Jesper

I would love to see a video about how to get myself into action. It's easy to watch a hundred videos and read 140 books and fill my head with theory, and sit at home alone and spend days analyzing myself. But all this theoretical learning and analyzing doesn't get me results. The only way to really grow is by applying the theory in practice, by putting myself out there and experiment. But I find this hard - it's scary, I have a lot of resistance, I can plan to do something but when the moment is there all kinds of thoughts pop up that stop me, for example "this is too hard, I should try something more easy", "this is just not for me", "I'm already happy and I don't need to do this", etc. This resistance is the biggest thing that has been holding me back for years on getting real results and making real progress. I'd love a video about how to put all the theory into practice and overcoming resistance.

Have you seen the other topic about the Meyers-Briggs test:

@Toasty For me it is definitely something I enjoy and am passionate about. I grew up in the 1980's when the 8-bit home computers were popular. My brother and I got a Commodore 64 in December 1984 and it wasn't long before I discovered programming on it. It has been my hobby since I was a teenager. Things that I love about it are the intellectual challenge, it's like solving a big and complicated puzzle, and the creativity - to design and build a system just starting with my imagination and getting the fulfillment of seeing it working exactly as I had imagined. Do not choose a profession only because it pays well but that you don't enjoy - that will make you bored and miserable, no matter how much money you get for it. I still enjoy the programming itself a lot, but the past six months I've been thinking about what the next thing for me would be with regards to work. One thing that has been in the back of my mind for a long time is to give courses or presentations. A few months back I found an opportunity to speak at a conference, I applied for it and my idea for a talk was accepted. I've been preparing and practicing a lot - and next week I'll be on stage at a conference in Vienna!

It's hard to recommend one programming language. To become a great programmer, you'll want to learn multiple programming languages. The most used programming languages in enterprise software are Java and C#, other popular programming languages are JavaScript, C, C++ and Python, and there are thousands of other programming languages out there. I do most of my professional work in Java and Scala.

I'm a software developer. I don't call myself a web developer, because most of what I do is on the back-end, server-side software, even though sometimes I also do web applications. I've been working as a freelancer since the beginning of 2009. Before that, I've been an employee in a big software consulting company for more than 13 years. Starting as a freelancer is absolutely the best thing that I ever did in my career. I now have a lot more freedom and money (2,5x the income compared to when I was an employee). I consider myself fortunate that I'm in this business, because there's a big demand for good software developers and there aren't many people who are really good at it. I've never had any trouble finding work. In my opinion, the security of a permanent job is overestimated. I absolutely do not want to go back to being an employee.

Just talk about vegetables or raisin bread! Here is another video: Never Run Out of Things to Say with Girls

First of all, it does not work if the only thing you do is watch videos or read books. You can watch all Leo's videos a hundred times and read all the books on the book list ten times and then you'll have learned a lot of theory, but nothing will have changed in your life. You really need to take it on to experiment with all that knowledge in your life, for real. Have a look at this one of Leo's videos: How To Increase Your Results From Self-Help Products by 10x Personally I have some areas in my life where I find it really hard to put the theory into practice, because I have limiting beliefs and fears that take courage and perseverance to get over. Second, you have to be patient. It will take time, for some things it will take years before you really start to discover how things exactly work in your life and before you realize how you've changed. Don't expect to see dramatic results in a few days or even weeks. There are no quick fixes. Really working on your own personal development is a long-term commitment to yourself.

Here's a scenario that often happens to me when I take something new on. I see a new possibility for myself and I'm eager to learn, so I invent some exercise to do and I promise myself that I'll do it at a certain moment in time. The time passes, and for whatever reason I don't do it (for example, I let myself be stopped by fear or distractions). I condemn myself for not doing it and make a new promise: "I'll do it tomorrow!". Tomorrow comes and again I don't do it and condemn myself again. After this repeats a few times I loose trust in myself and give up. This judging and condemning myself doesn't help, it just reinforces my negative idea that I can't do it and it makes me quit. But it's hard to learn to not do that anymore. How do you deal with this and what's an effective way to stop condemning myself and not quit?

Leo even has a video about this...: Beware Of False Prophets - Stop Worshipping Human Personality

There's nothing wrong with expressing your emotions and letting yourself go by, for example, dancing. From your post it looks like you are concerned with doing things "right", it seems like you think it is good to always keep all your emotions under control. I regularly go to dancing events, in my city there's a group of people who organize a barefoot dancing event every month. It starts with a meditation, where someone takes the group and leads them to getting grounded and getting comfortable and loose in their body, and then a DJ takes over and it's time to dance. The idea is that everybody can freely express themselves, without judging or any other concerns running through your head. I love it, it's great. Besides it just being fun and nice to freely express myself it also teaches me things like not being concerned with what other people think of me. A friend of mine is a yoga teacher and she sometimes does sessions with small groups of people to make them express themselves from deep within. People let loose all kinds of emotions and sounds there. There's nothing wrong with that, in fact it's very liberating and can teach you a lot about yourself, for example what emotions you have that you're normally hiding. My advice would be: Just enjoy yourself, you don't need to constrain and control yourself all the time. I think you might be trying to control and suppress your emotions too hard. I don't like drinking or drugs.

In my opinion there's nothing mystical going on when you experience this. It's just different processes in your brain which temporarily go out-of-sync which give you this weird feeling that you've already experienced what is happening to you at the moment.

Hello everybody. I've found Actualized.org just a few days ago, one of Leo's videos appeared in the list of videos that I might like on YouTube. I recognized a lot of myself in what Leo was telling about himself. I'm also an analytical, rational thinker and an introvert. I've done some personal development work in the past but haven't been active with it for a number of years now. Leo's videos inspired me to really take this on for the long term. Some parts of my life are great; for example, work. I am a freelance software developer and I love it. The thing I like most about it is the creativity: starting with nothing, inventing solutions, then building a piece of software and making it work as I had imagined. I've always been very confident with regard to work, and when I start working with new people they almost always are impressed and quickly recognize me as a knowledgeable expert. The demand for good software developers is far greater than the supply - it's easy for me to find well-paying freelance jobs. I consider myself lucky that I work in this field. At the moment I'm preparing to do something new: presenting a talk at a conference in about two weeks. I've never done public speaking for a large audience, but my self-confidence with regard to work is so good that I'm not anxious for it at all. The one big thing in my life that is not good at all is finding a girlfriend. I've not had a relation for a very long time and my confidence with regard to women is at rock bottom. So much so that I've totally given up on it and convinced myself that this is something that will never happen for me, because it's something that I just cannot do, because something is wrong with me, I am not normal, I have a personality defect that just makes it impossible. I've even convinced myself that I don't even want it anymore; I'm used to living alone and I'm happy this way, so I can just ignore this desire and go on living. It even took me a while to admit to myself that if I want to work on personal development, then this is the biggest thing that I need to take on, despite the resistance I have to it. I could go on and improve other parts of my life, but it would really be disingenuous to myself to pretend that the girlfriend issue is something I can ignore. Right now I'm not feeling enthousiastic about working on this, especially when I think about my experiences and failures in the past, but it just is the thing that is my biggest weak point and I can't ignore it. I haven't been doing anything in the past two or three years, but some of the things I've done are: dating websites / dating agencies - had only a few dates which went awkward, conversation was shallow and boring speed dating - never had any matches, the conversations were very shallow and cliché membership of an activity club - with most activities I felt like an outsider, found it hard to connect to people forcing myself to go out alone - a disaster, feeling too anxious to approach women, ending up condemning myself and reinforcing my belief that I just can't do this So, now I'm trying to figure out how to get started with this, in a way that is going to lead to results in the long term, instead of after a while quitting and convincing myself again that it's an unfixable problem. What would be a good way to get started?

Here's a recent example of how I had this nagging feeling. I was on holiday recently in a warm and sunny country, together with my parents. At one place there was a building project, where they were building holiday villas, it all looked great, some of those villas even have their own swimming pool. They are too expensive for me to buy, but I wasn't seriously contemplating buying such a villa - just dreaming of how it would be to have such a villa and live there. The thought I got was: but what would I do with such a villa as a single guy? Go and live there by myself? I would be much happier if I'd have a girlfriend and we would have a great time living there together.

@Naviy I am exactly everything that you describe (except that I'm 44 instead of 25). I've been alone for a very long time, convinced myself that it's too late and never going to happen for me, but I know I'm intelligent, work and income is great, I own a house, I'm not ugly, and I'm also introverted and not very social. Life is going great in many ways and I'm not depressed but every once in a while I get this nagging feeling that there's a big part that I've been missing. I've given up on getting better with relations because the fear and pain of really putting myself on the line seem too great. I also have felt inferior because everybody else has a woman and I don't - and indeed, it seems unfair that even idiots seem to have no problem at all getting girls while I have so much to offer. But I also realize that when I want to work on my personal development, I cannot deny this part of my life. I would be dishonest to myself if I would continue to deny that this is something that's important to me. When I started working on my personal development, I didn't even have working on this in mind at all. But if I'm really honest with myself, I just can't deny it, despite all my thoughts that I don't need it and that I'll be OK without this part of my life. It's simply something I must take on, whether I feel like it or not, it's the thing I can develop and grow most in. I am not going to lie about this to myself anymore! @Pallero thanks for your perspective on this and how you've overcome it! That's helpful and inspiring.

Thanks @Will . When I think about myself, one thing that is definitely playing a role in how I behave comes out of fear of being rejected, or what other people think of me, and especially with women that I'm afraid that she might think I want something from her when I approach her. The more attractive the girl is, the more attached I am to the outcome that she must like me and the more insecure and careful I'm being with that girl. That is definitely something that I will work on.

Being Mr. Nice Guy is also one of my biggest things that I have to overcome (and I think I'm slowly getting rid of it). Where it comes from: this might ofcourse be different for different people, but in my case I think it ultimately comes from fear of being rejected, fear of what other people might think of me, and fear of not fitting in. Me being Mr. Nice Guy started long ago, in highschool. I thought that if I would just be as nice and kind as I could be to girls and do everything for the girl that I had a crush on, she would love me. But it didn't work like that. What happened is that she would make me do all kinds of stupid stuff and then she took off with some bad guy, who was smoking and doing bad things. I didn't understand how it was possible that she didn't love me when I was being perfectly nice and doing everything for her and how it was possible that she loved that bad guy. Being Mr. Nice Guy totally does not work with women. Don't try to be nice and a gentleman. Have a look at these videos from Leo: What Women Want In A Man - 5 Factors That Hook Women Like Crack How To Stop Caring What People Think Of You

I'm sorry, but this is vague and useless advice. It's the same thing as what people told me when I was a teenager. "Just be yourself, and you will meet her someday!", "Just be positive and be patient and things will be alright!". It doesn't work like that. Don't surrender to your "fate". There is no such thing as your fate that you have to surrender to. You have to work on yourself, and take action. Nobody is suddenly going to ring your doorbell one day and tell you "Here I am, your prince on the white horse!". If you are attracting the wrong people in your life, then you have to really start learning and thinking hard about yourself. What exactly is wrong with these people you are attracting? Why are you attracting them? What are you doing that attracts the wrong people? Maybe you have some hidden desire that makes you feel attracted to them? Find out exactly what you are doing that keeps you in this situation, and then find a way to change yourself.

I think that theory is important to start with - you have to learn the principles, study, find out how things work and how your own psychology works. But just learning theory isn't going to get you results - putting the theory into practice, and experimenting with it in your own life, is essential. By studying your rational mind can learn things, but the only way your subconscious mind can learn things is by trying them out and by experiencing what it is like. For example, you can't become really self-confident only by learning theoretically what it means. You have to experience and feel what it is like to make your subconscious really accept it and to really change your own internal self-image. Learning the theory is not very hard for me. Putting the theory into practice, that's the hardest thing in personal development. That's where I encounter resistance, because it's scary to put myself on the line and do things that I've never done before. I often have to overcome my resistance by reminding myself why I'm doing this. Be scared and do it anyway, because I know where I want to be.

I agree, the forums are a great idea, it's super-helpful to see what other people's stories are, what they are working on, how they solved issues and how they have grown, I feel I can learn a lot for myself from everybody here. And it's great to be in this community of like-minded people who are all working on how to grow and improve. Thanks Leo and everybody here!

For me it mostly comes down to fear of being rejected, fear of what other people might think of me: for example they might think that what I say is stupid or naive. So I don't express myself, I keep the conversation shallow, I don't say what I think or how I feel. I think a good way to practice with this is to have conversations with just one other person at first, preferrably a good friend (someone that you feel at ease with talking to). Practice really expressing your feelings and don't hold back. Push yourself to go a little further expressing yourself to your good friend. That will make it easier to become more expressive and assertive with other people and groups.

Leo has so many videos about so many different topics, and they are all interesting. I've found that I'm eager to start working on things, but there are so many different topics that it's impossible to try to do everything at once. Personal development is a journey for the long term. Don't expect to learn and practice everything in a week, or a few months or even 5 years. You'll have to pick a topic that appeals to you and concentrate on that for a while, and be patient. Think about what major points in your life are that you want to work on, and pick a topic to start with from there.

I got: ISTJ - Logistician - ISTJ-A Mind: 27% extraverted, 73% introverted Energy: 41% intuitive, 59% observant Nature: 58% thinking, 42% feeling Tactics: 67% judging, 33% prospecting Identity: 75% assertive, 25% turbulent Interesting, and I do indeed recognize myself in the result, but one thing that I don't like about these kinds of tests is that they put you in a box, and that box is tied to a stereotype, and once people know what box you're in they very easily start treating you based on the attached stereotype instead of as the unique person that you are. For that reason I absolutely hate it when for example companies try to seriously use this test to judge job applicants. It's fine for entertainment purposes, but you shouldn't assign too much meaning to the result. Besides that, people can change, in fact what we're all doing in this community is trying to grow and change. It's not a good idea to take the result as the definitive and fixed answer on who you are as a person for your whole life.

Thanks @Lynnel and @zenny. I'll lookup shift by RSD Julien. Cold approach pick up... right now I have voices in me that tell me that something like that is totally impossible for me and that I should try something more easy. I know rationally that that's nonsense, but subconsciously it's baked into me that I can't do that. I have to find a way to reprogram myself. I don't feel miserable about not being in a relationship, I'm not depressed about it - I've become used to living alone and other parts of my life are going great. But when I imagine myself on my death bed and someone asks me to look back on my life... I get a knot in my stomach when I hear myself saying that lots of things were great but that I've never found love. So deep down I feel that it's the biggest thing I need to take on in my life. Thanks for your comments!

I don't see how shyness would be linked to morality. Can you explain in more detail why you think shyness is about morality? Is it because you are afraid that other people might think you are immoral? I think that shyness comes out of being afraid of what other people think about you, and being afraid of being judged by other people - but not necessarily about morality, it can be about other subjects too. I used to be shy because I had a huge fear of being rejected - being afraid that other people might not like me. Many people have a bias where they think that they are the center of attention. They feel like everybody around them is paying attention to them and judging them all the time. In reality that's not true - people are mostly busy with themselves. Realizing this was one of the things that helped me to get over shyness. Also, when you express yourself, rather than hide yourself, the chance is bigger that people will accept and have respect for you. So, not expressing you because you are shy can actually cause people to reject you - exactly what you're afraid of when you're shy.

Hello everybody! Name: Jesper de Jong Age: 44 Gender: Male Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands Occupation: Software engineer (self-employed) Marital Status: Not in a relationship Kids: No Hobbies: playing guitar, photography, personal development I got into personal development around 2000 when I did a number of courses from Landmark Education, which my brother had pointed me toward. I learned a lot there, but it didn't really make me work on personal development for the long term. A few years ago I did a few other courses, from CSA. Again, I learned some things, but I also noticed that I was mainly learning theory, and I found that I have an enormous amount of resistance to actually practically applying what I learned. Some areas of my life are going great, and some areas are not going well at all. Work is going great. I'm very confident at work, and ever since my first job when I was 24, people always quickly viewed me as a valuable and knowledgeable expert. I made a big change in 2009, when I started my own one-man company. I'm very happy now working as a freelance software developer. I like my job and my income is great (although it won't make be financially independent), but I'm also trying to figure out what I can improve in this area. The main thing that I don't like about my work is that my income is tied directly to the amount of time I put into it (I am paid by the hour). What is not going well at all is relationships. I've been without a relationship for a very long time and I've convinced myself that that's something that is not for me, that it doesn't fit with my personality, and that I have no idea how to get a girlfriend. I know those are limiting beliefs, but knowing that ofcourse doesn't make them go away. This area is where my biggest challenges are. Personal challenges I've overcome: Starting on my own as a freelancer Used to be Mr. Nice Guy, trying to please everybody and not expressing myself - I'm slowly getting rid of this Doing fitness on a regular schedule and not skip even if I don't feel like doing it What I'm working on now: Being more "out there" in my work life: started a blog, going to present at a conference in two weeks Making changes in my work so that it is not tied so directly to my time (I want more freedom with time) Finding out what my life purpose is Committing to really get into personal development for the long term Overcoming resistance to apply the theory in real life My biggest challenge: getting a relationship with a great woman