Personal development. Type the term into Google and you get 115 million results, give or take a blog or two. Thats not surprising. The personal development industry is worth billions of dollars. And that number will keep growing now that the global economic downturn has left millions out of work, reconsidering what they want to do with their lives and looking for new ways to get ahead.

But theres a problem. With hundreds of programs, thousands of books, and what sometimes seems like millions of blogs, its easy to feel overwhelmed. And, much like Barry Schwartz discussed in the paradox of choice:

with so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all.

And it gets worse. Even if we manage to overcome the paralysis and make a choice, Schwartz continues, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from. In other words, we end up blaming ourselves because we feel we could have done better.

Fortunately, theres a way for us to solve these problems:

Schwartz concluded his TED Talk by saying that the key to happiness is lower expectations. What do you think? Should we expect less from personal development? Or should we simply make better choices when it comes to our inner growth? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

(Photo credit: Stressed Businessman via Shutterstock)

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The Problem with Personal Development - Lifehack