The Price I Pay After a Decade of Personal Development

Hey and welcome to another episode of the Free and Fearless podcast on a topic that’s very dear to my heart – my personal development journey and what I overlooked along the way.

Tune into today’s episode to hear about the dangers of being passionate about self-improvement and what you can do to experience growth in all its forms.

Show Notes:

  • [5:30] The missing piece in my personal development
  • [6:33] The new friend that came into my life and how we changed each other’s lives
  • [8:25] My first steps towards spirituality
  • [9:49] Feminine vs masculine energy
  • [11:32] How I plan to restore the balance between them
  • [14:10] What’s Human Design and why I’m getting into it

Mentioned:

Transcript

The last decade of my life was dedicated to personal growth.

That means I was all about goal setting, forming a strong mindset, not letting others affect me, creating my own path in life, building better habits, growing my business and becoming location independent, and always seeking discipline to do stuff like morning rituals, working harder, standing my ground, following the right people and learning from them and so much more.

In my mind, there were always things that needed to be done, a next level to be reached, an amazing new book to read or things to apply from the one I just finished. 

I was on a mission to have total freedom and independence. And as a result of that, because every action was aligned with these goals and values, I left behind the person I used to be and which I wasn’t satisfied with, I left my home country and relocated to my ideal destination, I started a business, went from a freelancer to a full-blogger and course creator and increased my income and now do work I love.

I also set clear boundaries, formed many habits, became productive and energetic and motivated all the time.

But… there’s always a but… and that’s what this episode is all about.

Personal growth is my passion. It’s just there, in the background, no matter what I do, whether I’m creating content, starting a relationship, traveling, journaling, eating, or walking. I’m looking for possibilities to grow, and they are everywhere, which is amazing. 

Personal growth has given me so much and in dark moments, it’s what I can focus on that gives me hope, it makes life fun and challenging and I become better at it – at the actual act of defining the next level or what you need to change about your current reality, making a plan, and doing it.

So I’m lucky because the passion I found, which – as most passions – has elements of obsession and never being satisfied and always wanting more, well it’s still a good passion. We all need something to escape reality, to deal with the hardships in life, to have our own thing that we can always go back to no matter what else feels unstable right now.

And yes, for me it’s not drinking or needing attention or traveling, it’s personal growth and it has so many forms.

But with every passion and obsession in life, we also pay a big price. It’s usually not obvious. Well, some people never admit that side of it, course, but it’s still there.

At some point though, it hits you. You look back and see all that you missed, or how limiting your passion actually is and it stopped you from unleashing your potential.

I wanna talk about this today and whatever your passion is, I think you can relate. Also, I’ll discuss some pretty cool things that are related to interesting aspects of life that you like if you’re listening to this podcast, so you’ll enjoy this one and might learn a thing or two. 

Please take only what resonates with you and just be open to perspectives and the different path everyone is on.

And don’t get me wrong – I’m all about finding your passion in life and doing what you can to turn it into your everyday activity, career, business or just to get lost in it in any healthy way you can. 

I think that no matter what we do, we should be all in and do it with passion, otherwise it’s just not worth it and we might as well skip it.

I’m attracted to passionate people because we have a lot in common even though our passions are different. But the way we get this fire in our eyes when we talk about the thing we love, how we lose track of time doing it, and how it makes us a better version of ourselves – all this so amazing. 

But because everything in life has positive and negative sides, so does personal growth, or at least in my case.

So let’s dive into the episode and I hope you enjoy it. As always, you can find me on Instagram @letsreachsuccess and share what you think, or what your passion is, or what this episode inspired you to think or do or be. DM me and I’d love to connect and talk about this because these are the topics that make me feel alive.

The missing piece in my personal development

It’s the year of the pandemic, I read a lot, learned a lot and listened to many podcasts, opened my mind to new ideas and my life to new mentors.

I’m talking about the powerful women I follow online who’ve achieved so much and inspire me and I love investing in their products, whether it’s on business topics or personal growth.

But that’s also the year I had more honest conversations with myself, turned to my spiritual side and saw I was missing out on so much growth over the years. That inspired me to focus more on spirituality which, in turn, showed me how personal development has been limiting me. 

That’s fine because it got me to where I am today and I love this journey, and it also means I was ready for more clarity and answers and to face my real issues just now, this year. And you know how for spirituality, you need to be ready and to look for it and to be willing to go deep and find what you’ve been hiding from so long and how you’ve been standing in your own way. 

A few awesome things that happened in the last months

First, a new friend came into my life and we are in the same circle now and hanging out often but she’s the first person I see that I felt like sharing my business knowledge with and showing all my work to. 

That’s mostly because she found her passion and she knew she wants to quit her corporate job and become a spiritual coach. And she already had the knowledge and the energy and the desire, but she didn’t know the business part of it. 

I know I would feel guilty if I didn’t share what I know because I’m familiar with the coaching business model and am just surrounded by successful female coaches online, I learn from them, interact with them, take their courses, and know how they started the business.

So, first, I shared with that friend the main concept. I told her what’s possible for her online and how she can start small and scale from there. 

She loved what she heard and couldn’t wait to learn more, so I prepared some materials and we even had a coaching session where I was the business coach and it felt really good. 

It was supposed to be 1 hour, but it turned into 2,5 hours which shows we both enjoyed the process. I was literally drained after that but in a good way.

Anyways, she also started practicing coaching with people in her life interested in spirituality and I was one of them because it was the perfect timing for me. 

I wanted answers, I loved her energy and wanted to learn more.

I knew my ego is standing in my way, I knew I needed to let go of the need to control and let someone else guide me, someone who knows their stuff.

But also I haven’t tried therapy or even talking to a psychologist or a life coach or anything like that, so there’s certain discomfort involved. But because she made it sound so easy and it was also sort of an experiment, I was excited about it.

Before that first session, I never had a card reading, I didn’t know what would be involved in this or if it’s for me or if there’s something I need to prepare. But I just went for it.

And it was awesome. So many things we uncovered in 1 session, things I wasn’t admitting to myself but which were so obvious. And all that because I opened my mind to new ideas, to someone who knows their stuff (while of course knowing I can ignore some things and only take with me what resonates and feels right).

She immediately noticed I’m being hard on myself and I’m blocking things.

She did a card reading and it felt good and it actually made sense. The conclusion was that I should awaken the goddess within and tune into my feminine energy.

This struck me and we talked about it.

Actually up until that point I had invested the months prior to that coaching call into changing my clothing style and making it more feminine, not hiding myself that much online, taking more pictures and showing them everywhere on my platforms, rebranding my site, niching down and serving only women.

Also following women who were constantly talking about using their feminine energy right and growing their business and having more ease and flow in life thanks to that. 

So it made sense now.  

I learned something I didn’t even think about up until that point – that we have both feminine and masculine energy and these need to be in balance.

So far, I was independent, with a strong personality, using logic, trying to be productive and take action and be initiate and not accepting help from others, not letting myself be vulnerable. 

All these are traits of the male energy inside me.

Then I got to my childhood and every other stage in my life and thanks to journaling and reflection, I found so many things that showed how I was actually defensive, aggressive, listening to my ego, and just more masculine. Which yes made many people respect me and take me seriously and I definitely wasn’t the weak person in the room, almost ever, but that doesn’t mean I did it right.

So here I am now, feeling the need to be more feminine. And that kind of energy is intuitive, receptive, creative, expressive and nurturing. 

It’s about surrendering, flow, intuitive thinking rather than logical, being open to help from others and to collaborate in business. 

And these are exactly the things I’m doing more of now. I actually saw how I was being defensive in social situations and always trying to control the outcome. I was using my power in the wrong way and always felt something isn’t how it should be. 

Little did I know it was all about tapping into my feminine energy which actually means taking it easy, following my intuition and taking decisions based on that, letting others help me and guide me and that this doesn’t make me weak. 

So I wanna restore the balance within now. To have flow and take business decisions from this place, reconnect with myself, embrace my feminine power, understand my energetic blueprint and use it right. And also surrender in a way that – I don’t mean giving up – but trusting the process.

Instead of being convinced in my current opinions and creating my path, I can still work on myself but also know the universe is working for me. And even if I don’t know how things will work out, they will at the end, but only if I stop resisting what’s meant for me.

The price I pay for a decade of personal development

I had to be strong, to make tough choices, to say No to so many things. To appear strong in front others, to not let them change my mind, to be hard on myself so I can build the discipline necessary to start a business, or grow my income, or get fit, or reach any other goal. 

In relationships, the ego was guiding instead of my higher self.

I was diving into books and all other kinds of resources on the topics of personal development, but I overlooked the spiritual side of things.

So now I learned about chakras and it made so much sense and I’m surprised I never paid attention to that. Now I will.

Also the word that’s been in my mind this year, is ‘surrender’. 

But my personal growth side says it’s weakness, I shouldn’t give up. Now  I see it’s much more than that. It means letting go of control. Still following my dreams of course and putting int the work, but this time out of abundance and knowing that success is inevitable. That there’s enough of everything in the universe and I will only attract the things with the same vibration if I have balance within, and am open to it, and don’t let my ego get in the way all the time. 

That made everything else easier.

I have a lot of inner work to do though but now there’s no rush. I will explore spirituality more, I will do things differently and against my old mindset so I can see what’s out there.

I want more flow and alignment and I definitely know there’s an easier way to do business and to grow all that I’m doing online as a result. And it’s not longer hours or hustling more.

It’s about serving the right people, creating the content that only I can create and which I’m passionate about. It has certain energy in it and it will reach and touch the right people. They are the only ones I’m meant to connect with online, while everyone else is on a different journey.

I also got into human design.

And because I believe everything in the world is energy and that’s exactly why the law of attraction does work, and because I’m looking for assurance that I’m taking the right decisions in certain areas of my life, and that there’s a greater thing going on which I don’t understand, well human design is a combination of all that.

It’s a system that maps out our personal energy field and a human design chart shows your energetic blueprint. There’s a lot of data involved and it looks really complicated but once you do know your energetic type, you literally get a user manual for your life.

You know exactly what your strengths are, and all this is based on your genetic code and the gates in the conscious and subconscious mind. You get powerful knowledge that allows you to do only the things that you’re good at, are meant to be doing and which feel right so you can manifest all your desires.

That has a profound effect on the way you do business. Because it can unlock your unique power so you can choose the best business model, create the most magnetic content, work only with dream clients, feel so much satisfaction from your work, and do all that with ease and flow.

It sounds so fascinating to me and it can answer some of my questions and help me get clarity in my life and work so I’m excited to learn more about it.

They say it’s like the Mayer-Briggs Type Indicator but for your soul. And embodying your human design leads to experiencing more ease, flow and synchronicities and stop living out of alignment.

I already took an amazing course on it and learned all about my human design type, authority, strategy, and I’m applying it. 

I wanna know what parts of myself I’m hiding and why, what parts I’ve rejected and which ones I wanna reclaim. There’s so much inner work to do but in a new direction, that I can’t wait for the result.

I’ll have to listen more, do less, get out of my own way, quiet the ego within, and accept more help and guidance from outside. 

I’m about to take more courses on the topic and will even teach Human Design 101 in my next courses as it can be applied to your life and business in incredible ways.

Alright. This episode was more personal actually which is part of my mission to be my most authentic self and stop hiding.

I wanna hear what you think. 

Keep in mind that all that I shared today is closely related to being a business owner. All these other elements in your life, once they fall into place, you can not just start or grow a business, but you can create something so beautiful, profitable and valuable that will attract more of the energy necessary to help others, make the world a better place, and this will come back to you in ways you can’t imagine.

If you enjoyed this episode and think others should hear it too, leave a review on iTunes. I’ll really appreciate it.

If you too are into human design, let’s chat about it and stay tuned because I’ll talk about it more.

Thanks for tuning in this week and see you in the next episode.

Tune into today's episode to hear about the dangers of being passionate about self-improvement and what you can do to experience growth in all its forms. #personaldevelopmentblog #personaldevelopment #personaldevelopmentgoals #personaldevelopmentpodcastsforwomen #podcastpersonaldevelopment #podcastselfimprovement #podcastsforwomen
About The Author

Lidiya Kesarovska

I'm a blogger, author, course creator and the founder of Let's Reach Success and it's my mission to share my knowledge in lifestyle design, blogging, business and personal development with you so you can manifest all your desires and serve your purpose as a business owner.
I've been named one of the top 10 course creators and experts to watch in 2021 by Yahoo! Finance, have written for TIME magazine, have been featured on Thrive Global, Disrupt Magazine, and more, and quoted on publications like Entrepreneur, Fit Small Business and Fundera.
After turning my blog into a full-time online business, I now teach others how to do the same because financial freedom doesn’t need to be just a dream.
Want support on your blogging journey?? Check out our membership and community for bloggers.

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