I’m a fan of personal development – and analogies. One of my favorite analogies is that learning is like making a candy apple.
You see, to make a candy apple, you don’t just dip the apple into the red, candy syrup once – you dip it in and then let it set and then dip it in again and let it set and repeat this process to build up that candy coating (well, at least that’s the metaphor – the recipe I just saw is nowhere near that labor intense).
And this serves as a metaphor for learning. We don’t learn things by spending a lot of time with our heads in the topic. We need to dive in and then out and then dive into it again. Each time we learn a bit more, as though we’re learning in layers.
But when it comes to personal development, we tend to read a book and then set it aside (or if we’re a bit more ambitious we underline and make notes as we go and then set it aside).
Some of the biggest breakthroughs of my life came about because one book contained the advice, read this book every month for a year – and the funny thing is, I don’t remember seeing that advice the first or second time I read the book. Luckily something brought me back to the book for a third time and this time that advice registered and I decided to follow through.
I dove deep into the book’s content, journaled on it and did the exercises. Listened to the same author on audible – the same recording on repeat. And you know each time through I caught something that I’d missed before.
And I realized that while I’d been ‘doing personal development’ for close to 40 years – I’d been doing it wrong, or at least ineffectively.
So, I encourage you – if you’ve been doing personal development and you’re not happy with the results so far, then choose a book that really resonates with you and make a commitment to read (or listen to) the same book, again and again, like for a year. Journal about what you’re learning and if there are exercises – do them!
And when you do, let me know – what book did you put on long-term repeat? How did it benefit you?