Post Your Biggest Challenges With Personal Development Here

[Leo Gura]

I want to understand you better, to better tailor future content to your needs and to be a better teacher.

To that end, post here your biggest challenges and obstacles with self-actualization, personal development, success, productivity, etc. Leave out obstacles related to enlightenment and spirituality because we'll have a separate thread for that in the Spirituality sub-forum.

I don't need to hear your entire life story and all your petty problems. Try to condense it down to two or three core issues that you feel really stuck on. These might include challenging life circumstances like not knowing how to get a job, or a deep-seated fear that you can't seem to shake, or something you feel you don't understand about life which is causing you to stall, or a bad case of procrastination, or not being sure which career to pursue, etc.

• What's bugging you?
• What's keeping you up at night?
• What's triggering you emotionally?
• What's keeping you stuck?
• What's got you confused?

Note: This thread is not meant to be me coaching you or giving you solutions to your problems. I just want to gather some data to better understand you. In the process, you may also better understand yourself.

Thanks!

[Guest Annetta]

Planning; executive functioning skills, so I had some trauma at a young age and I have not learned how to plan things out step-by-step.  I can watch your videos all day, but I've never used or learned executive functioning skills.  I think my mind is a little messed up, because this also affects things like memory, emotional regulation and even just directions to get around the city.  I'm like, glued to google maps if I need to go anywhere.  I think maybe my frontal lobe is a little fucked up and I'm not sure how to compensate for it if I can't even plan, like, a meal or something.  So yeah, that would be the number one thing hindering me.

Unraveling neediness perception - Because of my lack of executive functioning skills, I feel worried that I can't survive in this world.  My family doesn't take these deficits seriously, and I am verbose and intelligent so people that I come to asking for help cannot believe that I have these deficits to such a degree.  So I feel a strong desire to glom onto people or situations or anything to try and feel, like, a sense of security.  I just watched your video on neediness and it was really helpful, but the perception is still there.  I'm not sure how to get into being mode.  I want to be an artist.

Fear of death - Had some near death experiences as a kid, and this fear has turned into a phobia of contracting a disease or having a terminal illness.  I've tried imaging my death, but the phobia still remains.  I like, check my hands like 20 times a day to make sure my nail beds are a normal colour, have panic attacks all the time.  Fierce ones, like shaking, sweating, tunnel vision, blue feet, full body numbness, like my nervous system hates me.  It all stems from this phobia.

These are the main ones.
Thanks!

Edited May 5, 2017 by Annetta

[Leo Gura]

@Annetta Good, but please elaborate a bit more on each point.

[Guest username]

1. Hedonic treadmill/ Fear of Missing Out: Despite seeing the futility of hedonism over and over again, I'm having difficulty over-riding the conditioning of "What if I just had X or more of X? I can't judge until I've been there, right?" Constant cultural conditioning to seek more and more extreme circumstances is hard to fight back against.

2.  Guilt Tripping from the environment: People in my life have framed a lot of my pursuit of inner growth as my defense mechanism for not chasing outer circumstances and say that my unwillingness to do things the socially normal/ appropriate way is a form of close-mindedness. A lot of external forces  try to convince me that I'm just close-minded for not being willing to spend 40 years of my life winning in stage orange before I decide whether or not it's worthwhile.

3. Dealing with Uncertainty :  I'm pretty good with radical open-mindedness,investigation, and serious intent in my research but sometimes I feel stuck because I get really in touch with my ignorance. It's easy for me to be stuck in deliberation at the expense of action. Also, as I'm becoming more self-actualized and letting go of my ego-driven motivations, I often don't know what to do; my entire life was previously driven by selfish motivations, even in the areas in which I thought I was a "good person." Being authentic is a totally way of life to me, and I'm not even very advanced yet. I'm having trouble keeping up with the rapid inner changes.

Edited May 5, 2017 by username

[Kostas]

Very basic stuff here; Procrastination issues; postponing tasks such as studying and not keeping up with my daily goals which sometimes i completely forget i set them, bad time management and lack of productivity (i also waste a lot of my time on low quality material i.e. distractions), sleep problems (although not related to anxiety issues , i wake up earlier than planned and at different times everyday, struggling with transitioning to other stages of sleep), low energy and motivation, nutritional habits are either good or bad depending on mood. Meditation can be very hard when i am sleep deprived and the monkey chatter in my mind can be very frustrating. 

[TJ Reeves]

1 - After going deeper into this work, I do wonder about life post enlightenment. Perhaps looking at what a sage might do in every day circumstances. Or perhaps how to better take the deep insights one has during psychedelic trips and integrate them into regular life  

2 - getting good sleep. I find that one of the biggest determinants of my daily success is sleep. What nighttime habits do you keep? What do you do, for example, when you've meditated so much that you then have difficulty falling asleep? 

3) how and why to be more vulnerable, especially for men. Included topics are how to have deeper conversations and express emotions in a more healthy manner with males. I've personally found increasing my level of vulnerability is the #1 thing I can do to advance myself at the moment. I'd love to know any tips or insights you may have. 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Treeves4u

[Guest username]

15 minutes ago, Treeves4u said:

1 - After going deeper into this work, I do wonder about life post enlightenment. Perhaps looking at what a sage might do in every day circumstances. Or perhaps how to better take the deep insights one has during psychedelic trips and integrate them into regular life  

2 - getting good sleep. I find that one of the biggest determinants of my daily success is sleep. What nighttime habits do you keep? What do you do, for example, when you've meditated so much that you then have difficulty falling asleep? 

3) how and why to be more vulnerable, especially for men. Included topics are how to have deeper conversations and express emotions in a more healthy manner with males. I've personally found increasing my level of vulnerability is the #1 thing I can do to advance myself at the moment. I'd love to know any tips or insights you may have. 

2. I find that if I make good use of my day, I will naturally feel more at ease and get better sleep. Consciousness work will help in the long run too since underlying problems with the ego aren't creating a stressful background noise in your life.

3. This has been a problem for me as well. I think one of the keys is committing to inner growth and self-realization, so your expression becomes a natural consequences of your growth and relationship to the Truth rather than the unconscious facade that is currently operating. Becoming more self-aware, less manipulative, more honest, and more aligned with high-consciousness values will make authentic expression much more natural.

It's hard to be truly vulnerable when you don't even know who you are.   ( I'm not enlightened yet, so much of this is speculative/ based on my research).

[hinawashi]

My biggest challenge to personal development are:

1. Always having to prove myself better than everybody else. It's a self-esteem issue that manifests in a lot of ways because I can't let go of my inferiority complex. Whenever I'm at school or work I have to show everyone that I'm good at doing thing they do but deep down inside I fear that they might see through this mask and at the same time I'm insanely jealous at people who are more successful than me.
2. Dealing with unconscious people. This one is actually the main challenge I'm having right now. It feels like waking up from hell but now trying to get my point across to my friends and family now makes me look like a complete alien. Except for my dad who had become more aware through years of experiencing life, nobody else in my family knows what enlightenment really is. Same with my colleagues and friends, they just don't want to talk about it so I really don't want to bring up this topic lest they throw me out of their social circle.

I'm bringing the self-esteem issue under control right now, so it's just a matter of time, but what I really want to know is how to talk to other people about my thoughts and feelings without appearing insane. I know that @Leo Gura mentioned the ego speaks in its own language but how to translate seems near impossible.

[Seraph]

How can I make lots of money and love my work when I know my desire for money and many of my values have been indoctrinated into me by society to keep me enslaved?

... and how to deal with the fact that most of my authentic values are looked down apon by society because they go against the social agenda, making it harder for me to earn money and love my work.

Cheers.

[electroBeam]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 

• What's bugging you?
• What's keeping you up at night?
• What's triggering you emotionally?
• What's keeping you stuck?
• What's got you confused?

Elaborate more on how to be strategic - The strategic motherfucker video was good, but more depth on how to actually take the lofty stuff you said in the video, and turn it into practical, tangible action steps is required.

- Specific examples on how to, for example minimize your day so you can put more focus on the stuff that matters. Very specific examples.

- Specific examples on how to Plan your day better. I feel like I dribble around a lot, and am not really focused. Any specific examples on how to actually plan your day would be great.

- More depth overall in that area.

Elaborate more on how to be a leader/influencing people

- What are the social dynamics of influencing not just low consciousness people but high consciousness people too.

- What are the patterns at play with social systems?

- specifically what techniques and theories can you provide that will help individuals influence others to get off their asses and make a more conscious world.

Ways to live a sage lifestyle while still dealing with/getting the most out of society - How do steer clear of getting a job that is going to bore the hell out of you, and get a job that promotes consciousness? What traps are there to look for while searching for a sageish job? What steps can you take to work in a sageish job? As opposed to being an accountant.

- What does a sageish job look like as opposed to the everyday, soul draining job? Specific examples of what the values are, what the work entails? What elements do sageish jobs have that will directly impact the meaning of individuals in it.

- Marketing techniques for sages: How to market stuff for high consciousness people. Marketing courses only focus on easy targets/low consciousness people.

- How to talk to and interact with individuals meaningfully, how to steer conversations away from petty gossip, and change it into meaningful conversations that develop a deeper knowing of themselves for all parties involved.

- How to live in society without getting sucked in by it. How to remain as awareness in all situations, and not get sucked in by the distractions.

Elaborate more on how to learn effectively: FOR SAGES! - There's heaps of research out there on how to learn to master tests, like make it stick and the book a mind of numbers but how do you learn consciously?

- How do you embody theories so that you can apply them in actual real life!

- What are the best ways to learn stuff that will be helpful for you in the future.

Edited May 6, 2017 by electroBeam

[Guest username]

2 hours ago, hinawashi said:

My biggest challenge to personal development are:

1. Always having to prove myself better than everybody else. It's a self-esteem issue that manifests in a lot of ways because I can't let go of my inferiority complex. Whenever I'm at school or work I have to show everyone that I'm good at doing thing they do but deep down inside I fear that they might see through this mask and at the same time I'm insanely jealous at people who are more successful than me.
2. Dealing with unconscious people. This one is actually the main challenge I'm having right now. It feels like waking up from hell but now trying to get my point across to my friends and family now makes me look like a complete alien. Except for my dad who had become more aware through years of experiencing life, nobody else in my family knows what enlightenment really is. Same with my colleagues and friends, they just don't want to talk about it so I really don't want to bring up this topic lest they throw me out of their social circle.

I'm bringing the self-esteem issue under control right now, so it's just a matter of time, but what I really want to know is how to talk to other people about my thoughts and feelings without appearing insane. I know that @Leo Gura mentioned the ego speaks in its own language but how to translate seems near impossible.

I think the best thing you can do is just keep quiet and do the work. Most people won't be convinced, no matter how good you are at communicating. Just focus on your own growth and let other's be inspired naturally, without you pointing or flaunting. Those who are pre-ordained to be saved will be saved. Don't worry about saving everyone; it won't happen.

[Guest username]

6 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

Elaborate more on how to be strategic - The strategic motherfucker video was good, but more depth on how to actually take the lofty stuff you said in the video, and turn it into practical, tangible action steps is required.

- Specific examples on how to, for example minimize your day so you can put more focus on the stuff that matters. Very specific examples.

- Specific examples on how to Plan your day better. I feel like I dribble around a lot, and am not really focused. Any specific examples on how to actually plan your day would be great.

- More depth overall in that area.

Ways to live a sage lifestyle while still dealing with/getting the most out of society - How do steer clear of getting a job that is going to bore the hell out of you, and get a job that promotes consciousness? What traps are there to look for while searching for a sageish job? What steps can you take to work in a sageish job? As opposed to being an accountant.

- How to not get distracted by society, while still living in it? What ways can you set up your life to do this?

- How to talk to and interact with individuals meaningfully, how to steer conversations away from petty gossip, and change it into meaningful conversations that promote consciousness.

- How to live in society without getting sucked in by it. How to remain as awareness in all situations, and not get sucked in by the distractions.

 

I find with gossip and low consciousness, it's best to just not yourself get influenced by that. Stopping other people will backfire and get you rejected; if you can hold frame and focus on positives, most people will tend to be more positive as well. Also, be aware of the content of your discussion and your audience. When I worked at my fast food job, I mainly communicated high-consciousness values by just being pleasant to be around and a good listener. Sometimes I'd mention how fun meditation could be for calming your nerves, and I'd casually mention it as an alternative to smoking and drinking without really forcing it on to anybody. In that setting, getting into philosophical debates would have been dumb. I used to get irked at people who didn't share the same interests and looked down on them as undeveloped, unsophisticated, unintelligent, etc.  More recently, I've solved this by taking on the responsibility of being more socially calibrated so I know what sorts of conversations are going to resonate more with people in different environments.

If you want to be a versatile conversationalist, you need to take it upon yourself to step outside of your own interests and learn how to relate to a broad range of people. 

Of course, this is optional. I certainly am not a super-social person and am more content being able to pursue my own interests, socializing with people whenever our interests happen to converge. In this case, I think it's best to just find a suitable environment for discussing your interests, like an academic setting or a spirituality retreat.

 

If you want to communicate high-consciousness to a larger population, it's most effective to do so through your being rather than your ideas. Instead of talking to people about Absolute Infinity and the importance of self-inquiry, be okay with talking about how hot that actress looked in the new movie and be enjoyable to be around. Let your loving state of being do most of the work for you, or as some spiritual teachers may say, let your high-vibration energy resonate with other people and raise them up instead of letting yourself get sucked into low-vibration energy.

 

Whenever someone says, "Man, that bitch cheated on me. I can never forgive her."  Instead of trying to tell this person that they are low-consciousness and are creating all their own suffering, try calibrating to their situation and empathizing with them. "Yeah, it hurts when you're invested in someone who isn't loyal to you. I got hurt when I pined after a girl  for years who  only ended up rejecting me and sleeping with other guys,but I learned that the best way to move on is to just forgive and be happy with your own life. You gotta be so happy in yourself that stuff don't bother ya. Don't forgive because you tolerate being disrespected. Forgive for your own health and self-respect. Don't let that shit get to you,bro."

While being on this path will inevitably make it hard for other people to truly relate to you, don't think that you being higher consciousness will entirely stop you from interacting with others while staying true to your values and spiritual growth. The larger constraint comes from social intelligence and adaptability. I used my self-concept  as a higher level being or something of the sort as an excuse for my poor ability to relate to others; when I took it upon myself to make the changes and see the more clever and nuanced ways I could share high-consciousness, I ended up doing much better socially.

I'm still pretty much a hermit though and find most people are too enmeshed in unconsciousness for you to make too profound a difference. I just accept it and give what I can along the way. We'll make a bigger impact through our own growth and life purpose than in our daily interactions, I think, but we can certainly resonate with people in a high-consciousness way along the way, making small impacts here and there.

[electroBeam]

@username raising vibrations are good. But the thing is, there are 3 planes when talking to people:

- the vibration of the conversation

- the content of the conversation

- the closeness and depth of the conversation.

You've got the vibration part down pat.

I agree with you, the content doesn't matter, and honestly I find it fun talking about low consciousness stuff. I must not be at the same level everyone else here is at.

BUT How do you have deep, close conversations with people? Without them getting offended, confused or bored?

Close conversations include all, but not limited to, the following attributes:

- peaking into the person's true self

- getting to the core of their beliefs

- having vulnerable conversations that allow deep rooted secrets to be exposed.

Forming a connection with your higher self through the conversations of others.

This means going beyond how to win friends and influence people and making conversations that are sage material

[Loreena]

Self-sabotage. 

My life has been a struggle with this. I am not sure if I'm contributing to it. But it feels like there is always something obstructing me from achieving my goals. 

[Guest username]

@electroBeam I'll need more context to help you identify your sticking point, but it sounds like you might be impatient with forming deeper bonds. People will generally open that stuff up to you when they feel like you're close enough.  I personally don't really have enough chemistry with most people to really click enough to get to that point. Most relationships never really pass the point of someone's facade, surface level stuff, or externally focused things. Sometimes people who are deeply in love or family members may discuss those sorts of things, but even then, it's really in a comfort seeking way.

If you're looking to get people to reflect on their core values and engage in heavy introspection, either you have to become a master of building rapport  and influencing others (this is an unrealistic goal for most people, including myself, virtually nobody has that much social skill, as far as I know), or you get better at finding people who are already predisposed to that sort of stuff. You're probably not going to be very effective at convincing frat guys  or party girls to start self-inquiry practice and engage is metaphysical discussions unless they happen to already be into it. You'll much more likely find a receptive audience at a philosophy club.

Remember that most people have NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER in that sort of stuff, even with themselves. People despise introspection. In my experience, even most introspective types aren't actually introspective on more than superficial level. They'll do what gratifies the ego, find some comforting philosophy, and pass it off as deep wisdom.  You're not going to change that.

I think that's why masters are often so reticent. This stuff isn't going to strike a cord with most people. You aren't going to have the opportunity to go deep. Deep relationships are rare and take time; finding someone who is open to this is even more rare. 

You're likely being too ambitious in your expectations. Deep spiritual discussions just aren't going to be an option with most people. Even on the forum, how many of us are  truly serious about pursuing enlightenment?  Even now, I'm reluctant to give myself that status of a true seeker yet.

 

Maybe I'm wrong though. It could be that I'm just not good enough with people to see the more easy solution.  I'll probably give better advice if I know your specifics.

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by username

[electroBeam]

5 minutes ago, username said:

become a master of building rapport  and influencing others

A video from leo would be great on this!

How to become a master of small talk.

 

You can actually really develop mindfulness and consciousness through talking to people. Its esoteric, but it works. 

And yes, the goal might seem unrealistic, but that's just a limiting belief.

Edited May 6, 2017 by electroBeam

[Sevi]

Now I have to write all the stuff again...

Edited May 6, 2017 by Sevi

[TeamBills]

I'm a little bit confused here. Is this thread about struggles and questions with trying to become actualized or is it about the biggest problems and fears in our life in general? Thanks for asking Leo.

[Sevi]

Ok. I am re-writing everything again. I am quite annoyed right now. I'm gonna write as if an hour ago:

 

I've just seen this thread, normally I would like to take some time to sort my ideas out to give a useful feedback, but if I write it spontaneously,

This then will be a self portrait of myself.

Normally I am a very reserved person. It is difficult for me to just write away such things because it is asked, I am forcing myself right now.

I had to handle things on my own. I have difficulty to open up my weaknesses and ask for help. Likewise, I have difficulty to express my feelings when I am hurt or when I feel down or upset and ask for emotional support.

The things make me stuck boil into my management of my sleep cycle which is related to two major subjects. 1) it's deeply related to couple of my deep-seated emotions 2) my passionate personality, meaning when I like something I focus on it naturally and intensely, I have hard time to give a break before I get it done. Then it burns me out.

Which is recently connected to actualized.org. Because I liked it, now my almost full attention goes to that. Where I am feeling like handed a gift but very uncomfortable at the same time because of my poor management of it; so basically I am bad at managing this personality trait of mine.

I am very sensitive to the emotional state of the ones that I care. Where I can be very psychic, it becomes a challenge for me to be an observer and differentiate myself from that. And disharmony effects my potency.

(I had quite difficult time to remember this paragraph, -and accidentally I erased the whole thing- it is most likely that this was the part which was difficult to my ego)

I don't know if this is a helpful feedback since it is just self analyze, but I will re-visit the topic again.

Lastly I really didn't like the tone of this thread. It might be most likely because my ego feels very threatened but at the same time it feels very cold hearted -rather than being objective- to such humanistic questions. Leo, I am answering just because I have full trust in your caring heart.

P.S. see it's almost 4 am right now and I am still writing this; this is very annoying for me. 

P.S.2 topics are running and changing so fast and some of them are really interesting, ok, I'm cutting it here. I need to limit this.

[AndreiC]

Detachment from outcome

 

This for me is by far the hardest thing to get over. I've been working for over an year now to grow and turn my life around. I visualize every day and ofcourse things don't always go as i plan or hope. I made a decision when I started to risk everything for something I consider worth it and the idea that it may not work out is crippling. This is particularly powerful because my first project is just the start of a very large plan which I may never get another chance to go through with if this fails.

 

I think through it, meditate and contemplate and yet it's not enough. It's really quite a struggle. I can get passed it for some moments, but it creeps back up again. I can even feel it physically like a claw raking my stomach. In my case at least this is by far the most difficult holding me back.

Thing that worries me the most is, the closer I get to the day the line is drawn the more powerful it is and it affects everything. I can barely stay still for a moment, when I meditate I can clearly see the quality go down rather than up and so on.

 

I know this is a huge part of being a hero/warrior but I really don't see how to achieve it.