3 Entrepreneurship and Personal Development Fallacies That Mess Us Up

There is some impressively sloppy thinking in and around entrepreneurship and personal development circles.

I’m a fan of both entrepreneurship and personal development. But I’m also a fan of sensible thinking.

There are a few ideas that continue to travel around these communities that while great for selling books, courses, and event tickets, actually create some messed up thinking in people.

Fallacy #1 — The more/bigger/better fallacy.

This shows up as messaging that says you should be thinking bigger, wanting better, and doing more.

The problem with this is it is based on an assumption that everyone is not happy where they are so they must do more.

Where exactly is this mystical standard of better and bigger?

Who’s version of better?

Who’s version of bigger?

Believe it or not, some people are pretty content with their lives.

The chief downside of this fallacy is that people are constantly chasing a tomorrow while ignoring today. “Someday things will get better” when I reach destination “X”.

It’s not uncommon to find folks who have been chasing this fallacy for years only to wind up chronically unhappy and in many cases financially ruined. How many credits cards have been maxed because a well crafted pitch about “going bigger” came off the lips from someone on a stage?

Fallacy #2 — You need to have clear goals.

Goals are overrated.

Gurus are fond of referring to studies about college grads who had goals and those that didn’t and the results were if you had goals you won in life, if you didn’t you lose. (I’ve yet to ever see someone produce the actual complete study/paper for this fishing story) but here’s what we know…

This isn’t true.

Most of, if not all of, the very best things in your life, were never on a goals sheet.

Think about that.