A Writer's Best Utensil Is Personal Development

[Robert]

Okay, so I've decided to just dive right in and start my own self-actualization journal. I figured that if I'm seriously committed to personal development I wouldn't have a problem making a post every now and then to document my progress and record my insights.

I'll start by introducing myself in case anyone decides to read this. My name is Robert, as you can probably tell from my username, and I'm 20 years old, as you can probably tell from my profile. I've been into personal development for a little over a year. That might seem like a small amount of time to a lot of the people on this site, but I feel like I've made some amazing progress. I've overcome some really deep and dark depression, I've become more knowledgeable, I've become less neurotic, I've become conscious of my ego, and so much more. My life purpose is to create evocative fiction in order to tap into the best version of people. I've found that the ideal medium for me to realize this purpose would be comics. So, yes, I'm an aspiring comic book writer. I've been extremely passionate about storytelling ever since I was like 15 and I knew I wanted to positively impact the world since I was 16, but I didn't have a strong life purpose until getting into personal development and stumbling across Leo's life purpose course. Hopefully, this new world of self-improvement will be the difference in what makes me successful and fulfilled (because looking back on my life previous to all of this makes me realize that I would have definitely failed miserably at my calling if I continued on that route).

This journal will be where I will write about everything related to my personal development. Not only do I think it would be good for me to become more conscious of myself, but it also might be able to help out someone else if I share all of the epiphanies and insights I get over time.

Recent Insight #1: Commitment is overrated.

I recently listened to a several-hour-long CD set called Your Wish Is Your Command by Kevin Trudeau. Although there's a lot of things I find to be flawed within the CDs and I'm not a fan of Kevin Trudeau as a person, I still managed to have 2 epiphanies while listening. One epiphany is that commitment can be so goddamn overrated. For example, if you decide to commit to a certain self-help course because you want the maximum results, one question you should ask yourself is why you have to get the maximum results from that specific course. There are probably many other courses or resources that you don't know about which have potential to help you even better than the course that you decided to commit to. Always keep this in mind. Life is complex, the world is vast, and there are so many amazing things that are off your radar screen. Be flexible. Apply yourself to whatever is necessary to help you, but still keep a lookout for better opportunities! Commit in a disciplined way, not a neurotic way.

Recent Insight #2: Misfortune can be a good thing.

Another insight from Your Wish Is Your Command. Something really unfortunate can happen to you, but that one misfortune could be the cause of something even more amazing. I can even look at my own life and find this to be true. I've been though a lot of suffering in my life, and through that suffering I started to look for answers. The answers I found then introduced me to this beautiful thing called personal development. I know that if I was never abused and had a great family and a better upbringing, I probably would have never searched for answers. I would have been comfortable enough to follow the sheep and stay ignorant. The world is unpredictable! Think positive! Maybe getting fired from your job could cause you to find a job that you like a lot more. Maybe your car breaking down could be the difference in whether not a car accident occurred that day. Maybe. Remember that you don't know what good situations a bad situation can bring.

[lambda]

#2 is really useful when trying to adopt an outcome-independent mindset.

So often going through life, we'll label certain events "good" or "bad," but in truth we don't know all the possible effects because they haven't played out yet. I'm going to try to keep this in mind because I have a really tough time dealing with failure in the near term. Yet, as you say, that failure could actually lead to great happiness down the road (which could also lead to failure!). The future is uncertain, and there's not much we can do about it.

[Robert]

On 2/29/2016 at 0:42 AM, TenderloinTechBro said:

#2 is really useful when trying to adopt an outcome-independent mindset.

So often going through life, we'll label certain events "good" or "bad," but in truth we don't know all the possible effects because they haven't played out yet. I'm going to try to keep this in mind because I have a really tough time dealing with failure in the near term. Yet, as you say, that failure could actually lead to great happiness down the road (which could also lead to failure!). The future is uncertain, and there's not much we can do about it.

Yes! Detachment from outcome. Thanks for reminding me about that concept.

[Robert]

Okay, so this past week was pretty decent. It mostly consisted of me being home all day, every day, waiting until I start my first day at this new job. I'm a little excited just to see how the job is (because I'm doing something new), but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get absolutely sick of the job after about a week. I really want to be financially free and able to seriously work on my life purpose with full and consistent effort. One of the things that I finally decided on the past few weeks is that I'm putting all things in my life to the side and I'm gonna completely focus on becoming financially independent. I did goal setting for like the millionth time this year, but this most recent process consisted of me eliminating every single one of my goals except for the money goal. Brian Tracy helped me get my priorities straight. In a video on YouTube he talked about this exercise where you organize your life by determining which goal out of all of your goals would have the biggest positive impact on your life. I determined that financial freedom would have the greatest positive impact for me. If I became financially free, I wouldn't have to deal with these toxic people that I live with, I would be able to focus on my life purpose and I would be able to pretty much lock down the first 2 levels on Maslow's hierarchy of needs - the safety and physiological needs. Since I don't have these locked down at all, it is extremely easy to backslide and lose motivation. I could be on fire one day, kicking ass, until I have one of these toxic individuals stealing money from me, making all types of threats towards me, cursing, yelling, being violent, including me in their petty fucking problems. And it's not like I've just now realized this. It's been like this forever, but I've finally decided to completely forget about having balance in my life. Ever since I failed the 90-day exercise from Leo's life purpose course, it's become 100x more clear and obvious that I'm simply not ready to do all of this life purpose stuff and all of these other big goals.

I'm gonna sacrifice everything until I get decent results towards my money goal and hopefully be able to move away from these toxic people. I know, though, that if I want big results, I'm gonna have to make big changes. Huge changes. Once I start this new job in a few days, I'm gonna adjust my daily schedule. Besides work, the only things I will be doing is spending at least 3 hours per day towards my money goal. I'm not gonna stress myself out other goals like reading, or typing, or life purpose, or anything else. I will still read books and stuff, but I'm not setting a goal for them.

I don't know how long it will take to become financially free, but I will not stop working towards it and giving it my complete focus until I get it.

Recent Insight #1: Homeostasis causes backsliding.

I re-watched some of Leo's video on backsliding. He mentioned this book called Mastery (which is on my top priority reading list) that talks about how homeostasis can keep you stuck. As humans, it's natural for us to want to keep doing what we've always been doing; it makes us feel safe and secure. Although this can sometimes be a good thing, at other times it can keep you stuck because when you make a positive change that may feel really uncomfortable, homeostasis kicks in and makes it harder to for that change to stick, regardless of how that change can help you. Simply being aware of all of this can help you stop backsliding.

Recent Insight #2: Striving for balance can easily make your life more difficult.

This seems so obvious, but it's hard to accept. When I look at all of these other people who seem to have balance, it often makes me want to be balanced. But I've learned that trying to be balanced can screw up your priorities. While every area of your life is important in the long run, not everything should be given importance during every period in your life. Strive for progress instead!

[Robert]

Okay, so its been a little over a week since I last updated this journal. I've noticed that there's so much shit that I learn, do, and think about on a daily basis, so it would be impossible for me to type all of my experience and insights without spending several hours typing each day. I wish I could write more here... but whatever.

I started this new job the other day, and so far it's not too bad. I'm gonna try to increase my hours as much as possible in order to save up as much money as possible. I plan on using that money to invest online so I can make more passive income. I need to have enough capital so I can take consistent action towards investing, instead of having to wait every 1-2 weeks for a paycheck to come in. This is especially important for the passive income method I'm most interested in at the moment: affiliate marketing. I'm gonna have to take consistent action to set up certain systems over the course of months for affiliate marketing, which means I will need enough money to last me for months. I should have enough money saved up by June.

While working at this new job, I was reminded of how clueless most people are about certain aspects of life. I got a good first impression from almost all of the people I work with, but so many of them seem so damn clueless. There was this one guy in particular who I'm cool with and I really like, but there was something he said that made me shake my head. I was working, doing my job, and this guy was headed somewhere but stopped at me for a quick, casual exchange of words. Since I'm new to the job, he asked me what time my shift ends. I told him 3:30 a.m. and then, although I forgot what he said exactly, he said something along the lines of: "Oh man, what are you gonna do at 3:30? Watch TV, I guess." And then he continued to walk to where he was headed to. This stood out to me because it shows that most people don't know about self-actualization. Anyone who was hugely into personal development wouldn't think of watching TV as the only thing you can do in the middle of the night. Although I love some of my TV shows and I still watch the good ones every now and then, it was the way the guy talked about watching TV that stood out to me. He said "Watch TV, I guess" as if someone can't be starting an online business in the middle of the night, or meditating in the middle of the night, or watching something more healthy in the middle of the night such as self-help videos. The guy just came off as so clueless about self-actualization. People need to wake up!

There was also this other dude who caught my attention. He started the job about the same time that I did. I'll probably sound like an asshole to anyone reading this, but this guy seemed like a pothead when I first saw him: the way he talked, the way his eyes looked, his demeanor, everything. But what caught my attention is when we were having this conversation about the society we live in and he brought the word "conscious" into the conversation. I stopped him when he said that word and asked him what he meant by it (since the word can mean a few different things.) He told me that he couldn't explain what it meant and I said I thought so because that's a really deep word. There was an awkward phase in the conversation until I asked him straight out if he was "awake" - as in aware of his ego - and he said yes. He got hype for a second until I dropped the news to him that I didn't have a similar experience to him because of DMT but instead because meditation, lol. The conversation ended there because we were both tired and headed home, but I told him that we might be able to continue it another day. The guy doesn't seem enlightened, and neither am I, but I'm curious as to what he knows about spirituality and his true self.

Recent Insight: Failing to use your resources properly can screw up your strategy in life.

I've mostly been spending all of my productive time working on my financial goals. I want to be fucking financially independent already! Ever since Leo released a video on being strategic, I've been applying what he taught. I consider planning to be one of my natural talents, but a lot of my plans in life do not have all of the 7 pillars of strategic thinking that Leo talked about in his video. I realized this before he put the video out, but it has become more clear to me now. I haven't been using my resources in the most strategic way. Although I have a good overarching life strategy (locking down each level on Maslow's hierarchy of needs one at a time, from bottom to the top of the pyramid), I now know that I shouldn't even be touching anything above the first 2 levels of the pyramid. From now on I'm gonna be allocating all of my productive time to locking down those two levels first. Unless I really, really, really want to write some fiction or I get some great ideas that I have to write down, I'm putting comic book writing and all of that stuff to the side. I previously thought I could do multiple things like my reading goals, comic book writing, and learning affiliate marketing as long as I give the most time to the most important goal for my strategy. However, I realize that thinking like that could really fuck me over. I should just cut out everything that isn't crucial for my life right now, even if it's something that's extremely important and fulfilling later on. Although writing comic books is crucial for my ultimate vision, spending time to write comic books now would take me farther away from my vision.

[Robert]

Today is one of my days off, so I'm gonna make this quick post while I have the time and energy.

I've been feeling really grateful lately. Aside from the times I just look around and feel a deep fascination with the richness and mysteriousness of life, what I appreciate most is that personal development has made me aware of who I am on a spiritual level. I remember when I first understood the truth of who I am; I was extremely depressed, angry, and scared, and these feelings lasted for a good 3 months. I experienced the "dark night of the soul." I felt like the biggest victim in the world - everything in life was shitty, meaningless, and part of one giant hellhole. As a result, I ended up deleting all of my comic book work: all of my scripts, idea documents, concept art, etc. I deleted years worth of work because of how shocked and emotionally unstable I was. However, lately I've been so damn happy I got that shit over with as soon as I did, and I'm glad that I pretty much started over from the beginning with all of my stories. One of the reasons is that when it comes to screenwriting, I'll be able to understand the narrative art from a more truthful place, especially when it comes to characterization. It's extremely rare to find a fiction writer who understands spirituality. A vast majority of these writers create characters based on a completely false understanding of the conceptualized self. This gives me a whole area where I have so much more potential than a lot of other people. I would even argue that it is impossible to master characterization without understanding how the ego works.

I've kept my word from one of my previous posts in this journal that I won't be focusing on my life purpose at all until I become financially independent. However, I still think about it and can't wait to actually start living it. Over the past week, it has evolved to something which I find to be a lot more meaningful to me. Basically, it involves me wanting to contribute to evolving the consciousness of people. The previous version of my life purpose was to just make people aware of how they can become better in general, but I've found that moving people to higher levels of consciousness is what I should be more specific about and people will inevitably become better as a result of that evolution.

Recent Insight: Overcoming one thing leads you to new challenges.

As for my own personal development, I've noticed that every time I resolve 1 thing, 10 new things come up. Not that I regress in my development, it's just that I become aware of more areas I can improve on. In other words, as I develop myself, the new person I become gives me a completely different perspective. It's similar to when snow on a car's windshield blocks the view. The issue is that the snow is in the way, but after you deal with that issue and have the snow wiped off, you notice new things on the horizon that might stand in your way. It really is true that personal development never ends.