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I recently realised, again, what a difference there is between knowing and doing – and between what I think I am and what I actually transmit to the world. Knowledge can give one the alluring illusion that we actually can and do what we know and believe. But we can’t. Of course we do things right and live according to our principles, at times. We then tend to retain these experiences as confirmation, and filter out what contradicts our beliefs.

I don’t mean to imply that knowledge is the devil. It can make you learn to do things faster, and it can even be satisfying unto itself. But we shouldn’t that having static knowledge is the same as dynamically doing. Knowledge gives you time and unlimited abstract resources to act and react perfectly, while doing is in the moment and very concrete. It’s balancing strategy and instinctive action, improvisation and experience.

This is particularly valid for self-development. I know plenty of people that know a lot about living life, and do poorly at it. Including me, a lot of the time  Have you ever read a book about self-development and not done the exercises? Then you probably don’t really get that book. It’s the experience, living through it that transmits the message to your body and deeper being. My rule these days is that I read one book at a time, and that I do the exercises – even when I think I can already do what’s being asked.

I have cycles – phases of doing, and phases of overview, analysis, gaining new knowledge and building a strategy for the future. It can happen in a flash, or over a few months. Every phase has its merits, yet I tend to believe that the majority of our life should be spent doing, in the moment.

Another thing about learning and knowledge: I think only what you need at that time sticks. Everyone has some areas of interest at a certain moment in time; the next step in their evolution waiting for them to take it. I really believe that only what’s relevant to that next step, sticks. The rest may be stored for later, but even then the step will have to be taken, not known.

So here’s a call for simplifying the knowing: look up what you need, feed yourself with what attracts you. And don’t forget to get back into the doing!

We all want things form life. Love, a great career, adventure, good friends… Our deepest, general wishes take the shape of specific desires and expectations that we carry around with us daily. When our desires are not fulfilled, we can feel resistance and frustration. We could start thinking life is incomplete, that we are incomplete or incompetent, and that we will never be happy. After all, there’s so much to want, and so little time and means to get it all!

I want all kinds of stuff. I want a compelling job, lots of love, and time to do anything that tickles my fancy. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all the things I want, and the fear that I’ll never be able to do it all. When I really let myself be drawn into this feeling, I become stressed, impatient and even unhappy. I’ve had times I raged through life like a race car, going from one thing to another. I hardly took the time to eat properly; when I came home from work I rushed onto the sports club, to see friends or some other project that I was busy with.

There’s nothing wrong with being busy, unless you’re doing it to get something out of it.

Life became a haze and I couldn’t get no satisfaction. I looked for ways to get more into my day. You know where this story is going… I never found release in more activity. It just got worse. I remember telling my then girlfriend about this. She looked helpless and said: ‘But I don’t know anyone that’s as busy with things as you?’ By wanting so much I made myself unhappy, and I even soured up our relationship with it. In doing one thing, I had to neglect another and as such, nothing worked as it should.

I realised there had to be another way. When I look at the goal behind my activities, I can bring them back to a few fundamental wishes. Health. Love. Interesting, diverse activities and feeling like I’m getting better at things. And some recognition for my efforts. That’s about it!

Off to the convent!

At first I though I just had to let go of my wishes. That I would be saved when I gave up on my desires, a bit like a priest denounces the worldly for the spiritual. No career, love or time- and money-consuming hobbies. When my desires would be gone, I would be free.

Needless to say I never made it there, nor has anyone else that I can think of. When I felt my desires being put behind a wall, life lost its lustre. All the things I desire are what makes life worthwhile for me! I realised I was alternately doing on of two things: either letting myself be governed by my desires and becoming their overworked slave, or taking distance from them and losing my lust for life.

Anthony Robbins calls this kind of perpetual cycle a Crazy Eight. You go from one extreme to another, constantly reacting to the negatives of the other extreme. I was trapped in an eternal pendulum, going from giving into my desires and taking distance from them again. At some point I thought: there must be another way!

The third way

As is to be expected from a synthesis between to seeming opposites, the third way comprises a bit of both previous approaches. Going for the fulfillment of your wishes, and at the same time letting go of the struggle to have your desires fulfilled. In short: stopping the search, and finding.

Let’s make that concrete shall we. For example: how can you find love without looking for a partner? A question I have extended experience with. On the one hand you want to be together with the right kind of person, but in the meantime loneliness eats its way through your peace of mind and you just want someone that you feel cherished by – if not just for a moment. These two movements create another Crazy Eight: it could go from a forced independence to head-over-heels dependence. What’s the third way? How can you still your hunger without eating?

Let go. Your desires are not who you are. Hunger passes. It can feel like you’ll die when your desires aren’t fulfilled, but you know you can survive without. That’s the beginning of letting go: accepting your desires are there, not pushing them away. You become aware of them, and in becoming aware you realise there is more than that desire. With that insight comes peace, and you can focus again on creating the conditions under which getting what you want gives you true fulfillment.

The difference between desire and pleasure

There is a difference between desire and the actual pleasure you get from a certain situation. Desires are a kind of mental/emotional construction, a projection of what we think we’ll get from a certain situation. Needless to say they hardly ever correspond to reality. That doesn’t make desire bad, but it does make them unfit as the only criterium to base our decisions upon. The best criterium is the actual pleasure you get from a situation, the reality of your fulfillment.

Like one of those nights you initially didn’t feel like going out but that turned into the wildest party ever! Or New Year’s Eve, the typical example of a night so overloaded with expectation that is doomed to be unsatisfying.

Desire is there, and it is important. It’s an indication of what inspires and motivates you. It drives you on. Then comes the true fulfillment. You can desire a promotion at work intensely and get, only to realise that it involves more work and stress without offering a satisfactory pay rise. Or you finally find someone and then notice that it’s not all that, and that you have to compromise to a situation that only suboptimally fulfills you.

The balance between desire and pleasure

Making the fulfillment of your desires the main goal of your life, means that you will never be satisfied. Put your desires back where they belong: in front of the cart. When you are taken over by your desires they are in the cart, and you’re pulling. Desires have no rest, no end destination. Once one thing is reached they move onto the next. That’s why you need to become the driver of your life.

That implies having a satisfied sense of self, being satisfied now. As your desires will never fulfill you for more than a few seconds, they are only signposts along our way.

Like in a game: don’t focus on the end result, as you don’t directly control that. What you do control is every separate step you take. The desire to win may be in the back of your mind, driving you on. But it’s focus and fulfillment in the moment that wins every point. Life may not be a game, it is a path full of challenges. When you can let go of the fear of not having your desires met, most obstacles disappear by themselves.

Did you ever create something you were really proud of, to doubt it furiously upon presenting it to others? I think most of us have had this experience. It’s understandable to become nervous when we present our creativity to others: it’s easy to identify what we produce from our inner depths with who we are. Which makes a rejection of what we make feel like a rejection of who we are. Wouldn’t you love to be able to handle this fear?

Dealing with your fear

There is no meditation, coaching or treatment (except maybe for Prozac?) in this world that can completely take your fear away. And if something like it exists, I would strongly recommend you don’t take it! Fear is normal and good, and gives you energy. It’s the way you handle it that decides whether it works for you or against you.

A useful way of looking at fear of rejection for your actions is from the perspective of the pupil. Whatever you do, you’re always a pupil. Even when you’re the best or a pioneer, there’s always something else to learn, and there are always others that can inspire you and provide relevant feedback.

From this perspective, showing off is the best thing you can do! Others will judge whether what you do stands the test of the outside world. Another useful way of looking at things is that nothing is ever finished. It’s basically the same as before, only this time it’s about work, not the person. Kill your darlings – review and improve upon your old work. It’s also a great way to chart your progress!

Handling your life differently

So far, I’ve mainly covered concrete expressions of creativity. Painting, writing, handiwork, or the results of your daily work. But you can also apply this principle to your interactions with others. What’s stopping you from becoming the pupil and learning how to have better relationships, experiment with different approaches? That doesn’t mean become a danger to your environment – but a bit of unpredictability can do miracles.
In the end, it’s all a question of perspective. We all have frames of reference to which we stick. We call them society, the others, moral, common sense… in the end it’s all internal projections of reality. In relation to reality itself, it’s just meagre projections. With regards to ourselves it’s more dramatic: our frames of reference define us.

When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose

Look at life this way for a second: you don’t really have anything at all. Everything you own now, you will eventually lose. You will die. What you own will be spread out and disappear. Your loved ones will die. Your kids will leave the house, maybe so will your partner, your house could blow away. Do you want to sit around being scared for it to happen, or get the most out of your life and enrich yourself? True riches is the ability to create wealth, not the wealth itself.

Making mistakes is the beginning of your success: from a hundred bad ideas comes one good idea that can change your life. So make great mistakes – accepting the consequences of your actions means that you accept the full breadth of them, that you don’t flee from them, resist or deny them. And that you take steps to make a change. That means there are certain standards to making mistakes. You have all the freedom in the world to make mistakes, but you know where some of them will lead. So make the right ones, the ones that move you forward!

One golden tip: do it one step at a time. Find the edges of your comfortzone, and venture out just one step. Learn to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Do it now!

A great video about the capriciousness of creativity and how to deal with the feeling that your creative peak has passed. This beautiful woman, Elizabeth Gilbert, reframes creativity as a process outside of yourself. Even if it isn’t true, it’s very useful to deal with both the successes and downfalls of leading a creative life (which in essence, most of us do). Watch this!

Everyone has an opinion about you. The reason that some people are your friends and others aren’t, that you talk more often to some colleagues than with others… is all because of the image they have of you – and the other way around. You could be surprised what people have to say about you!

No need to get angry about anything people say. Others often have about surprisingly little information to base their view of you upon, and they use these bits to draw parallels with things they believe and know. Someone’s image of you, even someone who knows you well, is more interpretation than fact.

You could say that that makes it useless to ask other people for feedback. What do they actually know about you anyway? And it’s true: someone’s feedback will seldom take in account the deeper truth behind your behaviour. But wait a minute!

Often people see things that you don’t see yourself. What you hide even from yourself, can be eminently obvious to others. What irritates you in others, is something you may not be finished with yourself. In that sense, other people’s feedback is essential for your development. They may not know why you’re doing something or exactly what it means to you, but they are the witness and protagonists of the consequences of your actions.

Exchanging feedback with others is a good habit, and often we don’t do it enough or keep it inside until it becomes a searing ball of negativity that is too hard to swallow. That could lead you to believe that someone isn’t open for feedback, but more often than not they feel attacked and become defensive.

So your mission for this month: ask five people for feedback about yourself! That could be about your work, your communication, your general aura… with your partner, family, friends, colleagues or even strangers. Don’t defend yourself – just say ‘Thanks’ and let it sink in. Don’t forget to write it down – you can look back at it later and note any evolutions you’re making.

And part two: give spontaneous feedback! Some tips about that:

- Keep it positive. Feedback doesn’t only imply making people aware of their shortcomings. Work with compliments and opportunities for improvement.
- Speak about your own experience with the person you’re giving feedback to. Don’t generalise, it’s always just your own interpretation.
- Mean it. Go for confrontation and honesty rather than being hypocrite and giving false compliments with double meanings. Being confrontational is also feedback to yourself: do you dare to be honest with people? And do you manage to stay positive when you give difficult feedback, and in the face of people’s reactions?

Make it a habit to give people feedback on things they do. That means complimenting what they do well, and indicating as soon as possible when you think something could be done better. Don’t become an eternal commentator though – it’s more about starting up an open conversation with someone about how you perceive them. The latter is gold! The difference lies in the honesty with which you communicate, your awareness of your own projections, and your commitment to discover the other person’s model of the world and expanding your own.

My conviction is growing stronger: there is nothing to “improve” in yourself. Or at least: silence all voices that urge you to change!

Thinking changes nothing – personal growth is necessarily action oriented

I’m a huge fan of personal growth and progress, but one thing has always particularly bothered me with the concept of self-development. In the years I’ve spent reading and thinking about self-improvement, awareness … I must admit I didn’t get much out of it.

Stephen Covey’s book is wonderful but if you just read it and hope that your life will change of its own accord, you’re wrong. Yet this is the way I have gone through several books: reading, and in the inspiration that I got from reading it, I forgot to bring practical change into my daily life. And then after a while I would establish that it hadn’t “worked”. As if that book was some kind of magic pill.

I believe less and less in magic pills – which is good! My faith is being replaced by a growing belief in practical everyday changes with immense repercussions.

Why self-development?

I often see people who are not busy with ‘improving themselves’ that at least seem completely happy with themselves – even in the awareness that some of their behavior isn’t ideal. They watch me with pity when I speak about my vision on improvement. I used to blame it on their lack of vision and that has cost me friends. Other times I blamed myself, that I had a pathological tendency to self-improvement. A friend of mine once literally told me: you’re so busy with it, it looks like you’re unhappy with yourself?

I did not want to hear it then, but she was right: I wasn’t happy with myself. I thought I could ‘fix’ myself, that everything that went wrong in my life a matter of awareness and adjustment. All the things I did wrong, people I hurt, expectations I didn’t live up to… were all due to my not being optimized.

You can imagine how tiring this can be. I don’t know about to you, but this process exhausted me repeatedly. And all this time I didn’t know that…

You’re already there

In my rush to be perfect as soon as possible, I forgot that every stage of my life, every step I would take, was at that time the best for me. I felt that I was behind and always tried to get a step ahead. I hung around with older people, behaved more maturely … and all this time there lived in me that little imperfect child that could not express itself. I missed the things that were of my age because I wanted to reach the next stage of maturity as soon as possible. I thought that would solve it, that would enlighten me.

Needless to say there never was enlightenment in it, and each stage has its advantages and disadvantages. With age come more responsibilities and more skills to cope with them. In a sense you could say that the challenges of your life are always just as big, because you load yourself with the same amount of things you can handle.

The heredity of your feelings

This process of always carrying the same weight with you I would call “the heredity of your overall happiness”. I believe that people live through their circumstances, almost any circumstance, with the same weight on their shoulders. If it’s too much, we’ll crash to make it lighter – like the manager that wished he would get a heartattack so he could relax a little. If it’s too light, we become restless and we want something new – like creating problems out of nothing just to have something to be bothered with. At least for me it was like this.

In this way, so go from stage to stage, and you do grow. By increasing your strength, you grow the load that you carry around. So it is not the charge itself, but the relationship to your force to bear them that stays the same. And all this time you’re actually growing, but the increase of the burden that takes you there it seems like you’re at a standstill! Take five minutes to write down what you’ve learned all last year – new dishes you can cook, a different sport, something new that you can do on the computer, a course that you followed, a different way of dealing with certain people or something from your past … I bet you’ll be amazed with yourself!

Your life is not necessarily better with improvement

Even if you become stronger, more assertive, more productive… your life will not become qualitatively improved if you don’t adapt the load that you carry with you. It seems so wrong to say that self-improvement does not necessarily help, but it is a law in my life that I’ve seen repeated endlessly. Every time I get better at something, my expectations increase. In the end I feel I’m not improving at all, as I keep on having to push myself onward to get anywhere!

I recently took up rugby again. I stopped for three years due to a serious injury. Meanwhile I also trained in other sports, so I stayed in shape. One day, I happened to be on the beach where some rugby teams were playing, including those of Gent Rugby – my team since I was fourteen. And they were good! In the three years that I was away, a new generation emerged with a physique and technique I have never seen. You guessed it: I wanted to make a come-back.

In the beginning I was already glad to not be the worst. Then I put a slight pressure on myself to at least be with the better half of the team. That worked! I was satisfied for a few trainings. Once I felt safely in the middle, I wanted more. I wanted to be with the best! I started to train harder, and felt my old reflexes coming back. Many were eligible and few were called – and by the first game I was with the reserves of the first team. I was so proud! The next game, I was with the reserves again. I thought it was OK. By the third game I wanted to be on the field at the start of the game. And so on.

On the one hand, this is the story of a healthy ambition and growth. Perfect! On the other hand there is the slight dissatisfaction that I almost constantly bore with me; the urge to get better. That need was satisfied in flashes when I achieved a new level, but the euphoria quickly ebbed away with the coming of new challenges. So while I was growing, I was mostly unhappy! I realized one day that I always felt dissatisfied. I would fret in myself thinking about what I wanted, instead of enjoying the sport itself and the atmosphere with my teammates. What a pity!

Drop the load

I think the real story of changing lies in the way you view your life and how you tackle it. At one point I stopped being so ambitious in rugby, and I started playing for fun again. I wasn’t any better (you’d think I suddenly went through the roof or something, but this isn’t Hollywood), but I did enjoy it more. And after some trainings I noticed that people around me got more pleasure from playing with me. And then – yes – then our game, and mine, got better. And it was fun! And what did I have to do for that? Just drop the load, so my natural strengths could emerge. Because it was already all present inside of me …

What do you need to be happy?

I used to think that I should change to be happy. I thought happiness was external. Do this, achieve that. And most who read this thought: “Yes that’s very wrong” – and yet, don’t you do the same? One of the biggest lessons I ever learned is that there is a difference between what you know and think you do, and what you actually do. The reality is also that your own actions are a matter of interpretation. Like my rugby trainer says: ‘The truth comes from the field’.

There is a fundamental difference between you wanting to change, and not being happy until this has happened; and being satisfied with yourself with room for improvement. The first is an undermining of your own sense of value, the second is a positive way to deal with growth.

It’s all already in you

The NLP has a premise that says: “You have all the resources you need”. This means two things for me: that I’m better off focusing on the challenges of the moment than desperately trying to get to an imaginary level. That I am where I need to be, now. And that I have everything with me to face the challenges of the moment. I understood this abstractly, but I didn’t really understand until I noticed how unhappy I was making myself by trying to be something outside of myself.

Growth is a matter of patience, facing the challenges of the moment step by step. It’s good to have a long term vision and to keep it in mind, but not constantly. When I play a game, I don’t think about our ranking in the league; I think about my next tackle or pass. Tackle by tackle, pass by pass, we win the game. And then we go forward in the rankings (we’re currently first in our division!).

Actually I partly agree with Bob Newhart:

Of course it’s not always that simple! But why not it’s a matter of deciding that you want to do differently. That also means discovering which part of you doesn’t want change, and coming to terms with it.

Stay with yourself

Do not run away from yourself. Your challenges are present here and now, not sometime in the future. Your growth is in what’s in front of you. All the rest is a projection of something you’re not even sure is going to happen, and all those thoughts guide your attention away from what you should be doing now. I’m sure you can think of you three things right now that you could do that would make a difference. It can be as trivial as your cleaning your desk, calling your mother, paying a bill. I think that trivial matters are often related to much deeper issues. That means that solving the little things has repercussions at a deeper level.

An example: is your desk often a mess? Then you probably carry a sense of being overwhelmed and not having enough time around with you. This is not astrology, but a simple extrapolation. If you felt that you have enough time, you would probably calmly clean your desk. I don’t think that a clean desk is a matter of discipline, but rather it lies in your perception of time.

In other words, keep to yourself. Acknowledge the deeper challenges that are present in seemingly trivial matters. Accord them the deeper inner value they have, and discharge yourself of the grandiose external expectations that you will never achieve. Give yourself time, and the release of your external demands on yourself will bring a natural grandeur to your life.