their fullest!

Using What You Have

I was just the same as you, no excuses there. I did exactly what most people do. I read a book, thought it was great but before I really took it on board, I was starting the next book or watching the next video course.

It wasn't until I "found" Bob Proctor and started reading and listening to what he was telling me that it suddenly really sunk in. What I needed to do was exactly what he was doing as well as saying: I needed to get one book and saturate my mind with it!

I chose "Think and grow Rich" because it was the book that Bob had been reading for 40 years and if it had proved to be that good for him, it must be good for me too. I also knew that just reading the book was not going to be enough, even reading it over and over.

It needs more to really fix all that golden information in there so it stays learned and doesn't fall out again a few days later. It needs understanding and it needs practical "doing" to give it physical reality!

I have been reading that book for around 5 years now and it still compels me to keep reading, keep digesting and keep understanding what it's telling me. And you know, another realisation has come from doing this.

It is that I really don't need a library of books, video courses and other materials to know what I need to know. It's all in that one book!

All of it!

Putting Into Practise What You Have Learned

Everything a person needs to know in order to transform their lives from where it is to a better place (the definition of "better" being in the mind of the individual of course) if contained in the pages of that book. So why doesn't everyone know that? Why are there so many "new" training programs and books that keep being published?

It's because very few people have grasped the concept that once you have the knowledge you need to grow, you then must use that knowledge in a practical and confident way to make the changes happen. If you don't, they will NEVER happen!

For me, finding the one book that I realised had everything I needed in it and then using it in my life is what changed me. But I could have found that book a long time ago and it would NOT have changed anything. It was the realisation that I needed to go further than just read it that caused the change to happen.

The same will happen to you. In that book, the author said there was a secret in there and if you found it, you could seriously have just about anything you wanted. He didn't reveal what that secret was because to find it you had to "find it" by yourself or you would never really grasp it.

I'm not telling you what that secret is, although many will tell you that it is simply, "What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve." Yes and no. It's a part of the secret, for sure. But there's more and you won't get it unless you really study it (in the greatest depth you ever studied anything in your life) and not just read it.

I have hinted on it in this article and in fact, I've even told you what it is, although you might need to read and re-read this one before you'll get that "ah-ha" moment. It was a moment that I got only recently even after some years of reading and thinking I had already gotten it when I really hadn't.

When you get it, you'll know. And you know what? It won't be exactly the same for you as it was for me or anyone else. Your perfect personal development program will be the one that is perfect for you and maybe not for the next person!

It will be personal to you and only you.



Further reading on hypnosis, self-hypnosis and autosuggestion: www.hypnosic.com

Latest Update: 31st March, 2023

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