There may be instances in your life when you feel sick and tired of everything. Now, when you find yourself in this situation, the key is to start doing things differently so you can bring about positive changes in your life.

Each person is different. This goes to say that whatever worked for someone may not work for somebody else. However, we can always learn from other people’s experiences. This shortens our learning curve and enables us to focus on other areas of our lives.

Every individual deal with life’s stresses uniquely. There are some who just embrace and accept their ill fate and do nothing about it. On the other end, there are those who openly express dissatisfaction and actively seek ways to improve their lives. They know how to take responsibility for whatever happens to them so they work on themselves. They don’t believe that destiny is luck and is written. Instead, they understand that they create and choose their own destiny.

With these said, one area that they always look into is overcoming the barriers to effective self-development.

What are the barriers to self-development?

The most common pitfall to unsuccessful self-development is not knowing the factors that lead to it. Now, in order for you to effectively carry out your plan, you must have a firm understanding of what could be preventing you from becoming the best version of yourself.

The following are some known barriers to self-development, which you can start working on one by one:

  • Not managing time effectively. This is perhaps the biggest barrier to self-development. Most people think that 24 hours a day is not enough to do all that they gotta do when in fact it is more than enough. The reason why they fail to utilize time effectively is that they tend to put tasks on hold until they are badly needed to be done. This way, they end up cramming. What you can do to overcome this barrier is to have a planner. Jot down what you need to do on a daily basis and make sure that you accomplish these. Don’t fall into the trap of laziness and just keep in mind that by finishing what you must do first, you will have ample free time to spend with your loved ones and on relaxation later on.
  • Getting distracted. There are surely a lot of distractions in this world that often we lose focus. When this happens, we lose sight of our goals and we give in to distractions, not realizing that we are prolonging our success. Now, you must identify your distractions and learn to sway away from them. For example, instead of completing your business report, you tend to spend most of your time browsing the Internet or watching TV. Or you could have been to a client meeting yet you decided to cancel it in lieu of longer sleep. Remember, only you can help yourself. No matter how many times your spouse or your parents remind/s you to stay focused, if you don’t have the drive and motivation to do so, you will always go back to zero.
  • Limiting oneself. This is another area of your life worth looking at. How long have you been staying in that imaginary wall you’ve built around you. There are countless ways you can achieve your goals so don’t ever limit yourself to what you already know. Expand your horizon, learn to think outside the box, and get creative. Learn from other people, take time to know how they got to the top of success ladder. It’s time that you become open-minded to new ideas. Try measures you haven’t done before so you can start gaining something new.
  • Fear of committing mistakes. Even successful people committed mistakes early on their respective careers. Einstein failed numerous times before he finally made the light bulb work, and so did Michael Jackson missed a lot of shots before he was considered one of NBA’s greatest players of all time. You see, it is not how many times you fail, but how courageous you are to get up, dust yourself off and go on pursuing your dreams. Life is a continuous learning process so don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You learn from your mistakes. These don’t mean failure. You are just shown one or a few ways not to do your aim. You have to try and try until it all works well for you.
  • Lack of support systems. The people around us are usually our sources of strength and inspiration. This goes to show that when you feel that nobody supports you enough, you lose your passion for your goals. You start to feel uninterested anymore, but this should not be the case. Your family loves you. Your friends do. I guess you just gotta be more open to them with regards to your dreams. Share your dream with them and you’ll be surprised at the number of helping hands and motivation you will get from these people. Sometimes we just need to be vocal so those who love us will know how they can be of help to us.

These are just 5 of the most common barriers to self-development. Once you have learned to overcome each of it, you surely will be on top of the game. If others did it, so can you! Just keep believing in yourself and investing on personal development training.