What Most Guides Miss About Self Development (Legends Of Men)

What is the hero’s journey? It is a story pattern that has been told throughout history and across the globe. It was first recognized by Joseph Campbell, who studied the world’s myths and stories for decades. In the hero’s journey, an ordinary man is called to leave his ordinary life to perform heroic feats (slay a dragon, steal an amulet, etc.). By performing these feats the hero is able to protect his people and perhaps even liberate them. He completes the task and uses what he has gained to enhance the lives of his people.

I’m presently developing a system that applies the hero’s journey to our own lives. In doing so, I’ve noticed that the hero’s journey has an integral element that most self-development lacks.

The hero’s journey is broken down into three stages with several tasks performed in each stage. The first stage is the separation from the ordinary world. In this stage, the hero is still an ordinary man living his ordinary life. Something happens in the world that changes things for the worse, usually bringing about some sense of doom. Because of this change, the hero is called into action to make the world right (though it will always be changed). To do this he will have to leave his ordinary world (what we could call the comfort zone).

The second stage is the initiation. In this stage, the hero has left his ordinary world and gone to the world of “magic.” That just means he’s in a new world with new possibilities. Here is where the hero is tested. The ordinary man develops into the hero. He will get stronger and more courageous. All of the good qualities within him will be used and strengthened. Perhaps most importantly, to get what he came for the hero will have to conquer the inner demons that held him back all along.

When he gets what he came for he leaves the “magic” world and returns to the ordinary world. This is the return stage. When he returns he has whatever is needed to cure what ails his people. He has the head of Medusa, or the one ring of power, or the power of the force, or any other variation. He is finally able to set the world right, but he cannot go back to his ordinary life because he is transformed. He has to live as the new man he has become, as a hero in an ordinary world. This transformation is essentially a spiritual one. To complete the hero’s journey, the hero must find a balance between the spiritual enlightenment gained by becoming a hero and the material nature of the ordinary world. When he has done this he is able to live in the moment and no longer fears death.

I’m developing the hero’s journey to be written in a language that applies to our modern lives and masculine self-development. I see now what the hero’s journey has that most self-development lacks; the return stage. Any self-development guide can get you through the first two stages. All the important details are in the second stage and that is where most development guides focus. Where none of them focus though is the return journey.

Why do you want to better yourself? If you just want to learn Mediterranean cooking you don’t need a hero’s journey. If you want to truly transform yourself in a meaningful way you will need the hero’s journey. And to transform yourself like that you will need a powerful motivator. That motivator comes from the return stage.

Your vanity isn’t enough to motivate you to change so drastically. Material pleasures and pleasures of the flesh are fleeting. They are present and then gone. The best motivators are what you can do for your people, for your family, friends, and loved ones. When you are needed to grow for them you will have the motivation you need to power through the trials and personal demons that prevent your development. Transforming from the ordinary man to the hero for them is the best motivator you can have.

I’ve heard often that if you want to grow but your friends or family do not that you will have to leave them behind. This is only partially true. You will have to leave them for a while so you can grow, but you must come back to them. They may not ever meet you on your journey. They may not ever get on your level, but that’s alright. Part of the return stage is melding the hero you have become with the material world you inhabit. You can’t change to a new world every time you change. You’ll have to learn how to be the new you in an old world.

I’ve had my best friends, the people I would call brothers, over half my life now. I’ve had my family my whole life. In that time I’ve grown leaps and bounds. If every time I developed I had to get new friends I’d never had any. I’m always growing. I’m always trying to be the best me. Some of my friends were better men than me, but they didn’t hold it against me. They waited. They were better in the same world as me and when I grew the entire world around us got better.

We grew up poor. How would it be if I developed by making more money but didn’t use what I had learned and the money I made on my people? I’d have more money, and they’d still be poor, but then I’d have no people. The key to the hero’s journey is using the heroic qualities you’ve gained to make your ordinary world better.

That’s the biggest motivator a man can possibly have, the most important part of the journey,  and the part most development guides omit.