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Today I am wearing a pair of new cowboy boots. Brand new – and, at first, almost painfully tight. Now, two hours later, I’m kicking up my heels and feeling quite full of myself.
What does this have to do with personal growth seminars and books?
When I picked out these particular boots, I must have tried on 10 different styles first. I knew what feeling I wanted to have with my new boots – I could see it and feel it clearly. I could picture them in my mind, but I wasn’t seeing them on the shelf.
After about 20 minutes of trying on boots and explaining to the salesman what I wanted to feel, he got the picture. He pulled out a catalog and found exactly what I wanted – Ariat boots (the most comfortable there are), brown distressed leather, and plenty of room for my toes (with still enough point to be sassy). I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect match.
But, alas, they didn’t have any in my size, so I ordered them and went on my merry way, knowing I would get a call in about three weeks. (Those of us who are into boots – or shoes of any sort for that matter – will do whatever it takes to get the exact right pair. If you like cowboy boots, you know what I mean.)
I got the call this morning and ran right out to pick them up.
When I tried them on in the store, just to make sure, my heart sank. They were so tight I could hardly stand it. Surely this wasn’t the right size. The boot salesman – who is famous in these parts – had told me the size to order, so surely it couldn’t be wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
The distinction between being a personal growth enthusiast and a personal growth junkie may sound like mere semantics, but it’s actually an important one - especially to those of us who have experienced both sides of this personal growth coin.
As a personal growth junkie, you are intensely focused (obsessed?) with reading self-help books (or at least purchasing them). You attend seminars, and generally do whatever you can that has the self-help label attached. You charge up your credit cards, maybe even take out loans, and plan your vacation leave around attending personal growth seminars. You can hardly help yourself.
As an enthusiast you may do many of these same things – after all, using your vacation leave for personal expansion makes sense, right? Of course.
The difference is as a junkie you keep attending, reading, etc. hoping to find “the answer” that will either explain everything to you, or finally catapult you out of your current existence, while as an enthusiast you know you won’t find the “one true answer” in any one place. You get excited about attending seminars and reading books, but you aren’t banking on finding “the answer” in any one particular place. You know that whatever the answer might be for you, it is multi-faceted and ecclectic.
Another difference is that while a junkie can’t help themselves, so to speak, the enthusiast can’t help but look at virtually everything in their lives through the personal development/self-help filter. They don’t have to attend another seminar in order to experience the high of inner awareness - a billboard inspires them into action, a movie unleashes their own greatness, or a conversation shifts their understanding of themselves.
The other significant distinction is that as a personal growth junkie,
