Christian

Starting a debate is rarely worth it. People are generally closed minded and are biases to hold certain beliefs they don't want to question. Before starting a debate, always be aware of the purpose of why you wish to even have a debate. Is it because you want to promote how great your views self-actualization are? Or do you genuinely care to understand different perspectives and integrate them to your model of the world? A debate is beneficial when you care to understand and leave the interaction with more knowledge, rather than feeling angry because your views were not externally validated. If you just care about being right, forget about it. Don't demonize her for the views she has even though they are completely opposite to yours. They might seem ridiculous, but they serve a purpose -- to remind you of how you sometimes are ridiculous. Yeah, you! Put the focus right back on yourself first. Ask yourself: "how am I being ridiculous in my life?" If you care about self actualization, live by the principles of the field rather than trying to convince others how great it is.

Day 6: Update: The third time I wrote day 3 in this topic, I actually should have written day 4. This means the current day 4 is in fact day 5 and today is day 6. Note to self: Since the summer vacation is over and I will be entering my second year of highschool, I figured it would be a good idea to meditate in the morning. It will make me calmer throughout the day and give me more mental clarity, allowing me to study more effectively.

Day 4: Meditated 20 min from 11:40pm-12pm During the meditation, I was sitting outside in a chair on my balcony, admiring the universe and life itself. It hit me that it is such a miracle at all that experience as a whole exists and how blessed I'm to be alive. Definetly doing more outdoor meditations like this one in the future.

Hey, self actualizers. I want to talk about habits and how to build habits because it is one of the most important aspects of personal development. Setting up quality habits will mean the difference between a life of suffering and happiness so It's very important that you listen carefully. I have been on this PD journey for close to 3 years now and I have had a lot of trouble making habits. One of the reasons why is because I've focused too much on building many habits at once. Just recently, I was trying to go to the gym, eat healthy, overcome approach anxiety and meditate. All great things, but NOT when you do them all at once. My advice to you is please make sure that you ONLY focus on one habit at a time. Not two, one. Building new habits is difficult and do not overestimate your will-power. It is a finite and precious ressource. I did not fully get that so here I am back to square one with no habits installed, I failed miserably because I was trying to do too much too soon. Don't be like me, be smart and patient when it comes to building habits and I gurantee you will have more success

Day 3 - meditated 20 minutes from 9pm-9:20pm. Insight: Today's meditation made me realize how out of touch I am with reality and being.

Smells like a sneaky form of procrastination. It's probably related to perfectionism and you getting lost in the details. Try to zoom out and understand the big picture of what you are reading in Greek next time. That way, you will develop a deeper understanding of the main points. Maybe try some daily meditation too..

Found this link: http://spiraldynamicsintegral.nl/en/turquoise/ It offers a very comprehensive explanation of stage turquise

Day 2 - meditated 20 min at 1:30 am on day 3 (I know It's not technically day 2, but who cares. Day 3: Meditated 20 minutes from 2:50-3:10pm.

@sleeperstakes My advice is for you to first determine where you are at in your life right now. Do you have the basic human needs covered or are there any needs you are not meeting? To answer this question as accurate as possible, I reccomend you study Maslow's hierachy of needs. It is basically a pyramid with the basic needs such as food and shelter at the bottom and at the tip of the pyramid is the need for self actualization/self-transcendence. Where are you on that pyramid? You need to lay a solid foundation and fill any unfulfilled needs as soon as possible. Set realistic goals that AIM to meget your needs. Take 90% action, listen to 10% theory. Work your way up from the bottom of the pyramid and get the basics handled before seriously pursuing for self actualization and self transcendence. And keep that meditation habit going, It's such a critical habit to have in your life.

@d0ornokey I don't know what happened to you precisely. But I know that hope and drive -- like willpower -- is a finite ressource. You cannot have hope forever and sometimes, you just need to work on your goals whether you feel like it or not. That is what self discipline is; the ability to do what you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do it whether you feel like it or not. If you commit to do something and understand that hope, desire, willpower and motivation in general do not last, you won't freak out when you lose them and you can still keep hustling despite their abscence.

Day 1 (new beginning) Meditated 20 minutes today, but I did not do it for the past 3 days or so, I know, but that is my fault. I will still complete the challenge, but this time, I'm starting over from day 1 again. Last time I made it to day 4 and I'm not satisfied with that at all

You don't push it aside. In general, when negativity creepes up, you just observe it and go on about your day. You can't beat thought with thought, but you can take action in spite of what your mind says!

Day 4: meditated from 7:10-7:30 pm Positives: Earlier than yeasterday, but still quite late. Negatives: Checked my phone once because I was worried if I had even set the timer. Crazy what excuses the mind comes up with to avoid the present moment!

@SamEuphoria93 Make one positive affirmation per goal and stick with it. Repeating one affirmation daily is better. But I don't believe just affirmations are enough. If you sit in your mom's basement and keep affirming "I am attractive to women" and you: never leave your House, Don't have any friends of the opposite sex and Dislike social interactions in general, you will have a hard time believing in what you are saying. Your mind knows when you are lying to yourself. My point is that if you want to believe in yourself and what you are affirming, you should be taking action in addition to making positive affirmations about whatever goal you desire to materialize.

Day 3 - meditated from 11:20pm-11:40pm. Positives: Sat in one sitting with no distractions. Improvements: Meditate earlier in the day and try to be more aware of your thinking process when meditating.

Day 2 Meditated 20 minutes from 2:17-2:37 pm. Positives: Did not check my phone once during session. I also focused on being aware of my thoughts. Negatives: Did not sit up straight without any back-support. Also, I decided to lye on my bed which increased the risk of me falling asleep during the session -- no go Next time: Sit up straight -- maybe in a chair -- and don't check your phone during the session.

Day 1 Today I meditated 20 minutes in one sitting from 4:30-4:50pm. Positives: I encountered little resistance and I did not check my phone once during the session. Negatives: I learned my back against a surface and that made me my meditation session less focused. Also, try to meditate earlier in the day, ideally in the morning. Next time: Sit with your back up straight and zone more in on the present.

@IVONNE This whole notion of finding your talent is a hoax in my opinion. It should be rephrased into: how can you find your life purpose? Talent accounts for less than 10% of your skill level at anything. Hard work and dedication always trump talent in the long run. Rather than asking: what is my talent, you should be asking: What are my top values? What is the impact I want to have on the world? When you can authentically answer these questions, you can find different niches that are related to your top values, your impact statement and commit to a life purpose. At that point, it is all about living in integrity with your life purpose and working hard, acquiring skills, becoming so good they can't ignore you. Then, with time and a lot of effort, people will come up you you and say: "hey, why are you so talented at x? How can I find my talent like you?" And you will just laugh and smile because you understand it is not at all about talent as much as hard work, finding your top values and your motivation behind why you began the journey in the first place.

@Alex Busch Well, as @BjarkeT already pointed out, read those two books. They are great and relevant for you atm. Also, what you want to do is make sure that when you study, you at least set up the environment to get into a flow state. To enter a flow state, the challenge you are performing must match or be slighgly above your skill level. Don't study something too difficult or too easy. Find that perfect fit for you. You say in your post that when you study, you hit a brick wall. Why is that? Maybe you lack deep understanding of the fundamentals of the topics, maybe you study too long or something completely different. Try to get to the root cause of this. It must be very demotivating and draining to always hit a brick wall. To me, studying feels like solving a giant jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces connect and it is always under construction. It never stops and the unfolding of this puzzle is what motivates me. Other important points: how=why. Why do you want to study? Simple, yet powerful question. Could maybe be related to your LP. Check out Scott Young's youtube channel. Thank me later

@Jonson It is not either you master one thing or you become standard at everything. That is a little oversimplified. In terms of your LP, sure, find one niche and exploit it. That still means your LP can change, it can revolutionize, but it will still generally be within the same niche or honor the same values you have. But just because you have one LP, you still need basic life skills to succeed and live a decent life. What do I mean? Marketing, social skills, relationships, enlightenment, travelling, study skills, fitness, friendships, good morals, boundaries, self knowledge, love of learning, ability to take action and implement theory. There are so many things to learn and study! Don't limit yourself in the context of your life, but more so in regards to your life purpose.

You should do whatever the fuck you want.

To make progress faster, you need to be focused only on what you can control. First thing that comes to mind is how hard you work and how commited you are. Focus on that, focus on taking action consistently and don't worry about how to get the result faster. That is a sneaky form of procrastination and you know it deep down. It will hold you back, period. The mind is the greatest obstacle.

I hope the title "this is so silly" was you reflecting on the BS you just wrote. You won't "get there some day if you were means for greatness" and self actualization is necessary for any real change you wish to see in yourself and the impact you have on the world. Reducing personal development down to over-thinking life is just so narrow-minded and stupid.

Peter Ralston in his amazing book "no boundary" shares a powerful exercise on how to release emotions. You can find it in Leo's book list in the consciosness-section. Some people have certain energy blocks in their body. It might be in their chest, shoulders, neck, lower abdomen, etc. These energy blocks are causes by muscle contractions that keep emotions restricted in the body. One problem with restricting emotions in the body is that when we hold in pain or pleasure, we become numb to our emotions and our experience of really becomes very bland. Secondly, we unconsciously begin to make it a habit to tense up certain muscle groups to resist certain emotions. This habit is a great expenditure of energy and in my opinion this energy could be used a lot more resourcefully. It also makes us unaware of how we are the ones who resist our emotions by tensing our muscles. When we do not see this, we are unable to release the tension and let whatever emotion bubble up to the surface of our consciousness. So without more rambling, let me explain you the exercise. First, locate the energy block - it might be in your shoulders, jaw, throat - give it your full awareness, feeling just where the tension is and which muscles seem to be involved. Then, slowly but deliberately try to increase the tension and pressure in those muscles(this is the counter intuitive part). Normally, we are told to relax the areas of our bodies which are tense, but Peter Ralston suggests otherwise. While you increase the tention, simultaneously notice that you are not just clamping your muscles, you are actively trying to hold something in. You can even repeat out loud or in your mind: No, I won't let go, I'm resisting so that you can realize that you are deliberately holding in or resisting the flow of an emotion. To summarize, the first step is to deliberately increase the tension in those muscle groups involved in holding in a particular emotion. Then, the second step is to experience the emotion that the energy block is designes to restrict. If you perform the first step successfully, you will notice that you will be able to experience your emotions more intensely. When you encounter a strong emotion, you might want to cry, scream, hit something or laugh. Allow these side-effects to happen as you calmly observe your experience. The last point is that it takes time to release energy blockages, but with time and dedicated hard work, it is definetly possibie. Peter Ralston claims that if you do this exercise in 15 minute blockages per day for 30 days straight, you will almost certainly see significant improvement in the release of these energy blockages.

Integrity, authenticity, open mindedness, detachment from outcome, peace, happiness, feeling like you are on purpose, social awareness, financial freedom, health, enlightenment, love of learning. Watch the video "10 things you want, but don't know that you want" if you haven't already