melodydanielluna

As a writer, starting my morning off with some journaling, as she recommends, has been game-changing!

Yes! I fucking LOVE this book! It is an absolute GEM for creatives at all levels, from professional creatives to someone who doesn't feel creative at all.

Hmm. Good question, and something I have often thought about while going about my day-to-day life. To me, self-help comes with the implication that you NEED help. Like you have some sort of issues, be it clinical or not, that is making your quality of life worse than average. For example, you would buy a self-help book for developing more confidence, or to help you deal with your anxiety disorder. Where as I feel the term 'personal development' feels a little more general. Anyone could embark on a personal development journey. This would be more like getting to know yourself, identifying your values, goal-setting, taking action towards those goals, etc. (Of course, self-help could be a part of your personal-development. For example, if you had discouraging parents, healing that old wound so you CAN go pursue that career of your dreams.) Self-actualization, to me, is the process of becoming your highest, most actualized self. Self-actualization work starts with the most urgent things. For example, before I could start working on my life purpose and on enlightenment (personal development), I had to go to therapy for my eating disorder (The THERAPY wasn't technically self-help, but I engaged in a lot of self-help at the time.) Self-improvement happens in many aspects of your life. I'm self-improving at work when I do a better job ensuring all the tasks are done before I go home for the night. I'm self-improving when I deal with conflict in my relationships. And I'm self-improving when I am engaging in self-help/personal development/etc. I feel it has an even more casual implication that personal development, because self-improvement is something lots of people, including people who never get into self-help, personal development, enlightenment, etc. strive for. Not everyone, of course. Ultimately, all of these things really mean the same thing, but it is interesting to tease them apart and see how they differ. Doing this has also given me a better idea of what I most need right now. For example, currently, I don't need a lot of 'self-help', because I am more or less mentally well. But I do need a lot of personal development to help me realized my life purpose.

Thanks guys, I I will check those out :)

I feel ‘Think And Grow Rich’ isn’t Stage Orange? I mean, it is in the sense that it’s about earning money. But it comes at it from a very ‘woo’ perspective, teaching LOA instead of something more practical like Mastery. Does anyone have any ‘Stage Orange’ book recommendations that are more about the practical side of earning money/financial independence/business/mastery?

@asifarahim I agree. LOA should used on top of a strong foundation of Mastery.

Thanks guys! I am starting 'Think and Grow Rich' today. I have to admit I am skeptical. But I will keep an open mind.

@Leo Gura Thanks so much, Leo! That cleared a lot of things up for me and I screenshotted everything you wrote.

Is mastery strictly practising your very narrow domain, or could a variety of things that relate to your domain be considered mastery? For example, my LP is writing, specifically fantasy and sci-fi. But when I write a blog post, am I pracisting my craft, because it's writing craft? When I read a book on writing craft, am I engaging in the mastery process? Or is it only when I go and actually PRACTISE what I am learning? When I work with my editor, and she gives me feedback about my writing, and I am learning about my weaknesses, and then improving them, is this part of the mastery process? Does reading fantasy/sci-fi and making notes count towards mastery? I think all of these things are important for becoming a master of my craft, but I could see how reading books and writing blog posts and the like could distract from doing the actual work, which is writing fantasy and sci-fi novels. I just wanted to start a conversation about this.

@Bob Seeker Those are really good points. I definitely think reading good fantasy and sci-fi is a part of the process. It's research, really. But at the same time, leaning from those books and integrating what I'm learning into my active writing practice is really what matters. Thanks!

@Husseinisdoingfine So interesting how stages return to the 'good' aspects of a previous stage, while taking the 'good' aspects of the stage they were just in, synthesizing the two and making something even stronger. And thank you everyone for your help!

Happiness is a lot simpler than we make it out to be, but it’s actually very challenging to instil these simple habits. Things to work on for sure.

@Consept Yes! This channel is making such good content!

@Espaim I wish I had discovered it earlier too. It would have saved me a lot of suffering.

Honestly, this is a personal thing. And it does depend on how much you like what you’re doing. I can easily write for hours and hours. But at the same time, if I do this everyday, on top of working a full time job, and I never make time to read fiction, watch movies, hang out with friends, I do burn out. For me, learning to recognize my burn out before it’s too late has been crucial. If I start feeling burnt out. I take a break, or I do something to take care of myself. I try to set a reasonable schedule to these breaks are packaged in, and I can budget my time for them. But sometimes I over-estimate my abilities to work for long hours, and I have to take a break so I don’t damage my mental health or my passion for my craft.

@Flowerfaeiry I used to feel this way, before I was really seeing the fortune doing this work brings. Give it a few years, a few years of really implementing the teachings, and you will feel differently.

@SS10 I often wonder about this too. I love thinking about this.

Lately I've felt myself get really into my passion (writing fantasy and sci-fi) again. And it's a little scary sometimes because being filled with this much passion, or this much love, makes the zombie-like sheep feel so alien to me... which is a strange feeling. I don't judge them, or I try not to. I just feel insecure about being so passionate in a very passionless society. Anyone relate?

Can you reach your full potential as a human being while still doing stuff like playing video games?

@Sempiternity That’s amazing! Thanks for sharing!

@flowboy This is very true. I’m in a job I like okay that isn’t my LP. And it’s very easy to get stuck in that and lose motivation to realize my LP.

@Logan I love this. I’ve been doing similar visualization/journaling techniques for working on my Life Purpose, and it’s really beneficial.

@Podie45 The Life Purpose course is the best self-help product I’ve ever bought. Hands down. That said, you have to put the work in. It’s all well and good to watch the videos, but if you don’t do the exercises and actually start working towards your LP you work to see any results. (Not a shade against Leo’s course; this is just how self-help products work.)

@StarStruck That idea sounds good... but I also know making money is addictive. For example, I work on commission at my day job and last pay check I made about $300 more than I usually make. And now all I want to do is maintain or top that. So I feel like making a billion dollars would be all-the-more inflating to one’s ego. And I feel it would be hard to quit after one billion. And I feel the money would be hard to part with. Unless perhaps integrity was practiced along the way.

@Sahil Pandit Yes, I agree. I think the key is marketing authentically. And dismantling this limiting belief I have internalized from my father. If I don’t market my books to people, something else will be marketed to them anyway. My vision for the world is to get people reading more and better connected with Story. I have to find a way to make my marketing about that, rather than a hard sell.