ULFBERHT

Hey All, I started my Kriya habit and haven't missed a day. It's been a few weeks now and I'm still stuck on the concentration part. I haven't seen any kind of lights or heard the OM sound that the author was talking about. I've gone back and re-read the text, so I think I'm doing it right, but I haven't any breakthroughs yet. Has anyone been experiencing this? Is there a certain cue about this technique that'll help my progress or do I just need to be patient?

Thanks to everyone who responded. A lot of really good insight here.

@Joseph Maynor I have a life purpose @CreamCat I like your thinking. The mind likes things in 3's. @Anna1 that's good thinking. Right now I have my goals separated into different domains. None of them really conflict with one another, and all of them are serving my life purpose. It's just that I have so many, and I'm so eager to tackle them, I don't want to spread myself too thin by getting goal ADD. It's like this: I have fitness goals, work goals, study goals, spiritual goals, etc, all of which I'm working toward every day. None of them necessarily conflict because they're in different domains and each have somewhat different timelines. To clarify, would it be better if I just really hammered on one domain and blasted my progress, or is working on every domain a little bit every day a decent strategy?

So, I've been practicing Kriya for about two weeks. I've been taking my time with it and am only at Lesson 4 now, the concentration. I've been struggling to focus on the point between my eyes and I haven't seen any lights yet, so I'm taking the time to slow down and do it right before I move on. This evening, before I went to bed, I thought I'd go back through the parts of the book I'd already covered and re-read some of the sections about which I was confused. I fell asleep on the couch during my reading, woke up again some time later, put the book away, and went to bed. As I was falling asleep, I began to wonder what it might have been like to learn the practice from Babiraj. I wondered if he was an actual person, or a spirit, as JC claims. I visualized myself standing in the foothills of a mountain range and seeing him make his way down a path off in the distance- like those scenes from the nature shows where they finally catch a glimpse of a snow leopard after a hundred hours of waiting. After falling asleep, I began to have a vivid lucid dream/ sleep paralysis episode the likes of which I've never experienced before. At first, I saw myself standing next to something akin to a horse trough- a somewhat large, enclosed concrete structure, about knee-high, and filled with water. I kept drawing water from the trough, I guess in an attempt to empty it, but the amount of water in the structure never decreased. Somehow it stayed the same, as if each bucketful of water I drew was automatically replaced. It was in this imagery that I immediately recognized an important spiritual truth, but unfortunately, I've forgotten what it was. But once it happened, I couldn't believe how profound this truth was, and how I had simply stumbled over it in a dream. In that moment I felt like what I had realized was so obvious, it was almost embarrassing that I hadn't recognized it before. After this realization, which now I can't remember, the symbol of me next to the trough vanished, and I was immediately transported into an infinite black tunnel. I kept falling down and down into this tunnel without end. It even seemed like I was accelerating. I could even hear the "whooshing" sound of the air rushing past my ears as I fell. It was as I was falling that I experienced an impending sense of dread. I was falling into the infinite, and if I didn't wake myself up right now, I might never come back. "No! I can't face this! I don't want to do this!" I remember thinking to myself. Essentially lucid this whole time, I tried to begin to pull myself out of the dream. However, if you've ever experienced sleep paralysis, you know this can be difficult. Slowly, I regained the ability to control my limbs, and once I did, the dream ended and I was awake. Too afraid to go back to sleep, I got up, took a shower, and now I'm here. A few notes: 1. I've experienced sleep paralysis before. Many times, in fact. None of those episodes have startled me as much as this did. 2. Sleep paralysis/lucid dreaming is known to be more easily induced after falling asleep for a period of time, waking up for a little bit, and then going back to sleep. Perhaps this influenced the vividness of my dream, 3. Since I was reading the text before I went to bed, this too could've suggested to me to be thinking about these things as I fell asleep. 4. The infinite tunnel feeling was similar like what I've experienced in certain concentration states, in terms of the one-pointedness and all-encompassing nature of the phenomenon. I've never experienced the feeling of staring into the void until tonight. 5. Because I spend a little bit of time on the forum and watch Leo's videos, I can't tell if this experience of falling into the void is just the suggestibility of my mind and already having been exposed to these ideas, or if this is genuine and I'm starting to breakthrough into something here. 6. I read in the book that these insights that we have in Kriya must come like sleep- you can't force them. You have to surrender into them. I wonder if in this dream state I was relaxed and surrendered enough to accept whatever might come, which then allowed me to see these symbols. I haven't had any weird experiences while actually meditating, so maybe I'm not consciously surrendering to the practice enough.

I'm 2/3rds of the way through this damned thing. I'm loving it, but I'm also getting sick of fretting over it because I've been working on it for months. Here's my question: I'm in the assessment where I'm asked to answer a series of questions about three people I admire. I've been stuck on this part for a few WEEKS because I've been reading books from the life purpose course reading list and I haven't yet gotten to a stopping point (i'm reading Flow by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi right now). My question is, for this section, can I stick to a thorough internet search for my subjects instead of reading entire books about them? The impression I got from the guide video was that I was to do my best going in depth on my subjects and generating meaningful answers, which I'm happy to do, but I've got so many books sitting on my nightstand and on my bookshelf that I'm feeling buried. At this point my progress is crawling. Do I suspend my other readings for the moment and focus on the people I admire section or do I just do the best I can with an internet search and move on? I'm really not trying to half- ass this thing. If you could see my notes from my book journal and my life purpose course journal, that would prove it. However, I'm taking a placement test for college tomorrow (college is a big part of my life purpose) and I'd like to get my first pass of this course banged out so I can get my strategy in order and start kicking SOME FUCKIN' ASS. Life Purpose Course people and @Leo Gura let me know what you think.

Thanks @Viking. Like I said, I intend to do the practice as described. Just felt some resistance bubbling up.

Just got the book and have read up to lesson 3, although I haven't begun the practice. I'm trying to keep an open mind, but damn, a lot of the techniques described seem outlandish and silly. In lesson 2, the author suggests you do that weird thing with your hands. Why? Why can't I just plug my nose with one finger and then plug my nose with the same finger? Extending your thumb, ring, and pinky finger feels awkward. And lesson 3 really got a reaction out of me. Firstly, the abdomen is not supposed to move inward while your inhaling. When you breathe into your diaphragm, it's filling with air and expanding. Pulling my abdomen in while I'm breathing in doesn't feel natural at all. And secondly, the whole tongue stretching thing? To what end is that prescribed? What does the length of your tongue have to do with anything? I'm going to do them anyway. I paid nearly forty bucks for the book. I'm just having a hard time suspending my disbelief.

@moon777light I think so, too.

@Viking lol seriously. On one hand I didn't want to spam the thread with my silly story since we're all trying to learn, but ultimately I couldn't resist.

I had an interesting Kriya coincidence this evening. Since I watched Leo's video, I was impressed by how earnestly he advocated a Kriya practice in combination with everything else that we're doing here, so I started entertaining the idea of getting the book. I read a bunch of reviews on Amazon and it seemed like it would be worth my time, but a month has since passed and I've delayed getting the book for one reason or another. I was scrolling through my local craiglist this evening looking for cheap building materials for a landscaping project I'm planning when I got a wild hare up my ass to check the book section on the off-chance someone had put up a listing for it. Funnily enough, someone did. About two weeks ago, and the ad is still up. This just seemed like too weird a coincidence to pass up, so I e-mailed the OP about it and am waiting to hear back from them. I never actually expected to see such an arcane book on such an esoteric subject actually for sale in my area lol. I know it's not THAT big a coincidence, but it makes my life more entertaining to believe that there's some spooky, spiritual, space-magic at play here, so I'm gonna go ahead and go with that.

Aw yeah! I know that lately, Leo has been taking a turn for the more mystical, esoteric, and profound. That's cool. I love the content, but I was journaling today and I realized that I had some important insights about the more mundane aspects of personal development that have been working really well for me lately, so I'd thought I'd share. New habits only hurt for the first little bit: I noticed a pretty significant pattern as it pertains to good habit acquisition: it only hurts for a little bit. You know that pang of resistance you get when you first try to start something new? Well, I've implemented a few new habits lately, and I found that those pangs are strong at first but tend to subside after a month or so. Depending on the habit it may take more or less time, but this is the general pattern I've noticed with habit acquisition. Lately I've been getting up at 4:20 am, lifting every morning in my garage, studying everyday, doing affirmations/ visualizations every night, and working on a concentration practice everyday. My habits aren't perfect yet, but they're pretty strong. I noticed that after enough time they get to feeling pretty natural, and then it hurts NOT to do them. New, healthy habits are closer at hand than you think. The amazing power of to-do lists: To-do lists, both daily and long term, are probably one of the most under-utilized productivity tools out there. I work as a millwork engineer, and late last year my boss and I decided that we could boost our shop's productivity and efficiency if we got a CNC router to machine our parts. To get us prepared to make this shift in technology, I knew there was a laundry list of technical things I had to work out on our engineering software to get us on the right track. So, I wrote down everything I needed to do on a whiteboard next to my desk and starting chipping away at those goals everyday. The progress I've made is substantial and my boss has been loving the output. Basically, if it goes on the whiteboard, sooner or later it gets done. I've even noticed that sometimes I'll have spontaneous solutions to problems that have been plaguing me, although most of the time I've just got to sit down and work things out. This to-do list has been so powerful that I've implemented it into my daily life as a time-management and productivity tool. Every night I sit down for five minutes and write out what I'd like to accomplish the next day. I don't always get to everything or do everything perfectly, but it beats having everything rolling around my head and stressing about deadlines and obligations. If you're trying to get your foot in the door with basic PD, you ain't too good for to-do lists. Just show up: In addition to working full-time, I'm also working toward a degree as part of fulfilling my life purpose plan. I've noticed that even though I like school and that I've developed a reliable study habit, sometimes I don't want to do the work. What I've realized is that drudgery is not a bug, it's a feature, at least in my experience. You have to make peace with the fact even though you may have a beautiful life purpose plan, part of that plan must necessarily be to just sit your butt in the chair and do the work. I've found that viewing drudgery as an opportunity to build your character instead of something to avoid at all costs takes the sting out of a loathsome study session or a difficult task at work. It's all serving a grander purpose. That said, just show up. Do it badly, if you have to, but just show up and get something done as opposed to nothing. Doing nothing is the black hole of PD. Doing something imperfectly is the path.

Hello fellow enlightenment nerds. What are your thoughts on transcendental meditation? I'm starting school this week and I'm trying to develop a basic practice that will sharpen my base level of access concentration (see mastering the core teachings of the Buddha by Ingram). I'm not ready for self inquiry yet because I can't even focus on one thing for more than a few seconds. Is TM appropriate for the kind of work Leo is directing us toward? Concentration, sensory clarity, equanimity, and ultimately enlightenment? I've done it before and gotten some cool sensations out of it, but I don't want to get hung up on the good feelings. I want it to be productive, but I'm tired of counting my breath.

Although, let's not forget that genuine scams do exist and often they assume the facade of a self- help or personal improvement technique (ahem Trump University, ahem).

In his seminal work, Csikszentmihalyi details the concept of Flow, a state of optimal experience in which a person experiences complete involvement with life and how one can take steps to more efficiently and regularly foster this state in every aspect of life. What Makes Us Happy? What Is Flow? Flow is a unique state of being in which we are involved when we actively choose a course of self- determination, psychological growth, and deep personal fulfillment. Being in flow is much the same as "being in the zone". When we are doing a flow activity, we are completely absorbed in it and loving every aspect of it. Time stops. We could do it forever. We are intrinsically motivated to do it, and we would do it even at personal cost if we had to. Think of a time in your life when a project long worked on and toiled over was finally brought to complete fruition, or during an athletic event when you were at your best, or perhaps during a math test when you were nailing it, you totally understood the material, and you felt great that you had overcome this challenge. At that moment, you were likely in a flow state. Happiness is largely a function of pursuing and being in a flow state. The most important thing to remember, and you've likely observed it yourself, is that your moments of greatest happiness are often times not spent in passive leisure or through dulling the senses with drugs or sex, but rather when you set your focus on a great challenge and then worked to overcome it. Participation in determining the contents of our consciousness is of the utmost importance. How you perceive the world is far more important than what happens to you. Through practicing emotional mastery and training our attention, we can more effectively determine what's relevant in our experience to reaching our goals and what isn't. Happiness, flow, and peak experience are all fundamentally about self- determination (both physical and psychological), intrinsic motivation, enjoying the present moment, and seeking to grow ourselves psychologically outside of the context of what society at large says we should do (blindly acquire wealth, possessions, material status etc.) or what biological imperatives dictate to us (seek comfort above all else, become a slave to the sex and food instinct, etc.) Flow is about freedom of will. Ordering Our Conscious Minds To lay the foundation for creating more flow experiences, we must realize that in order to do so, we must set an intention (goal) and focus our attention on it. Each of us has the power to control our subjective reality, but because we are constantly bombarded with sensory and other kinds of information at all times, we must use our attention and our intentions to filter what is resourceful and what is not. To do so is to fundamentally influence the content and the quality of our existence. Attention is the discriminatory process of our consciousness. By using or attention we decide what action to take in response to a given set of information, and thus we can more efficiently fulfill our intentions. Intentions are the goals, attention is the executive function by which we begin to attain them. Attention is the most important tool in determining the quality of our experience. The more attention you can muster, the happier you'll be. It is also worth noting here that the information we receive into our consciousness has no inherent value judgment attached to it. The self assigns value judgments. Therefore, when you sharpen your skills of attention and clarify your intentions, you are more free to determine what value or meaning a given piece of information has relevant to your experience. In this way, nurturing flow experiences can be an effective precursor to emotional mastery. Occurrences both in and out of your control can effectively be re-framed or interpreted in a way that is most resourceful to your intentions. Not in a way that denies reality, of course, but in a way that leaves you less subject to the whims of the actions of other people or to otherwise harmful and debilitating emotions. When we choose a goal, no matter how grand or mundane, and invest in it to the limits of our concentration, anything we do will be enjoyable. How Do We Get Into Flow? The end goal of facilitating flow experiences to is increase enjoyment and quality of life. What follows are the principle signs of a flow experience that can help us not only what a true flow experience looks like, but also how we can create it for ourselves in every area of life. 1. We must seek to match external conditions with internal intentions (or goals) and simultaneously seek to change our perception of the external world to match our internal intentions. In other words, don't just change your reality, but change how you feel about it. 2. Set goals that will challenge you and force you to improve your skills. 3. Focus intently on the task at hand. This means mindfulness, focus, sensory clarity, and equanimity. An unfocused mind is an unhappy mind. Find something about the experience that you can really get into and focus on intently. 4. Find a way to get feedback as to your progress and evaluate it. Assess your progress regularly. Feedback can also be interpreted as a system of guidelines or rules that frame the flow experience and allow us to order our consciousness. Ordering of the consciousness and focusing the attention is of the greatest importance. Without it psychic entropy is sure to take hold. So whether you're playing a board game, playing a professional sport, or starting your own business, make sure you are adhering to the rules or you have a way to measure your progress so as to keep your mind focused and on track. 5. Commit to excluding and information, experience, emotions, etc. that would distract your attention from the task at hand. These events are collectively called psychic entropy. This is the emotional mastery part of flow. 6. Be involved in an activity that gets you some skin in the game. A fight is exhilarating because you might lose. A goal is worth working for because you can't just go out and buy it. When we feel like we have a hand in self- determination and the influencing of an uncertain outcome, we can enter flow. 7. Seek to lose yourself, notice any distortion of time. If time seems to drag on and you're miserable, you're not in flow state. Flow is characterized by being so deep in the activity that you forget yourself and time becomes irrelevant. When you recognize this feeling, you're probably in flow! 8. Establish an intrinsic motivation for the activity. If we are doing things because of external pressures, be they social, biological, or what have you, they will likely not result in a flow state. The Autotelic Personality The conditions of flow are largely contingent upon the individual assuming responsibility for the quality of his existence and actively seeing to it that experiences are made as optimal as possible. The ideal of this person is called an autotelic personality, or someone who finds an intrinsic motivation for intentions that he himself has defined. An autotelic person is someone who can, using the steps described previously, can take any experience and turn it into a flow experience, from workplace boredom to life in a concentration camp (Viktor Frankl should come to mind here). Some people are more autotelic than others, but the good news is that, like training our attention, it is a skill that can be practiced and perfected should we choose to undertake it. Some Examples Because we have the power to control our subjective experience, almost anything can be turned into a flow experience, provided that is has enough structure to order our consciousness. In cases where there is no inherent structure, we can choose to superimpose one onto the experience, much like scaffolding on a skyscraper. Games of any kind, sports, cultural and religious ceremonies, exercise, dance, sex, yoga, martial arts, art and music appreciation, tasting great food, studying history, doing science, silly word games with friends, AND EVEN WORK can all be transformed into flow experiences. As a final note, it is important to realize that the activity itself does not necessarily correlate to a flow experience. What matters, essentially, is how much mindfulness we involve in the activity, why we do it, how it challenges us, and how it transforms our psyche. Sex can either be be some rote thing that we do every so often to get our rocks of and go on about or day, or it can be an opportunity to improve our skill as lovers, learn more about ourselves and our partner(s), take our relationships to the next level, and create a level of intimacy that we haven't experienced before. Ultimately, the choice is up to us, moment by moment, to decide if our lives and our endeavors are optimal experiences or if they are merely occasional perturbations in what is mostly a humdrum and unfulfilling life. It's a choice you can make at any time.

I never started getting better at personal development until i started doing personal development, ya dig? 1. Habits are the foundation of all success. Dealing with resistance is a habit just like any other. Feel it, accept it, allow it, do what you were going to do anyway. Use the initial momentum of excitement to build your new habits. When the new starts to wear off, then you can be more mindful and watch out for resistance traps. 2. A lesson I learned from weight training: your weight training (or personal development or meditation practice or business or whatever) is never going to be optimal or perfect. What's perfect changes, in my experience, day to day as you gain more experience, circumstances flow, change, and adjust. You have no way of knowing what's perfect. Plus, it's an impossible goal. In your self- improvement strategy, account for the day that you might fall off the wagon and implement some sort of safety net that will minimize damage and lost progress. Whenever you fail, just get up and keep going. 3. Keep an eye on your vision.

@Kazman Yeah I know a little of what you're talking about. Actually it was only because of a mindfulness practice that I was able to observe that ejaculation is separate from orgasm. Until then I wasn't getting anything from Chia's books. I've only had a few experiences of that though, and never during intercourse. It's something I'd eventually like to cultivate more of, but right now it's not a priority.

@carlos flores It may help you to know that there is no accepted lower or upper limit of masturbatory frequency that has been shown to regularly harm human psychological and social health. A few points: 1. You need to be your own judge and determine for yourself if this is negatively effective you. I feel like the Reddit NoFap movement and things like it have caused a lot of undue anxiety surrounding completely normal sexual behavior like jerking off. If that's where you're getting this from, please reconsider your anxiety, because even once or twice a day is normal for a young male. 2. What's your GPA? Are your grades suffering because of your preoccupation with porn/ jerking it? Are you avoiding normal human contact because you want to stay home and beat off? Are you not eating, not bathing, not sleeping because you watch porn and jerk off so much? If these are the case, you have a problem and you need professional help. If you're keeping the rest of your life in balance, you're probably okay. 3. In fact, some studies have shown that not masturbating has been associated with higher instances of prostate cancer in men. Also, if you go long periods without sex or masturbation, your penis can start to retract into your body a little bit and make it appear smaller (not permanently, of course). 4. You feel tired and you don't get stuff done? What's your sleep schedule like? What's your nutrition like? Are you exercising? Are you in a routine? If you don't have structure and order in your life it can be very easy to while away the time fapping. It might not be the fapping that's bringing you down, but your life structure. 5. Beware that ignoring sexual impulse is quite difficult. If you decide this is what you need to do, I suggest a strong meditation habit. 6. You do know that both men and women have written songs about sex/ jerking off, right? It's okay to choke the chicken, bro. Use your judgment, but this might not be as big a deal as you're making it.

From my understanding, it's very difficult to determine how certain genes will express themselves physiologically or psychologically. Sometimes you can have a certain gene that codes for something like a more aggressive behavior, but if the right environmental, psychological, and biological conditions are not met, then that gene might not express, or express in a different way. Humans are very much a product of their environment, but not always in a direct line from A to B. Dr. Robert Sapolsky had a bit to say about this when he said that "it is impossible to consider biology outside of the context of environment", meaning that the behavior of the human animal is not fully explained by either nature or nurture, but probably a good mix of both. The most violent criminals and murderers are often the victims of their own attempted murder, sometimes at the hand of their own parents. But not everyone who is abused as a child becomes a violent monster, just like not everyone who takes a sip of wine becomes an alcoholic. There are many factors at play that influence how someone will be in an environment. To answer your question more directly, I think that we should definitely look into the underlying causes of things of that nature. I think are justice system at this point is too blindly punitive. Instead of trying to solve things at the root, we simply lock people up. Some people need to be locked up, but did you know that a violent criminal's brain often cannot understand their punishment? Because of the environmental experience and the biological development of some people, their brains develop differently from normal and they are not able to use executive reasoning, good judgment, or future- mindedness and are thus violent and impulsive, often because of factors beyond their control. If that plays a serious role in human criminal behavior, we owe it to ourselves to look into it. If they meditated from a young age, would it have helped? Who's to say? I haven't seen any study that's looked at this. What I have read is that longtime meditators have a greater development of the prefrontal cortex and greater density in the grey matter of the brain. The prefrontal cortex being largely responsible for decision making, judgment, social control, and planning. You could be onto something, but you'd have to identify for certain markers in the genotype that correlate to something like aberrant sexual behavior, and then test those subjects against meditators with the same genotypic profile and see what happens. Even that might not be rigid enough because of all the epigenetic factors I just mentioned.

@carlos flores how many times a day are you whacking it? This question has a point. I'm not just asking for jokes. I'll do that later in the thread ; )

I've played around with it a little bit, but not extensively. I do take cold showers everyday, though. I can say that the technique definitely feels very good. However, as of yet it hasn't helped me hold my breath for an incredible duration of time as he claims to have helped others do. Maybe I'm not doing it right or not often enough. The reason I haven't added it into my regular routine is because out of all the habits on my list to start implementing, this one is probably the last out of a hundred. It would just be yet another thing to do. Some practitioners liken it to a meditation, but I am unwilling to suspend my more formal and traditional meditation habit for his method.

I really don't understand all the Tai Lopez hate. Yeah, he kinda appeals to what some would call the lower impulses, but you can't argue with his success. Not only that, but different levels of personal development resonant with different people at different times. I didn't get into Leo's material because I watched a meditation video. I think the first video of his I watched was something more mundane, like productivity or goal setting or something. However, as I got more acquainted and started experimenting with the ideas being presented, I realized that the field is incredibly deep and full of opportunity. I experienced the same thing following Elliott Hulse on youtube. I started watching him because I lift, but ultimately I learned from him the importance of character, inspiration, life purpose, contribution, and self- reflection. Who's to say where I would be if I wasn't introduced to the more mundane things first before glimpsing the more complex realities of life and personal development? It's very easy for many people to become so overwhelmed by the depth of a project that they never get started. The point being, you gotta start somewhere. It's also worth suggesting that Tai's mission may be fundamentally different from someone like Leo. If the dude has never meditated in his life and is not likely to do so for the remainder of it, it might not matter. If his vision is to share accessible bits of wisdom in a compact format that help people re-frame priorities, improve their business, start a business, earn more money, etc. then it seems like he's doing a good job. I think we all need to take a step back and contextualize what we're seeing before we jump to a conclusion and make a negative value judgement against something we happen to not be interested in. Scams exist, many of them pollute the self- help community, but that doesn't necessarily mean Tai is one of them. Admittedly, I will say that his brand of personal development is not my type. But before I go moralizing and stacking my soap boxes, I'm going to use this forum as a nice way to say something nuanced, because god knows I do enough moralizing and soap box stacking.

Finally! I found the "Unfollow" button! Sweet release!

@WaveInTheOcean Finally, someone with some damn sense.

I agree with Leo here, @Aamir King. I'm like you in that I'm crazy- hungry for more knowledge, but I must admit that I've been slowly reading the same book for several weeks, diligently taking notes, and solidifying the concepts in my mind before I move on. I'm nowhere near my target of 2-4 books per month, but I'm still reading more than I was (even for someone who says he loves reading!). Build a framework for your success so that it's hard for you to fail in the long run. Sure, you could work seven days a week for a month or so, but then you're likely to crash and burn and drop all of your hard-earned habits. Ask yourself: what are the few KEYSTONE habits/ processes/ tactics/ strategies I can do a little bit of every day that will add up over time? What's going to give you the most bang for your buck in terms of chipping away at your vision of life and your goals? I like gaining knowledge too, so my example is that I commit to reading at least two books a month, taking good notes, and sharing my knowledge on the forum once a week. That's twenty-four books a year (far more than the average American reads annually), notes to refresh my memory, and an opportunity to share it with others to solidify the concepts. That works for me. Secondly, beware of your motivation to impress your teachers, or anyone else, with your knowledge. That's a recipe for hubris and intellectual disaster. I speak from experience. You can have, do, or be pretty much anything you want. You can be a kick ass student. Just don't be so pumped to do it that your feet leave the ground and you forget to plan wisely. Again, I speak from experience. Go for the long game.

@Thinh I'm planning on doing sections of the course every year or so to stay on track. As far as answering the questions genuinely, it's sometimes hard to pin down with 100% accuracy things like values or personal strengths. There are going to be some categories that overlap. Just do the best you can in the moment, identify any negative motivations that may effect your outcomes, and let our intuition guide you. When you start doing the science and experimenting in the real world, it's really going to help pare down any fluff or doubt you might have had doing the course. Don't worry so much about getting every little detail right. Establish a vision, start moving toward it, and adjust as obstacles arise.