If you’re at all interested in personal development, I have one crucial advice.

Stop doing the stupid stuff now!

Stop smoking, drink-bingeing, and drugs. Stop eating too much, throwing up after meals and sleeping when you should be productive. Stop refusing to schedule your activities, balance your finances, and pay your debts. All this and others like it are surface-level stuff. If you’re involved in personal growth and this is the stuff that eats your time away, I think you’re wasting energy unnecessarily.

All it takes is a conscious effort - no weird systems, new scientific data or bestselling book will fix it if you haven’t already. If you’re trying to lose weight and still drink soda, why the fuck are you wasting your time trying to lose weight? Either apply yourself to your goals or just fucking stop it already.

I’m not belittling people’s efforts nor undermining the value of those things for personal development but all that stuff eats time that you can instead use finding and serving your purpose, retraining your mind towards positivity and helping those around you. All the surface-level issues can be handled by sheer willpower and dedication - any effort without those two components will just send you around in circles.

They’re things you can actually fix now without having to look for another resource, other than conscious effort. It’s not something you have to understand further in order to move positively towards. Sure, it’s not easy but how much easier is it compared to spending the rest of your life focused on the same issues over and over?

If you’re really serious about fulfilling your highest potential, getting rid of the mundane stuff that you can get rid of should be a given. Imagine it like you are hiking up a mountain with untold riches on top. You start your climb with plenty of supplies - food, entertainment and anything else you have been used to bringing with you on your travels. Later, as the climb gets steeper, you realize all that heavy supply is slowing you down and keeping you from progressing. You inventory your supplies and estimate that you can get rid of 3/4 of it - entertainment stuff, extra food, dirty clothes. Will you really spend any more time debating with yourself about throwing that extra baggage? Will you spend the next ten days considering what to do with supply you know you don’t need? How long will it take before you decide to throw them away?

Think of these surface-level baggage of negative habits that way. Will you let them go and make your journey easier or hold on to them as you keep trying to reach the top?

Before engaging in any undertaking, it pays to be prepared.  It pays to have a plan and a subsequent alternate plan in case of contingencies.

On the other hand, too much planning can lead to paralysis and inaction.  There is a balance somewhere in the middle and it’s what you need to find.

In order to plan properly, you need to familiarize yourself with what you’re planning about.  If you’re gonna drive a car for the first time, it’s a little silly to make plans. You can read all the books you want and ask everyone all sorts of questions but you can never be fully prepared.  You don’t know how you will react when the engine conks out or when another car cuts your lane.  Is your instinctive reaction one of panic or embarassment or calmness?  The best thing to do is to get the first time over with and just take the plunge.

In order to make a good plan, you need to have a map.  This map represents the territory of the experience.  In order to build a map, you need sensual experience.  Sure, you can get information from books or other sources but when you depend on that, you create a map based from your understanding of other people’s explanation of their own maps.  It’s watered down data that you can’t even relate with because you have never been in a similar situation.

There are only two things I prepare myself for when doing something for the first time:

1. Make sure I don’t die
2. Make sure nobody else gets hurt

With those two things clearly resolved in my mind, I take the plunge.

When you make a plan without a sensible map of the experience, you’ll find yourself faced with too many questions and no answers whatsoever.  You can look towards other people’s answers, but you can never relate them to yourself.

Sometimes, we plan too much out of fear.  Doing something for the first time is a scary proposition.  Planning can make you feel better because you’re involving yourself with something about the experience.  The downside is you waste all this time in your head while the experience is out there waiting for you.

If you notice this behavior in yourself about anything you’re looking at doing, whether going into business or dating again after a divorce, try putting the planning on a halt and take baby steps instead.  What’s the smallest step available towards your goal?  Do that now.  Every small step you take creates a clearer map, allowing you a better view towards your next step.

Take the plunge.

Technorati Tags: planning, first time

1. Find “original-sounding” terms and rename them to their most basic term. For example, instead of calling visualization by that name, some books will call it by other names, presumably, to appear that they actually came up with something unique. So the next time you read “Mental Movie”, “Theater of the Mind”, “Virtual Reality”, or any similar terms, mentally rename it to visualization to keep your reading simple.

2. Learn to skim. Most self-help authors like to go on over and over about the same idea. Regardless of their reasons for doing so, I’ve found it a huge waste of time to read self-help books word per word. Always look for highlighted terms, numbered and bulleted lists and italicized paragraphs. They’re usually the gist and you can get most of what is being communicated from them.

3. Highlight main points. If the book is good, chances are you will want to go back to refresh on particular items so it helps to have the important sections marked for next time.

4. Quickly skim through the table of contents, the preface and the first three chapters. Many self-help books are regurgitated content. If you find nothing original or useful for you from that first skim, drop it. You don’t need to read that particular book.

5. If the book is good and there are exercises, always do them. They help to absorb the material.

6. If you have been on a self-development path for a long time, understand that most new books you read will probably only have two or three things that you can pick up and be of value to you at this moment. You are, essentially, spending your money and time for those two or three items. I like being grateful for those new things. If you feel it’s not worth the investment for two or three new knowledge, maybe it’s time to start doing something else.

7. Skip the book, buy the audio version and save more time.

Technorati Tags: Self-Help Books, Productivity, Reading Habits, Speed Reading