“The acorn doesn’t go out and try to improve and achieve the oak, it already has it inside itself.” – Derek Rydall
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If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably at least a little bit interested in self-improvement, and I am as well. But are there instances and situations where self-improvement, and even more the mindset that usually comes with self-improvement work, is bad for us, and actually causing more suffering than it is helping?
Today’s guest is Derek Rydall, and he is speaking with me about the various ways that self-improvement work can cause us to focus on the wrong thing. As he says, the acorn does not need to go out and try to improve itself into a tree. It just needs to be in the right environment, and it will naturally transform into the mighty oak that it was meant to become.
The key, then, is to make sure that all of the aspects of the environment are correct in order to allow yourself to grow into what you already have inside you. By focusing too much on improvement, productivity, or other things, you may in fact be hurting your own personal growth, and missing what is really important! Learn more on this episode of the James Swanwick Show!
“Often when people are focusing on ‘productivity,’ it is a way of avoiding something deeper.” – Derek Rydall
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Key Takeaways:
- Sometimes self improvement just helps you see where you lack, and doesn’t help you create a solution
- The acorn doesn’t go out and try to improve and achieve the oak, it already has it inside it
- There’s a perfect pattern within the soil of our soul
- You can’t improve on who you are. What you can do is create the right conditions so that what is already there can emerge
- Self development is the process of cultivating the conditions inside and out that will produce the potential that is inside you
- Too often people who get obsessed with self improvement end up manipulating what is around them to look different, when fundamentally they are the same
- The way most people think about productivity is getting a lot done. But there is a difference between business, or purposefully focusing on doing what you are designed to produce
- People who are successful are rarely driven by a need to be productive
- Often when people are focusing on ‘productivity,’ it is a way of avoiding something deeper
- Your condition does not determine your destiny, your character does