12. Personal Development For Smart People - Steve Pavlina (📱)
17 Mar 2017
Rating 9/10
Reading Notes:
You have no idea how good freedom feels until you expect to lose it.
What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.” — HENRY MILLER
We primarily grow as human beings by discovering new truths about ourselves and our reality.
You can’t solve problems if you don’t admit they exist.
In order to grow, you must repeatedly tackle fresh challenges and consider new ideas to give your mind fresh input. If you merely repeat the same experiences, you’ll stagnate, and your mental capacity will atrophy.
A simple rule of thumb is this: whatever you fear, you must eventually face.
If you want your situation to improve, you must first come clean with yourself and admit the whole truth.
Self-awareness. This includes becoming aware of your strengths, weaknesses, talents, knowledge, biases, attachments, desires, emotions, instincts, habits, and state of mind.
Journaling is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to discover new truths. By getting your thoughts out of your head and putting them down in writing, you’ll gain insights you’d otherwise miss.
If you want to grow as a conscious human being, you must learn to embrace truth and relinquish falsehood. Truth enhances growth; falsehood destroys it.
“Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.” — George Washington Carver
If you want to grow consciously, you must deliberately decide which connections you’ll strengthen and which you’ll allow to weaken. Such choices ultimately determine the shape of your life. In the long run, your life becomes a reflection of what you choose to connect with most often. When you feel good about your connections, you come into greater alignment with the principle of love.
In order to learn and grow, you must have the freedom to connect with what you want and to disconnect from what you don’t want. No one can give you that freedom. It’s your birthright as a human being. You don’t need anyone’s permission to decide which connections are best for you. It’s up to you to take the initiative to connect with what you want and to disconnect from what you don’t want. By consciously making connections that feel intuitively correct to you, you bring yourself into alignment with the principle of love.
Your connection with another person is whatever you think it is. Your belief makes the relationship real.
When you understand that there’s no such thing as an external relationship and that all such connections exist solely in your mind, you’ll become aware that the true purpose of relationships is self-exploration. Whenever you communicate in any fashion, you are in truth exploring different aspects of yourself. When you feel a deep sense of communion with another person, you’re actually connecting deeply with an important part of yourself. By communing with others, you learn to love yourself more fully.
They want someone to understand them, someone who can remind them that they aren’t alone. When you connect with people, you’re giving them exactly what they want.
In truth, your disconnection from other people is a sign that you’ve disconnected from the best parts of yourself.
The purpose of goal setting isn’t to control the future. That would be senseless because the future only exists in your imagination. The point of goal setting is to improve the quality of your present-moment reality.
Whenever you set your sights on achieving something, always ask yourself, “How does setting this goal improve my present reality?” If it doesn’t improve your present reality, then the goal is pointless, and you may as well dump it. But if it brings greater clarity, focus, and motivation to your life when you think about it, it’s a keeper.
Many people set goals and then assume the path to reach them will require suffering and sacrifice. This is a recipe for failure. Whenever you consider a new goal, pay attention to the effect it has on your present reality. Set goals that make you feel powerful, motivated, and driven when you focus on them, long before the final outcome is actually achieved. Avoid setting goals that make you feel powerless, stressed, or weak. Treat this process as a way to enhance your present focus, not as a way to control the future.
When you set a goal that improves your present reality, what does it matter how long it takes to achieve the final outcome? Whether it takes one week or five years is irrelevant. The whole path is fun and enjoyable. More important, you feel happy and fulfilled this very moment. This drives you to take action from a state of joy, so you’re productive too. Instead of going after goals you think will make you happy in the distant future, focus on goals that make you happy right now.
You’ll learn a lot about yourself when you discover the kinds of goals that really drive you. It took me years to learn that material goals always de-motivate me.
What really gets my juices flowing is helping people grow. I gush with joy when I see people experience breakthrough “Aha!” moments that help them move forward in life. That seems to be my best fuel for action. When I set goals centered on making a positive difference in people’s lives, I feel empowered and driven to get moving.
Self-discipline is the willingness to do what it takes to achieve the results you want regardless of your mood. When you’re feeling unmotivated, apathetic, bored, or lazy, self-discipline provides your second wind and keeps you moving.
Motivation starts the race, but self-discipline ultimately crosses the finish line.
Finishing an important task early in the day is motivating and energizing. When you conquer that first hour, you feel that no matter what else happens, your day is already a success.
Understand that failure and success are not opposites. Failure is an unavoidable part of success. When you fail, it means you’re taking action, so you’re making mistakes and educating yourself.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan “Press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
If you’re clear about what you want, settle for nothing less. Accept that success will take time, perhaps much longer than you’d like. Rid yourself of the fast and easy, something-for-nothing mind-set. Keep your head down, work hard, and know that your efforts will eventually pay off, as long as you keep learning and growing.
There’s absolutely no dishonor in being a beginner. Beginning is simply the first step toward winning.
Orchestrate Small Rebellions: One of the best ways to do so is to intentionally violate others’ expectations by orchestrating small rebellions. A small rebellion is an act of free will with minimal negative consequences. You’re simply asserting your independence, allowing others to react however they wish.
If you want something, ask for it. Accept the risk of rejection, and summon the courage to take action anyway. If you get turned down, you’ll survive. You’ll learn from the experience and grow stronger. If you don’t get rejected, you’ll achieve your outcome in the fastest and simplest way possible. When you risk rejection, either you get what you want or you build some courage. Either way the outcome is positive.
Even when you fail, facing your fear is a positive outcome in its own right. Don’t worry about rejection; just accept that it’s going to happen every now and then.
Remember that whatever you fear, you must eventually face, including death itself.
Being authentic means expressing yourself congruently. The person you project on the outside is the person you truly are on the inside, whether you’re communicating with an intimate friend or someone you just met.
A fascinating quality of intelligence is that it seeks its own improvement. Perhaps the smartest choice we can make is to attempt to become smarter, and growth is the mechanism through which this is achieved. It is intelligent to grow.
Working on your personal growth may seem like a completely selfish undertaking, but in fact it’s the most selfless thing you can possibly do.
If you haven’t already discovered this, you’ll eventually realize that when you improve yourself, you inspire others to do the same. Those people then inspire even more people, and your positive ripples of growth ultimately impact everyone. As you improve yourself, you improve all of us. As the cells improve, the whole body improves.
If you forget everything else from this book and remember only one piece of advice, it is simply this: The most intelligent thing you can possibly do with your life is to grow.
What inspires you most isn’t the achievement of any particular goal; it’s the endless flow of creative self-expression. You fall in love with the journey itself.
True success is being able to look at yourself in the mirror and be completely at peace with what you see.
Where is the career path with a heart—the path that terrifies you, the path the stirs your soul, the path you secretly fantasize about? That’s the path that honors the real you.
Don’t get down on yourself if you can’t discover your ideal career right away. Just keep making the most conscious decisions you can and you’ll eventually get there. The heart-centered path is a lifetime journey, not a fixed destination.
If you want to earn income as a contributor, you must impart social value, not personal value. Many would-be contributors get stuck on this concept. Personal value is whatever you say it is. You’re free to decide what has value for you personally, and it doesn’t matter if anyone agrees with you. Social value, however, is determined by social consensus. If you believe that your work has tremendous value, but virtually no one else does, then your work may have high personal value but little or no social worth. Let me repeat the key point: your income depends on the social value of your work, not the personal value.
A goal is worthless if it doesn’t empower you.
Ask yourself: Would anyone be deeply saddened if I stopped contributing? Would anyone cry if I went out of business? If the answer is no, it’s a safe bet you’re on the wrong path.
Human relationships are a tremendous source of learning and growth. Our greatest rewards in life originate there, as do our most challenging problems.
The best relationships serve to increase your power rather than diminish it. The point of entering into a relationship is to increase your alignment with truth, love, and power, thereby experiencing greater wholeness.
If you succumb to relationships that weaken you or make you feel trapped, you’re giving your power away.
It’s been said that you can predict your future by looking at the people with whom you spend the most time. That isn’t far from the truth. Your relationships will have a tremendous influence on your self-development. If you find yourself using all your power and self-discipline to resist the negative influence of your own friends, you’re fighting a losing battle.
The biggest risks are missing out on laughs you never shared, people you never helped, and the potential partner you sentenced to solitude. That’s way too high a price for avoiding a little harmless rejection or embarrassment.
In the long run, you probably won’t regret the connections you made that didn’t work out; you’ll regret the ones you never made, forever wondering what might have been.
Most of the growth you experience as a human being will come from your interactions with other people. Sometimes that growth will be straightforward and predictable, such as that from a teacher- student relationship. Other times it will take many twists and turns, such as that from the relationship between two intimate lovers. In all its various forms, human relationships are a beauty to behold, well worth the price of admission.
Sharing your life with others is one of the best parts of being human, but it doesn’t come without risk.
Seek truth with open eyes. Courageously accept your discoveries and their consequences. Rid your life of falsehood, denial, and fear of what is. Make truth your ally, not your enemy. This isn’t easy, but it is correct.
Share your love openly. Connect with yourself and others by tuning in to the connection that already exists. The risk of rejection is overshadowed by the rewards of loving connections.
Whenever you feel disconnected, reach out and connect with another human being. Remember that you’re always loved.
Fully develop your human abilities, and use your power in honorable service for the highest good of all. False power corrupts, but true power elevates. The more you resonate with truth and love, the greater your ability to wield power wisely. No one is served by your refusal to shine.
Embrace your unique path of growth. Use your intellect and emotions to guide you in the conscious pursuit of truth, love, and power. Invest in creative self-expression, service, and contribution, and you will suffer no scarcity. Your greatest gift to the world is to share who you really are.
Enjoy your incredible human journey. Accept the highs and the lows as equally valuable. Recognize that your deepest sorrows reveal your greatest joys. Share your stories with others, and know that you’re not alone. Be grateful for your time on earth.
Live consciously.