Author Topic: Motivation Monday #24  (Read 1537 times)

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Offline Ben Mason

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Authority without love is a road to nowhere....fast. Looking forward to these CLains!

Offline CLains

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Introduction to Personal Development for Smart People

I’ve finally got to reading the personal development book Daniel Larimer recommends on his blog:  Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development for Smart People.

The book sets out what Pavlina claims to be universal, fundamental principles of personal development. Personal development tries to address the following question: What does it mean for us to grow as conscious human beings, and how do we intelligently guide that process?

To find the ultimate principles of personal growth Pavlina “researched various philosophical, psychological, and spiritual frameworks that had previously attempted to address this challenge. Some had clearly identified one or more of the core concepts, but none provided satisfactory explanations of the big picture.”  In the end however, he claims to have found an answer.

According to Pavlina there are 3 core principles, in addition to 4 derivative principles. In the following Mondays I will examine each of the 3 principles in turn, and then the 4 derivative principles. Before we get to the principles, let's see what they are to accomplish if successful.

Explanatory Constraints of Core Principles

Steve Pavlina set out to find core principles that would be universally applicable: Like laws of physics, these are laws of personal, conscious growth. To define what these principles would look like, he defined several criteria that would have to be satisfied. These criteria include universality, completeness, irreducibility, congruency, and practicality.

Universality: “They must be applicable by anyone, anywhere, in any situation. They must work equally well for all areas of life: health, relationships, career, spiritual growth, and so on. They must be timeless, meaning that they can still be expected to work 1,000 years from now, and they would have worked 1,000 years ago. They must be culturally independent: they need to work for all those living on Earth, as well as for people aboard a space station in orbit. They must work both individually and collectively, so they’re effective for any group of any size.

Completeness: “It should be possible to trace all other effective universal laws of personal growth back to these basic building blocks. Ideally, these principles should lend themselves to a structure that is both simple and elegant.

Irreducible: “The primary principles must be irreducible, similar to prime numbers in mathematics. They must serve as the fundamental atomic building blocks of conscious human growth. Therefore, it must be possible to combine two or more primary principles together to form secondary principles, and the resulting combinations must also be inherently sound and universally applicable.

Congruence: “The principles must be internally congruent. They can’t be in conflict with each other. They must be logically and intuitively consistent.

Practicality: “Finally, these principles must be practical. They must be able to generate intelligent real-world results. You should be able to use these ideas to diagnose personal development challenges and devise workable solutions. Knowledge of them should accelerate your personal growth, not obfuscate it.

3 Core Principles, 4 Derivative Principles

Given these explanatory constraints Pavlina found the following principles. I will outline them here in schematic form, and go into them one by one as the weeks roll by.

1) Truth
2) Love
3) Power

4) Truth + Love: Oneness
5) Truth + Power: Authority
6) Love  + Power: Courage

7) Love + Power + Truth = Intelligence

According to Pavlina these principles are universal; they cannot be successfully compartmentalized without sacrificing something far more important—our true nature as conscious beings. If Pavlina is right, this is what it means to live as a conscious, intelligent human being. According to Pavlina, the more your life aligns with these principles, the smarter you become.