Personal Development for Smart People — Chapter 1 Truth

If we were conscious, we would see that there is nothing in life we must follow except to accept it unquestionably. What we try so hard to ignore, avoid, deny, belittle or despise will defeat us in the end. What is disgusting, painful and evil can become a source of beauty, joy and power if you open your heart to it. For those who see the world through this lens, every moment is golden. – HENRY MILLER

Authenticity is the first principle of personal development. A major part of one’s growth is the constant discovery of new truths about oneself and about reality. As long as you live, you are bound to learn some important lessons. But you can also accelerate your growth by consciously seeking truth and moving away from falsehood and denial.

True personal growth is honest growth. You can’t cut corners on land that doesn’t exist. No matter how hard or uncomfortable it is, you must first commit to discovering and accepting the new truth. You cannot solve the problem without acknowledging it. How can you build a fulfilling career by refusing to admit that your current job isn’t right for you? How can you improve your relationships if you refuse to admit that you are lonely and empty? If you don’t accept that your current habits are unhealthy, how can you change them?

Reality is the final arbiter of reality. If your thoughts, beliefs, and actions are not consistent with what is real, the outcome will not be good. Consistent with the real may not succeed, but consistent with the false will certainly fail. When you are in tune with reality, problems won’t be solved immediately, but at least you have taken an important step in the right direction.

To deny the problem is to distance yourself from the truth, and the lies you lie to yourself create more lies. The fake infects your mind, infuses your identity, and makes you lose touch with the real, hiding in a corner when you should be thriving. You’re not supposed to live like this, you’re supposed to learn how to create the life you want. My purpose is not to describe, but to try to help you understand what life should be like.

In the remainder of this chapter, I will show you what is real. This will help you understand how to recognize and accept it. These ideas can be abstract, so simply familiarize yourself with these high-level concepts. In the second part of this book, you will learn how to apply these concepts to all areas of your life.

Let’s start exploring the key components of authenticity: perception, prediction, accuracy, acceptance, self-awareness.

perception

Perception is the most fundamental aspect of reality, and if you want to improve any part of your life, you must first feel it. For example, if you want to understand the status of your relationship, start by asking yourself a few questions: How do I feel about this relationship? What makes me happy? What needs to be improved? Ask your partner the same questions and compare the two answers. Knowing the state of the relationship will help you decide where to change.

Perception is a key component of personal growth because we react and act based on what we perceive to be true. Facing the truth about one’s current situation can lead to new expectations. Like when you step on the scale… B: well… You may want to lose weight. By knowing what you don’t want, you will know what you do want, and these new expectations can help you move in the right new direction. But first admit that you want it, or nothing will change.

The first step to personal growth is realizing that life is not what you want it to be. It’s okay to be dissatisfied with your current life; It’s okay to want something but not have it. But don’t lie to yourself and pretend everything’s perfect. The best way to approach perfection is to enjoy lifelong growth, including all temporary imperfections.

Truth is easier said than done. It’s hard to admit that you’re unhappy in your relationship; It’s hard to admit you’re in the wrong business; It’s hard to look at myself in the mirror and admit that this isn’t how I wanted to look. Difficult as it is, it is necessary. By refusing to acknowledge that you are at point A, you cannot get from point A to point B. Denial, denial and avoidance are useless and will only stop you in your tracks at A. Note 1

Be aware of your feelings and expectations. Want to quit some bad habits? Looking for a more fulfilling job? Looking for a change of scenery? Open your eyes and look around and see what you like and don’t like about your life. Note that there’s no rush to set goals, just be clear about what you’re feeling and how you’re reacting to those feelings.

To predict

Prediction is the mechanism by which you learn from experience so that you can discover what is real. When you observe a new situation or event, there are only two possibilities: it’s the same or different from what you expected. When it meets your expectations, your perception of reality stays the same; When it conflicts with your expectations, you must adjust your perception of reality to accommodate the new information. This is how you learn from experiences and discover new truths.

Your forecasting abilities are very flexible. When you learn something new, your brain tries to generalize general rules from the experience. It tends to store general “patterns” rather than specific details. The details are often vague, but the “pattern” is clear. For example, you can understand words, but are less likely to remember when you learned each word. You know how food tastes, but you can’t remember the details of every meal.

The brain automatically makes predictions about the future. When you see the edge of an object on a shelf, your brain predicts, “If I pick this up, it’s going to be a book. Books will have a certain weight, texture and look.” Your way of thinking will continue as long as it meets your expectations.

Based on your past reading experience, you already have certain expectations about what this book will be about. If it meets all your expectations, you won’t learn anything new, and it’s a waste of your time. To help you grow, the book must jump out of your expectations and give you some unexpected “Oh my God? !” Moment.

Your mind constantly generalizes from different experiences, storing these common “patterns” and using them to predict new events. This usually happens automatically and unconsciously, but once you realize that this is how you think, your intelligence will take on a whole new level.

To accelerate your personal growth, you can use your brain’s predictive power in two powerful ways.

One: Experiencing things you’ve never experienced before will actually make you smarter. New experiences shift your mind into learning mode, enabling you to discover new “patterns.” The more patterns you learn, the more accurate the predictions are, and the smarter you become.

Read a book whose subject you know nothing about; Talk to people you would normally avoid; Visit a strange city. Go beyond your thought patterns. To grow, you must repeatedly respond to new challenges and consider new ideas to provide new input to your brain. If you just go through the same experiences over and over again, you will stagnate and your intelligence will atrophy. Note 2

Knowledge in one field can often be applied to other fields. For example, Leonardo Da Vinci was recognized as a genius in many fields (art, music, science, anatomy, engineering, architecture, etc.). Some people think he’s too good to be so interested. But I think on the contrary, his wide range of interests is what makes him so resourceful, or at least a major contributing factor. Through rich, varied experiences, Da Vinci found “patterns” that others did not, which greatly enhanced his ability to solve problems. Common sense in one field is often creatively applied in another. Note 3

Too much routine is the enemy of wisdom. Doing the same things over and over doesn’t help you grow. It will always meet your expectations, but it won’t drive new patterns. If you want to get smarter, you have to keep messing up. The purpose of establishing a canonical routine is simply to provide consistent results from which to continue to grow the business. Push yourself to do things you’ve never done before and expose yourself to new experiences, ideas and opinions. The more novel and unexpected the situation is, the faster you will learn and the smarter you will become.

Second: make conscious, considered predictions and use those predictions to make better decisions. Think about where you are heading and ask yourself, “What would my ideal life be?” Suppose a very rational, impartial observer scrutinized your situation and predicted what your life would be like 20 years from now based on your current behavior patterns. What kind of future does he offer?

If you’re brave enough to ask a few people who know you well to predict what you might look like in 20 years, the answer might surprise you.

When you are aware of your own long-term expectations, you can bypass denial mode and look straight at the facts. This allows you to reinforce positive predictions and prevent negative ones.

Emotions are part of the brain’s anticipation of the future. Positive emotions come from positive predictions, negative emotions come from negative predictions. When you feel good about yourself, your brain is anticipating that what you want is in the near future. When you’re feeling depressed, your brain is thinking bad things are coming. Negative emotions warn you that you must change your behavior immediately to prevent an unwanted future.

Be honest about your expectations. Don’t resist or deny them, they will only make you doubt yourself. Learn to accept your expectations and work with them. When you become aware of your negative expectations, notice why and keep changing them until your expectations change. When you find yourself with positive expectations, notice what makes you expect them and do more of them.

accuracy

The closer your perception of reality is to real reality, the more competent you become. Higher accuracy means better fit for human life. The more accurate your perception is, the more informed your decision will be, and the better it will be. If the perception is not accurate, the probability of frustration and disappointment is greater.

Omniscience is almost impossible. When you choose to be a butcher, you never know if a carpenter, a mason, or a bricklayer is better. When you choose and flower place object, you never know whether Xiaolan, Xiaomei, xiaoxue is more suitable; If you choose one road, you will never know if the scenery on the other road will be more beautiful.

Worst of all, even when you feel certain, there’s no guarantee you’re right. You’ve missed it, haven’t you? History teaches us that there are always things that you think are right now that turn out to be wrong later.

You can try to get as much information as you can in a given situation, which is usually a good idea, but you can never eliminate all uncertainty. So you have two basic choices: either refuse to acknowledge life’s unpredictability and give yourself a false sense of security; Or accept the changes in your life and learn to live with them. In the first case, you just draw the map of reality the way you want it, regardless of the reality. In the second case, you’re trying to make your map as accurate as possible, even if you don’t like it. But the second option is still better.

When you accept the uncertainty inherent in your life, the accuracy of your decisions improves. You’ll be more likely to avoid making mistakes, such as putting all your savings in the stock market or getting PUA’s, and you’ll have a better chance of taking advantage of real opportunities. The key to warding off life’s uncertainties is to manage risk wisely, not deny it. Learn to thrive on uncertainty, even enjoy it.

Another problem is that your predictions may not be correct. With experience and a deeper understanding of reality, some mistakes will correct themselves, but sometimes some mistakes will fester and become self-reinforcing. Here are some examples of how your brain’s predictive powers might let you down:

– generalization. You’ve had a few bad dates, so your brain thinks dating is disappointing. So you avoid going on any more dates because you see dating as something to avoid. Unfortunately, this means you’ll never have a positive dating experience that corrects your thinking. Old cognitive patterns persist if they are not challenged by new experiences.

– bias. A neighbor complains that working with someone new is f * * king hard, which can lead to negative expectations. The first time you worked with him, you predicted trouble and didn’t want to cooperate. Your new classmate responds to your negative emotions and behaves as you would expect. Making snap judgments without the help of direct experience often leads to incorrect conclusions.

— a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some of my friends started businesses, but they failed and eventually gave up. From their examples, you feel that starting a business is hard and likely to fail. A year later, you decide to start your own business. You subconsciously make avoidable mistakes that hurt your business and eventually you give up, just like your friends did.

All these flawed models have one thing in common: their forecasts are too pessimistic. This pattern intensifies fear, lowers self-esteem, and causes negative emotions such as worry and stress. In the worst case, overly pessimistic predictions can lead to depression, helplessness and even suicide. On the other hand, being overly optimistic can also be problematic and can lead to overconfidence, unreasonable risk-taking, and impulsiveness.

The best prediction is the most accurate prediction. But given that predictions are self-reinforcing, the more you think the outcome will be good, the better it tends to be. So it’s better to increase your confidence and use positive emotions and moderate initiative than to lower your confidence and become passive and overly timid. These predictions are not only passive observers, but also self-fulfilling positive factors.

acceptance

Once you know your true situation (relatively accurately, of course), the next task is to accept it completely and completely. This includes accepting the long-term reality of your predictions.

Look at your body, is it healthy, symmetrical, strong? Or unhealthy, flabby, weak? How would your body look if you continued on your current diet? Do you accept that you may die of hypertension or cerebral thrombosis in the future? Are you willing to live with the consequences?

What about finances? Are you financially free or ready to move to the slums? Be honest, what will happen in the future if your current financial situation continues? Can you fully accept the truth?

Sure, there are a lot of uncertainties when it comes to predicting the direction your life is going to take, but you can still make the best, most rational predictions based on the information you already have. If someone was in your current situation and you had to bet on who would be better off in the future, who would you bet on? Pretend you are Yuanfang, looking at the evidence and trying to predict the future. Honestly, what do you think the future holds?

One of the most important skills for personal development is to acknowledge and accept yourself for who you are, even if you don’t like it and can’t even change it. When confronted with unpleasant truths, you often feel a strong internal resistance. This emotion sends you through an endless cycle of distraction, escapism, denial and procrastination. Only by confronting these realities can you summon the power to deal with them consciously. Whatever you’re afraid of, you have to face it eventually.

When faced with a reality you don’t like and feel powerless to change, the first step is to accept that fact. Say to yourself: I don’t like this situation, but I don’t have the power to change it.

Be open and admit to yourself that I am responsible for all aspects of my life, but there are problems that I currently don’t have the skills to solve.” Just accept that this is the case, but don’t deny it. Never pretend to love a job you hate; Never pretend to be happy in an unhappy relationship; Never pretend that everything is fine when your financial situation is bad. If you want your situation to improve, you must first stay awake and accept the whole truth.

When you fully accept reality, you will start to make better decisions because they will be based on fact rather than fiction. If you admit that you’re out of shape, you’ll stop fooling yourself into living a healthy life of three small barbecues a day and late-night snacks. You will realize that for things to change, you have to start making different decisions — it won’t happen on its own. Once you fully accept the truth, you can finally start building what you want.

The ego

To become more aware of reality, you must develop a high level of self-awareness. This includes knowing your strengths, weaknesses, talents, knowledge, biases, attachments, desires, emotions, intuitions, habits, and moods.

As human beings, we are often filled with conflicting desires. Some want to be healthy, happy and highly self-conscious. The other part just wants to eat, sleep, and have sex. Without consciousness, we would be controlled by our desires and live more like unconscious animals.

The self or consciousness does not remain constant. There are times when pure logic rules your mind, and there are times when you feel overwhelmed by emotional problems. At times, you will feel refreshed; There will be times when you worry about your finances; Sometimes you eat less for health and energy. Sometimes, you’ll eat a ton of junk food just to feel “really good.”

When you make decisions and act in a certain “state of consciousness,” that state of consciousness is reinforced, increasing the likelihood that you will react in a similar way in the future. For example, if you act out of anger, it will enhance your response to anger; If you act with kindness, it reinforces a friendly response; Any state of consciousness has a tendency to perpetuate itself, so you are likely to find yourself experiencing many of the same states of consciousness over and over again. An important part of personal development is to constantly move yourself into a higher level of consciousness and try to release your dependence on a lower level of consciousness. In practice, this means abandoning addictive, negative, fear-based behaviors and replacing them with consciously chosen, principle-centered behaviors. To successfully change your behavior, you must first establish your own mind.

Deciding what’s important, based on the best perspective you can make, is a great way to increase awareness. The best time to make a new choice is when you’re feeling alert, alert, and intelligent, and it’s a good time to consider major life changes such as a career change, falling in love, or moving to a new city. Learn to trust higher states of consciousness. Put your decision on paper and implement it wholeheartedly. When you inevitably drift into a lower level of consciousness and lose sight of the higher horizon, continue with the decision even if you think you can’t go on. As time passes, your external environment becomes easier to maintain a high level of consciousness. With practice, staying conscious makes life easier.

At one point, when I was at a high level of consciousness, I decided to shift my focus from game development to personal development. It’s hard for me because the games business is doing well and I have several big projects going on. But I do. I know it’s the right thing to do. No doubt, a few weeks later, I was still in the game industry. As I entered my low level of consciousness, I began to doubt my decision to change careers. I had to remind myself that I was making this decision at a high level of consciousness, and that it was a wise decision! This helped me to stop obsessing and trust my original choice.

My decision may not be perfect, but when I make it, I can at least trust that I’m right and that it’s based on real circumstances.

When you make key decisions consistently at a high level of consciousness, they become more consistent. You will avoid falling into that state of ambiguity, where you are torn between options and unable to make up your mind. Realize that when you make choices in anger, fear, sadness, or similar states, you will not be consistent with reality because your predictions will be more negative because of those negative emotions.

Self consciousness is actually real consciousness. A higher level of consciousness will be closer to reality than a lower level of consciousness. If you are not consistent with reality, your decisions will often result in poorer results. Decisions that are consistent with the facts are more accurate and tend to produce better results than decisions made at lower levels of consciousness. The key is to use self-awareness to recognize when you are in line with reality and when you are not. Make important decisions only if they are consistent with certainty and truth.

The ‘roadblock’ that Keeps It Real

There are several “roadblocks” that keep us from being completely in tune with reality. They increase the likelihood of developing false mental models. Many of these error patterns are self-reinforcing and can be difficult to correct. But once we see through their tricks, we won’t fall for them.

Media restriction

Media companies make money from advertising, and advertising requires you to buy things. People who are in tune with reality only buy what they really want or need. So advertisers often promote half-truths or false information to increase profits. For example, if the brewery can convince you that drinking will make you sexier or more popular, then rather than describing the truth of drinking, it’s better to lie to you to get more income.

Want to fully trust the information provided by the media, unless there is a guarantee that if the truth and some kind of conflict of interest, the media will not sacrifice the truth for the sake of that interest. The problem with corporate media is that when profits conflict with truth, truth often loses.

The repeated exposure of mass media to you makes you accept a false perception of reality that is in the interests of advertisers. The more media you are exposed to, the more distorted your perception of reality becomes. Moreover, the more time you spend with media, the less time you have to learn from direct experience. Instead of smart personal growth, it’s a path to gradual laziness, apathy and decline.

To reduce this negative influence, it is best to experience happiness in direct life, rather than watching TV dramas and variety shows every day. When you contact the media, always keep in mind that some motherfuckers will try to distort your perception of reality for profit. But I am optimistic that society will eventually no longer need to manipulate the media, as more and more people realize that power and truth are not in conflict. As you will learn in Chapter 5, it is much more reliable to work with power and truth. They constitute the principle of authority.

Social conditioning

Social restriction is a close relative of media restriction. Your social relationships (including family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances) have a huge impact on your understanding of reality. Through interaction, you are constantly influenced by social, cultural, educational and religious ideas. Unfortunately, such conditional beliefs often put other values ahead of truth, so you may be forced to do the same. In the long run, this disconnect from reality can lead to self-doubt and cause you to give up your strength out of weakness and confusion. You can regain this power by aligning yourself with reality.

Sometimes social constraints work to our advantage. For example, a common language can help us communicate and connect with each other. At other times, social constraints can enfeeble us with false beliefs, such as an unnecessary fear of public speaking.

It is important to recognize and consciously check your beliefs about specific social constraints. When you feel a conflict between your beliefs, actions, and feelings, ask yourself if you really believe what you’re being taught. Are your beliefs true and accurate? Do they agree with you? In order to align yourself with reality, you must eventually let go of beliefs that are wrong, incorrect, and inconsistent.

I was born a Catholic and went to a Catholic school for 12 years. My family and most of my friends were Also Catholic, so I had little exposure to other belief systems when I was young. But in my teens, I began to doubt what I was learning because it often conflicted with my direct observations of reality. When I finally admitted that Catholicism no longer resonated with me, I was free to explore my true spiritual beliefs. Sometimes I was ostracized by this decision, but I learned that self-acceptance was more important than conforming to social acceptance. I don’t want to denigrate any belief system, except to suggest that you trust your own judgment to the fullest extent possible, even if others disagree with you. Cultivating self-trust will set you free. Self-doubt will enslave you.

False belief

Mislearning occurs when you absorb beliefs that are partially or completely incorrect. Such beliefs can be acquired accidentally or intentionally (as in the case of the bastards mentioned above). The result is that your future decisions become less reliable and the results more easily undermined.

When I started a game business after college, I was so full of false beliefs about how real business worked that I made some stupid mistakes and wasted time and money. For example, I mistakenly assumed that a contract signed by the other party would always be performed, without considering the risks inherent in any transaction (breach of contract); I made important deals and soon became dependent on their income, and then they collapsed. It took me years to shake off these false beliefs, but as I rooted them out, my decisions improved and the dying business turned a profit.

A large part of conscious growth involves identifying and eliminating false beliefs. Do your best to keep an open mind to fresh ideas and suggestions, and question your assumptions when you realize they may not be true. Later in this chapter, I’ll provide some simple exercises to help you do just that.

Emotional disturbance

Strong emotions can disrupt your ability to accurately perceive reality. Emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, guilt, shame, frustration, confusion and loneliness prevent you from thinking clearly and cause you to mistake the fake for the real. Similarly, positive emotions can make you overly optimistic, encouraging you to take unreasonable risks and promise things you can’t do.

By developing self-awareness, you’ll become more aware that you’re not in the right place when strong emotions impair your judgment. Emotions can get in the way of accurately perceiving reality, but a high level of self-awareness can help you avoid doing things when your perception is wrong.

Important decisions should be made in a clear head, not in an overly optimistic or pessimistic mood. But your intuition is also smart and can help you make informed decisions. Think of your emotions as a condensed version of what your brain predicts, so it’s wise to make decisions that create positive feelings.

addiction

Addictive behaviors such as smoking, drinking and excessive Internet use make it harder for people to accept reality because they reinforce ignorance and denial. For example, if you smoke every day, your behavior pattern makes it difficult to accept evidence of health risks. If you think it’s too damn hard to quit, you will avoid the truth that smoking is bad for your health, because it will force you to face your fears and try to quit.

Addiction provides a rich breeding ground for more falsehood. Many people feel ashamed and embarrassed about their addictions, so they do their best to hide them, believing that it is more important to maintain a false appearance than to be real. Secrets, deceit and lies replace honest communication.

The first step in overcoming any addictive behavior is to admit the truth: I’m addicted! Although withdrawal can be difficult, if you can acknowledge and accept your situation, it will help prevent you from falling into further false truths. Say to yourself, “I’m addicted. I want to change, but I can’t right now.” That’s perfectly ok. It’s better to be completely honest with yourself than to bury your head in the sand. You will often find that after taking that first step, the internal and external resources needed to eliminate your addiction will soon be integrated into your life, and other people will react with support and likes rather than contempt and ridicule.

naive

Full acceptance of reality often requires a degree of maturity, and maturity comes from experience. The more new experiences you gain, the more mature your thinking will become. The more you distract yourself from reality and fantasize about refuge and comfort, the more childish your way of thinking becomes.

Children lack experience to accurately perceive reality, so they are not good at making accurate predictions. It’s easy to trick an inexperienced child with a trick that an adult can pull off easily. Adults have enough experience to accurately predict outcomes; children do not.

You can’t be in tune with reality and run away from it at the same time. If you want to live as a fully conscious human being, you must stop the childish escapism and the deeper growth experience that only maturity can bring.

Secondary income

Secondary gain is a common problem that occurs when you gain temporarily through false gain. For example, lying at work to avoid being fired; Denying your relationship problems in order to keep the peace; Or eating junk food for convenience.

Staying away from the truth is never a wise long-term decision. This is because you don’t want to accept your predictions and refuse to deal with them frankly and honestly. When you focus on the secondary benefit behind it, you will always find the same deeper fault that you have been adamantly denying. You refuse to deal with this mistake and allow yourself to spiral downward. Superficial short-term gains replace real progress, plunging you deeper into a life of repression and denial. The more you give in to the lure of secondary gain, the more you become a false person.

For example, suppose you are working in a job that intuitively feels wrong to you; You know it’s a dead end. Every time you look into the future, you just feel empty. You can’t bring yourself to accept the truth, so you live in denial, pretending that things will somehow get better in the future. You don’t want to face reality, so you try to find other ways to fill the void, and you end up being attracted to secondary benefits. You seek money, recognition, and comfort instead of what you truly want. You push for promotions and raises instead of real personal growth. Instead of maintaining long-term friendships, you’re ineffectually socializing with people you don’t know well and won’t accept you for who you are. You hide your head like an ostrich, pretending to be safe and refusing to face worthwhile challenges.

The pursuit of secondary gains leads to constant dissatisfaction, emptiness and unhappiness. This is temporary medicine and can never cure the “cause”. If you find yourself falling into this addictive cycle, take some time for some deep introspection. Even if you’re not ready to deal with the long-term consequences, at least acknowledge your authenticity. Don’t waste your life defending a chain of false achievements.

How to Be More ‘real’

It’s normal to find a lot of inauthenticity and denial in your life, and you may be worried that it will be hard to align yourself with the truth. Don’t be discouraged. Every step you take toward authenticity adds a spring to your step toward greater authenticity and self-acceptance. You don’t have to solve everything overnight.

Here are some simple, practical exercises to help you stay in tune with reality.

Self assessment

The best way to make your life more real is to do a quick self-assessment. Use a simple scale of 1-10 to assign a numerical scale to each area of your life. 1 means you are definitely not getting what you want in this area of your life. 10 means you’re definitely experiencing what you want. Please take a moment to do this immediately. The following are the areas to be evaluated: Note 4

life	Rating (1-10)
Habits and routines
Jobs and Careers
Money and Finance
Health and Exercise
Education and psychological development
Social and interpersonal relationships
Family and Home
emotional
Character and Integrity
Purpose and contribution in life
Spiritual development

Your answer should be a good reflection of your reality. Often, you will find some areas lagging behind others, sometimes even far behind. It’s funny how often we deny the truth in the areas where we are weakest, because those are the hardest areas to confront. But these areas will not improve unless you face and accept the truth.

Now, I want you to look at those same numbers differently. Cross out all scores that are not 9 or 10 and replace them with 1’s. So now each rating must be 1, 9 or 10.

You will see that if you give something a grade other than a 9 or a 10, you are clearly not getting what you really want in that area. This is especially hard to accept when you think you have a seven. At first glance, seven looks good, but real nines and 10s go way beyond seven. Ten is so far away, you don’t even know what ten looks like.

When too much falsehood and denial comes into your life, you will score 7 points. This score is fake — you have only two states, you have what you want, or you don’t. When you know you haven’t got what you want, but you’re not ready to face the fact, you give six, seven or eight.

It sounds lame, but based on my own experience and what I’ve observed with other people, usually when people don’t agree with reality in some way, they give a 7. 7. Work, not goal-driven careers. A comfortable living arrangement rather than a deeply satisfying relationship; 7 means your income is limited to basic expenses, not huge. When you rate any part of your life a 7, you’re really saying, “This isn’t what I wanted, but I’m not sure I can do it any better, so I’m pretending it’s good enough.” But in reality, you don’t get what you want, and you’re already in the worst situation.

Honest ratings have to do with the path you’ve chosen, not how far you’ve traveled on your current path. For example, I absolutely love my current career. I would definitely rate it a 10, but not because OF my success in the field. Even back then, I’d still give my career a 9 or 10. Even though I had little evidence of my success, I knew I was on the right track. Think highly of yourself because you know you’re moving in the right direction.

When you put a 7 in some part of your life, it means you’re on the wrong track, but you don’t want to accept it. You don’t want to admit that you’re coming to an end, so you rate how far you’ve come. You say, “See how far I’ve gone down the wrong road?” Even if the current path itself is a 1, give yourself a 7 for how far you’ve come. Your rating must come from the path you choose. You can start a new career, a new relationship or a new spiritual journey from scratch, and still rate that part of your life as a 9 or 10 if you’re on the right path.

Now, look at each area of your life and ask yourself, what do I really want? What is my dream? What is my grand vision? What have I been longing for? Am I hesitating because I don’t think I can get it? What is the path I most want to take? Stop denying and accept your true desires.

A diary

Journaling is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to discover new truths. Get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper, and you’ll gain insights you might otherwise have missed.

While some people simply write down their thoughts and experiences from day to day, the real power of a journal is that it helps you step out of the box and examine your thoughts from a bird’s eye view of the whole. It solves tough problems, generates bright ideas, provides clarity to obscure situations, and assesses progress towards achieving goals. Use your journal well, not only as a record keeping tool, it can greatly accelerate your personal development.

Many people use paper journaling, others prefer word processing programs, and still others prefer special journaling software. I used a paper diary for years, but in 2002, I started using diary software and haven’t used a paper diary since. The software has many advantages: typing fast; Storage security; Easy retrieval; Convenient classification organization; Good backup. More powerful programs even allow you to insert images, recordings, videos, spreadsheets, files, Web links, etc. Once you try the diary software, you will never want to use paper and pen again.

If you want to check my personal diary of the actual item, can be found on www.stevepavlina.com/journaling about the diary as part of the article. A few months before launching www.stevepavlina.com, I wrote an extraordinary journal entry while trying to figure out how to make money from personal development sites. It’s interesting to look back and see that I almost gave up on the method I initially dismissed but eventually used.

Media fasting

A good way to reduce the impact of media is to stop all media for 30 days. For 30 days, turn off the TV and avoid all newspapers, magazines and online media and see what happens.

I put the results of my personal media fast in chapter 8:8 changes I’ve gone through since giving up TELEVISION. I found that during my 30 days without TV, I was freer to focus on important activities, I spent more time connecting with friends, and I went out more. It’s an eye-opening experience and I encourage you to try it. You’ll learn more about this experience in Chapter 8.

I’d like to end our search for truth with a favorite poem, “Man in the Mirror.” I first heard it when I was a teenager and it had a big impact on me. I hope you appreciate it as much as I do. The first line of the poem, by the way, means “wealth.”

When you find what you want in your quest for wealth, and the world crowns you king of a day, look at yourself in the mirror and hear what it says. Neither father nor mother, nor wife. Their judgment will surely pass. But the heaviest judgment of your life is to look back in the mirror. Just please him and don’t worry about the rest, for he’ll be with you till the wind dies down, and if the mirror calls you friend, the worst is done. You may be able to hide the fact that you think you’re the best, but if you can’t meet his eyes, the mirror will tell you that you’re worthless. You can deceive the world for years and win the admiration and praise of the world, but if you deceive the man in the mirror you will end up with nothing but heartache and tears. — 1934 by Dale Wimbrow (1895-1954)

I suggest you take it literally and follow the instructions in the first stanza. Look in the mirror and see yourself. Is the person looking back in the mirror your friend?

To grow into a conscious person, one must learn to embrace reality and let go of falsehood. Truth promotes growth, falsehood destroys it. Every time you feel yourself slipping off course, stop and ask yourself: Am I in sync with reality? If the answer is no, guide yourself to make your situation more real, recognize and accept it.

Now, let’s turn our attention to discovering the real main mechanism… (See next chapter)