Crying and napping also count as personal development.

Wake up at 5:00 a.m., be grateful for three things in your journaling, drink warm water with lemon, run 10 km, lift weights, meditate for 20 minutes, read a chapter of an inspiring book, prepare a healthy breakfast with oatmeal and protein, work on your million-dollar side hustle... and, after all that, start your workday.

Oh, so you didn't do it today? Then you're not investing in your personal development. Fakin luser.

And I wonder 🤔: what kind of person, the kind we'd like to be like, does these things consistently and without breaking down? With the exhaustion that comes with late September, this week brings a list of obvious and uncomfortable truths: Personal development isn't a perfect checklist, much less a ritual designed for robots with infinite battery life.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT MYTHS (TOXIC VERSION)

We live in an era where crypto-bros and content creators turned into "holistic coaches" have turned "growth and improvement" into just another product sold to you in installments and memberships. And in the process, they've instilled in us several myths that need to be debunked:

YOU ARE WORTH WHAT YOU GET/PRODUCE. Welcome to "time capitalization": every hour counts, every minute must count, every break is a waste of investment. The result? Identities translated into Excel spreadsheets.
IMPROVING/EVOLVING IS GOOD AND FEELS GOOD. But change… stings, the journey… hurts, the improvement… stings and tires. Sometimes it means being uncomfortable and disoriented for months. It's not a serotonin high, it's emotional puberty.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT = READ, MEDITATE, RUN MARATHONS AND EARN MONEY. Anything other than stacking greens, miles, and powder doesn't count. Welcome to the Monopoly of life.
SUCCESS IS LINEAR AND ASCENDING. In reality, it's more like a subway at rush hour: you get on, you get off, you get dizzy... and sometimes you even get off at the next stop and trip over your foot in the hole, even though you knew the station was coming around a bend.
THE KEY IS CONSISTENCE WITHOUT COMPLAINT. Hegemonic masculinity and a ticking time bomb. It's better to keep quiet, produce, and show no emotion. Until you explode, of course, no one knows why.

In short: we've been sold an inaccessible (and quite dangerous) model of improvement. And of course, when we compare ourselves, we always feel inadequate.

WHAT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT REALLY LOOKS LIKE

Spoiler: we have no idea what it looks like because, if we knew, we would already be evangelizing and announcing the good news.. NO ONE has a clue. We all do the best we know how… until we “know better.” But we do sense ingredients that need to be added to the classic recipe for personal development:

IT HAS MOMENTS OF ABSOLUTE CATHARSIS. From crying yourself to sleep, to screaming in the car with the music on full blast, to letting go of what you've been stuffing down your throat for weeks, along with a hint of self-destructive behavior. Emptying yourself is often the most direct way to make space for something new.
IT NEEDS LAZINESS. From unproductive time to BE. Spending your eggs in the water, sleeping over, or spending time with people just because; not because it helps you or because you have to give anything in return.
WITH HYPER AFFORDABLE MINIMA. Because on the day you can't even fucking get out of bed, managing to squeeze in two drops of moisturizer is a gesture of infinite power.
WITH STOPS AND PAUSES. Ignoring WhatsApp messages, putting your phone on airplane mode, and saying, "I'll stop by today, I'm not going," without giving any further explanation.
WITH MORE ACTION AND FEELING THAN REFLECTION. You can intellectualize and psychoanalyze to a certain extent... but there comes a time when you have to train your muscles; and fear, anger, or sadness... deserve the same repetitions as joy. They're the "leg day" of your emotional week.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT MAKEUP

Sometimes personal development looks less like that before-and-after Instagram photo of you 55 pounds lighter and way more muscle… and more like today I survived Monday.

The difficult thing isn't doing yoga at dawn; it's allowing yourself to stop without guilt. The revolutionary thing isn't keeping a perfect schedule; it's calmly acknowledging that you can't handle everything today. And what's valuable isn't always what shines on the outside, but what you hold on to inside.

Personal development is chaotic, everyday and, above all, human.

P.S: This week's post is sponsored by WowyoungBecause maybe today doesn't give you the bars to change your world, but applying our anti-aging serum reminds you that you did something worthwhile for yourself: taking care of yourself.

Crying and napping also count as personal development.

Oh, so you didn't do it today? Then you're not investing in your personal development. Fakin luser.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT MYTHS (TOXIC VERSION)

YOU ARE WORTH WHAT YOU GET/PRODUCE. Welcome to "time capitalization": every hour counts, every minute must count, every break is a waste of investment. The result? Identities translated into Excel spreadsheets.
IMPROVING/EVOLVING IS GOOD AND FEELS GOOD. But change... stings, the journey... hurts, the improvement... stings and is tiring. Sometimes it means being uncomfortable and disoriented for months. It's not a serotonin high, it's emotional puberty.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT = READ, MEDITATE, RUN MARATHONS AND EARN MONEY. Anything other than stacking greens, miles, and powder doesn't count. Welcome to the Monopoly of life.
SUCCESS IS LINEAR AND ASCENDING. In reality, it's more like a subway at rush hour: you get on, you get off, you get dizzy... and sometimes you even get off at the next stop and trip over your foot in the hole, even though you knew the station was coming around a bend.
THE KEY IS CONSISTENCE WITHOUT COMPLAINT. Hegemonic masculinity and a ticking time bomb. It's better to keep quiet, produce, and show no emotion. Until you explode, of course, no one knows why.

In short: we've been sold an inaccessible (and quite dangerous) model of improvement. And of course, when we compare ourselves, we always feel inadequate.

WHAT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT REALLY LOOKS LIKE

IT HAS MOMENTS OF ABSOLUTE CATHARSIS. From crying yourself to sleep, to screaming in the car with the music on full blast, to letting go of what you've been stuffing down your throat for weeks, along with a hint of self-destructive behavior. Emptying yourself is often the most direct way to make space for something new.
IT NEEDS LAZINESS. From unproductive time to BE. Spending your eggs in the water, sleeping over, or spending time with people just because; not because it helps you or because you have to give anything in return.
WITH HYPER AFFORDABLE MINIMA. Because on the day you can't even fucking get out of bed, managing to squeeze in two drops of moisturizer is a gesture of infinite power.
WITH STOPS AND PAUSES. Ignoring WhatsApp messages, putting your phone on airplane mode, and saying, "I'll stop by today, I'm not going," without giving any further explanation.
WITH MORE ACTION AND FEELING THAN REFLECTION. You can intellectualize and psychoanalyze to a certain extent... but there comes a time when you have to train your muscles; and fear, anger, or sadness... deserve the same repetitions as joy. They're the "leg day" of your emotional week.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT MAKEUP

Sometimes personal development looks less like that before-and-after Instagram photo of you 55 pounds lighter and way more muscle… and more like today I survived Monday.

Personal development is chaotic, everyday and, above all, human.

P.S: This week's post is sponsored by WowyoungBecause maybe today you don't have the bars to change your world, but applying our anti-aging serum reminds you that you did something worthwhile for yourself: taking care of yourself.

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