Last Post

This will be my last post on this blog. The reasons are myriad, but the main reason is very simple: I don't know enough. I am not an expert, or even above average, in this field. I have very little unique knowledge to give, and in the end, it showed. There's a difference between truly knowing what you're talking about and flying by the seat of your pants, and I have a new blog where I genuinely DO know what I'm talking about. If you happen to play Magic: The Gathering, visit www.mtgsalivanth.blogspot.com. If not, you won't be interested. Really.

I'd like to give thanks for everyone who has commented on the blog. I really appreciate all the feedback and support I have received. Perhaps in a few years, when I know more about personal growth, I will be able to write a much better blog. However, for now, I must learn. The difference between this blog, where I've only been into the field for 6 months, and the new blog where I have 3-4 years of accrued knowledge to share are astounding.

Thanks for reading, everyone!

Until your time, may you grow and learn, and never leave the path you started.

101 in 1001 Update

It's been a while since my last update, since I've been busy writing a series about the styles of personal growth. Work on the list has been fairly slow recently, I admit, but here's what I've done:

Started playing Spyro 4. It is, to be kind, godawful. The handling is terrible, but I will finish the game. Unlike in the first 3 Spyro games however, I don't think I'll attempt to 100% the game.

I reached a significant milestone: 100 blog posts! It's incredible that I've come so far in such a short time. To a thousand more posts!

I was going to wait for three months to complete this item, but my mindset has changed so much that I believe I can cross it off now: I am now a vegetarian. If I ever go back to meat (unlikely) I'll put it back on the list. Thus, list item 23. Become a vegetarian permanently can now be crossed off. I've never felt better!

Completing the trial was also something I was told I would fail at, so that's another item to tick off for number 58.

I'll be starting a new group of 30-day trials soon, related to productivity. Stay tuned!

The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: The One True Style

Welcome back to my series on the 4 styles of personal growth. This is the final article in the series, and I'll be moving on tomorrow. For those who have missed part of it, you can find the series here:

Part 6

Part 5

Part 4

Part 3

Part 2

Part 1

The One True Style

If there's a fifth style, the one true style, you may wonder why I've spent 5,000 words talking about the other ones. The answer is simple, and if you take nothing else away from this article, take this one sentence.

The One True Style is combining all four styles.

The best path of personal growth is being able to call upon any and all of them: to master all four so you can use them as you see fit for any situation. Every one of the paths I've described has a weakness, but together they are whole.

Everyone has a little bit of each path inside them. The One True Path simply brings them out and gives them all attention.

Growth:

The One True Style is adept at all forms of personal growth. First, you use a combination of intuition and self-trust to narrow down the area, then research what you need to know before setting an exact goal if possible. During the trial you can continue to use a combination of facts, feelings and intuition to remain on the right path. The One True Style allows for any situation to be handled. Very few ever truly master the One True Style but it's an excellent goal to strive for by strengthening your weaker paths every time you set a new goal.

Subtypes:

Most masters of the One True Style have a bias towards one path. It's almost impossible to achieve truly perfect balance, so here's a paragraph on each of the paths when dominant in the One True Path.

Progressive-Dominant: This person will almost always set exact goals and back them up with logic. They'll generally use research to support their logic, and let their intuition find the goal. As long as their gut reaction and the facts say it's fine, he's on board.

Intuition-Dominant: This person will generally define the goal, then the parameters, rather than the parameters and goal at the same time. They'll also use their intuiton to find the goal they're after, and support it with facts. Generally their self-trust acts as a hot / cold meter rather than an exact instrument.

Research-Dominant: This person will generally narrow down the basic area of the goal with intuition and self-trust, then research several different possibilities until they find the most likely one. Then they'll set an exact goal.

Self-Trust-Dominant: This person will generally do what an Intuition-Dominant person does, only with more weight to their feelings. If their feelings are strongly oriented toward the goal, it goes ahead. If there's no reaction, generally the goal isn't good enough.

All people use the One True Style to some degree. The difference between student and adept is that the adept can consciously make the choice to use each branch, and can shift their dominance based on the goal. It's like a carpenter's toolbox: it's not as efficient if it only has hammers, no matter how many hammers they have. They need all kinds of tools, and need to be proficient at all of them. Translated to personal growth, that's the One True Style.

And that brings our series to a close. I hope this series has taught you more about the nature of personal growth, helped you understand your own path, and how to become better at it, as well as what to strive for.

Until next time, may you use whatever tool the job requires.

The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: Self-Trust

Welcome back to my series on the 4 styles of personal growth. This will be the penultimate article in the series. For those who have missed part of it, you can find the fifth part of the series here, the fourth part here, the third part here, the second part here, and the first part here.

Summing Up:

To recap, the self-trust path involves listening to one's own feelings and reactions as the main guide to determing whether or not you are on the correct path. If it feels wrong, a self-trust grower is very unlikely to do it. However, if it feels good to the person, they are more likely to attempt it.

As an example, my mother has recently decided to go vegetarian. However, last night she had a very tough day, and got my stepfather to pick up KFC (I just had chips). The next day, however, she admitted to me that she will probably go back to vegetarianism because she felt rotten when eating the KFC. She's also an admitted follower of the self-trust path.

Many of the people I know are on this path.

Growth:

The paths that are best suited for a follower of this path vary from person to person. Generally a follower of this path will feel drawn towards certain areas, but while some may feel an affinity for health, others may feel an affinity for money, socialising or any other aspect of personal growth. The important thing is to identify your own strengths.

You'll also have weaknesses, but you probably won't know what they are unless you make a mistake and go against your self-trust. With this path you'll naturally steer clear of your weak points.

Subtypes:

Self-Trust / Progressive (S/P): This is a good combination, since it allows for measurable goals to be set that the person feels good about. Generally the S/P will be drawn to a field, and then will choose a specific goal. Assuming they don't feel blocked about it, they'll go through with it, and they'll know when they've achieved it. A good blend of intuitive guidance and precise goal-setting.

Self-Trust / Intutive (S/I): Common for self-trusters, this combination focuses on using both external and internal forces as a guide. They may not always know exactly what they're doing, but they will have a lot of trouble going down the wrong path. If you're on this path, check out the fourth post in this series, which explains the difference between self-guidance and intuitive guidance.

Self-Trust / Research (S/R): An S/R will generally research whatever takes their fancy, and during the research process will use their feelings as a barometer to gauge the information. Generally if an S/R is on the right path, the research will encourage him or her to proceed. If the research is providing mixed feelings, it's not recommended to continue. You'll probably end up sabotaging yourself. I recommend choosing another path.

Shifting:

If you feel that self-trust isn't going to help you with your next goal, you can't figure out what to go after, or just feel like a change, this section is for you. Personal growth is malleable, and a good growth expert will be able to call upon all paths in varying degrees of expertise. Here's what you may need to do if:

Nothing feels quite 'right'.

You're not really feeling too good about your goals, no matter what you pick. You need to go to Intuition. Most likely you're on the wrong track, and intuition can help get you back on the right one. Once you've done that, your feelings should start pointing you in the right direction. This isn't too hard a shift, since you're not entrenched in cold information giving you your guidance.

You have mixed feelings: part of you wants to proceed but you're holding back.

You can't decide whether to do it or not. We've all had this feeling, when you're on the brink of committing to something but hold back from truly doing so. You need to become a Researcher. Research the topic you're not sure about, and focus on how that information makes you feel. If it makes you feel more confident, go for it. If it makes you feel less excited or confident, bin the idea and pick another one. You're free to go back to Self-Trust after just a few hours, making this the briefest shift you can have and still experience it properly.

You don't seem to be getting anywhere.

You're confident you're on the right path, but you're not too much further along than you were two or three months ago. You need to go Progressive. Knowing the path you need to be on is worthless if you're just dawdling along. You need to set out with long, confident strides, and progression will help you do that. Set goals that make you feel inspired and confident, and your progress should improve dramatically.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the self-trust path is excellent for deciding the general area you should focus on, but it's not as exact in results as some might like. Most people who practice personal growth use self-trust unconsciously, since the more trust you have in yourself, the more you channel this path, and growers have more trust in themselves than people who remain stagnant. In order to supplement this path, you should set definite aims to make sure you're getting somewhere.

Until next time, may you know what this message should say:)

The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: Research

Welcome back to my series on the 4 styles of personal growth. For those who have missed part of it, you can find the fourth part of the series here, the third part here, the second part here, and the first part here.

Summing Up:

To recap, the research path involves doing lots of research (obviously), gathering a large amount of data, and analysing said data before making big decisions. 'Knowledge is power' is foremost in their minds: they believe the more research they do, the more likely they are to succeed at their goal.

To an extent they are right. If they are setting the right goals, finding out a lot about them will certainly help 99% of researchers. However, most researchers must stick with goals that other people have done. They aren't good at blazing their own trail, due to the nature of their style.

Growth:

Similar to progressives. A researcher will want to focus on areas that are easily defined and researchable. Health, productivity, work and building skills are all good. If there are plenty of how-to articles out there, it's a good bet. Anything that's difficult to write about or to understand without personally experiencing it is a weak point for a researcher.

Any researcher, however, will have some subtype. It's impossible to rely entirely on other people's facts. There's a reason they call it PERSONAL growth. It's unique to you. A researcher, therefore, may have trouble setting their own goals.

Subtypes:

Research / Progressive (R/P): The most common form of researcher. This researcher will research easy-to-define goals to find other people who have made the transition, and will find out about it. An example would be me while researching polyphasic sleep. I knew what I wanted to do so I let my progressive side take a back seat. When I researched polyphasic sleep I found out a number of things that will prove incredibly helpful when I'm in the right circumstances to attempt this again (which will be in a little over 2 months).

Research / Intuitive (R/I): This isn't as bizarre a pairing as you might think. The two actually complement each other quite well. Intuition as a secondary style is usually used to define goals. An R/I will generally know where they want to go, thus fixing the major weakness of researchers, while finding out a lot about the path ahead, a major weakness of intuitives. Together they make for a good all-round growth style.

Research / Self-Trust (R/S): This is fairly similar to R/I, except that rather than define goals, an R/S is a much more pure researcher. An R/S uses their gut feeling as another research tool. Once they feel good about what they're researching they can research the hell out of it. Their only trouble is choosing goals, but self-trust helps that a bit by acting as a barometer for what areas to focus on. R/S's are notoriously prone to analysis paralysis, more so than other researchers.

Shifting:

If there's not enough information on your chosen topic, you feel weary of sifting through data, or you simply want to make a change, this section is for you. Personal growth is malleable, and a good growth expert will be able to call upon all paths in various degrees of expertise. Here's what you may need to do if:

You're running into unforeseen problems.

Usually, the answer here isn't more research as your gut reaction might be. Most likely there's a problem outside the task at hand: part of you is blocking it, or this simply isn't something you should be doing at all, and you should focus on another goal. You need to switch to Intuition. When you do this, try to use your intuition to figure out why you're being blocked. Once you figure out what you really should be doing, you can go right back to researching.

You can't pick a goal.

This is a common problem with many researchers. Especially with the internet, you have a world of data at your fingertips. So what do you research? You need to become Progressive. A progressionist will be able to use logic to figure out where the greatest gains can be achieved in the least time, and then you can research that. A key thing to remember with research is that it complements everything quite well. After going through your problem, you can go right back to it.

You don't feel confident.

All the research in the world doesn't make you feel confident. You're worried you might not succeed, you feel insecure. Knowledge doesn't seem too powerful anymore. You need to shift to Self-Trust. If your gut feeling tells you no, then there's always a good reason why. Research is good, but it has a tendency to fall off the path. Use your feelings as a guide to get back to the right goals, and then go with it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, research is a lot like salt. It goes well with almost anything, but generally isn't too good on it's own. You need a path to complement it so you know you're heading in the right direction, or you'll spend lots of time researching the wrong thing and having to start over. Research is also a great secondary style, too.

Until next time, may the 20 blogs and 15 self-help articles you trawl through hold the keys you need for success:)

The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: Intuition

Welcome back to my series on the 4 styles of personal growth. For those who have missed part of it, you can find the third part of the series here, the second part of the series here, and the first part of the series here.

Summing Up:

To recap, the intuitive path involves shunning long-term plans and goals, and putting trust in one's intuition. It's a fairly rare path, and certainly not for most beginners. However, if the intuitive's intuition is well-developed it can lead to excellent results. Unlike other paths, which must use some intuition, people who embrace the intuitive path trust their intuition implicitly to help them grow. Other than following their intuition, they have no or very few plans or goals.

Generally the only real way to know that the intuitive path is working is to look back after being on the path for a while, and seeing where it has taken you. Truly it is the most esoteric of the paths I intend to discuss, but I'll do my best to do it justice.

Growth:

Unlike most paths, intuitives are equally suited for all areas of growth depending on what intuition tells them. They are neither strong, nor weak in any area, and can use this to their advantage by instinctively focusing on whatever area needs work and working on it at full strength. An intuitive may not even define what field they are working on. It requires being comfortable with ambiguity.

Subtypes:

Intuitive / Progressive (I/P): An I/P is by necessity different from a regular intuitive. Intuition is all about not making plans, whereas progression is all about making precise plans. Generally an I/P will instinctively know what goals to set for. Rather than logically working it out, they will simply trust their subconscious to set a goal, then bring it into the conscious by defining it through writing or typing the requirements.

Intuitive / Research (I/R): An I/R is exactly what you'd think. Despite using their intuition to grow, they aren't going to be caught unprepared. After figuring out what they want to achieve, they will arm themselves with information on the topic in order to achieve maximum effectiveness with it. If an I/R wanted to get fitter, you can bet they'd research a lot about it.

Intuitive / Self-Trust (I/S) An I/S is as close to a pure intuitive as you're likely to get. Intuition and self-trust are very similar: indeed, to the untrained eye they may seem the same. However intuition comes from a force outside yourself, whereas self-trust is very internal. With practice, an I/S learns to seperate these cues and make them work together to know exactly what they have to do for certain almost every time.

Shifting:

If your intuition is weak, you feel cut off from it, or you simply want to make a change, this section is for you. Personal growth is malleable, and a good growth expert will be able to call upon all paths in varying degrees of expertise. Here's what you may need to do if:

You're not getting results.

Your intuition probably isn't developed enough to make the path work effectively. Progression is what you need, especially since your next goal is clear. If you want to go back to intuition, you need to increase it's strength. There are several ways to do this, including meditation, changing your diet to be closer to nature, and progressive training: i.e, giving your intuition simpler tasks than taking over all your growth at once.

All these can be easily defined. If you don't want to go back to intuition, simply go over what your weakest area is, and set goals to work on that.

You know what to do, but you're failing.

You know you need to do X, but obstacles keep popping up. You need to become a Researcher temporarily. Most likely the problems you're facing have already been solved by people, and a favourite tactic of bloggers is to teach people to solve problems they've already solved (believe me, I know). Most likely you can find the answer if you go deep enough. There's more to everything than meets the eye.

However, if all your research is going nowhere, perhaps you aren't taking intuition far enough. Maybe you're on the wrong path. But only do this if research fails: and give it a couple of weeks of dedicated research. Give it a chance.

You don't feel secure.

You feel like you're giving too much control of your life to outside forces, but at the same time, you don't know how to take control. You need to turn to Self-Trust. Self-Trust is similar to intuition, but it's internal so you have complete control. If necessary, work your way up to trusting yourself more. If you already trust yourself, translate that trust into a dominant force.

Conclusion

The intuition path has it's pros and cons, but in the hands of a skilled intuitive is an excellent path to take. It's not easy to master, but the rewards are certainly worth it. If you want to become an intuitive but don't yet have the skill for it, try progressive training of your intuition. The more you trust it, the better it will work for you.

Until next time, may you know what you must do.

The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: Progression

Welcome back to my series on the 4 styles of personal growth. For those who have missed part of it, you can find the second part of the series here and the first part here.

Summing Up:

To recap, the progressionist path of personal growth is a very logical, methodical path in which a practicer will set measurable goals (such as a 30-day trial to do X) and then achieve them. A stranger, looking at the practicer's accomplishments, will be able to state with precise certainty if a progressionist has achieved their goal or not. That's how clear and precise their goals are.

I personally am a progressionist, as evident by my 30-day trials. My goals are quite measurable. Other people may have goals like 'Be more loving' 'Help more people' and 'Do better at X'. A progressionist doesn't really get that. If you can't measure your goals, what's the point? Note: there IS a point, in that it gets you moving. Just by examining the other styles, I'm able to see with their eyes.

Growth:

A progressionist's main growth efforts will generally be directed at fields with a lot of numbers. Health, productivity, and finance are examples. It's hard to make an undefinable goal in terms of finances, and very easy to make a strictly measurable one.

The fields they will have the most trouble in are fluid, subjective fields like socialising. How can you measure if you're better at socialising than you were a month ago? It can be done, but it's not easy.

Subtypes:

Progressive / Intuitive (P/I): A P/I is difficult to define: more information can be found here. To sum it up, a P/I will generally use their intuition not for setting goals, but for choosing fields. A P/I might not use their intuition to decide "I want to make $5k a month'. Rather, they would feel like they wanted to be richer, then create an exact goal, and follow through logically.

Progressive / Research (P/R): My personal style, these two go hand in hand. A P/R will take logic to it's extreme, by deciding on a goal, then finding out as much info as possible on the subject, then assimilating that information, picking an exact goal, and moving forward. This is the way a scientist would be likely to approach personal growth.

Progressive / Self-Trust (P/S): Unlike other progressives, a P/S usually doesn't follow their goals in a logical manner: rather, they will pick the goals that feel right, and use their feelings as a barometer. Of course, they'll still make exact goals. P/S's use their gut feelings as radar signals, interpreting them scientifically and adjusting course accordingly.

Shifting:

If you feel that progression isn't going to help you in your next goal, you've plumbed the depths of it, or you simply want a change, this section is for you. Personal growth is malleable, and a good growth expert will be able to call upon all paths in varying degrees of expertise. Here's what you may need to do if:

You're uncertain.

You have a goal, but you're worried about it. You know what you want to do, but you're scared of taking the next step. You want to become a Researcher temporarily. This is an easy shift: your mind should easily play along with getting lots of information. You can then make your decision as to whether to do the goal or not.

You're moving in to an unfamiliar field.

A progressionist trying to do better at socialising won't do too well. It's not measurable, and it's very difficult to know if you've made significant progress. To do well here, you'll need to move into Self-Trust. Focus on the small things in life: even the most anal of progressionists don't plan every little thing. Start moving into not planning larger areas until you're confident taking on projects with just feelings to guide you, then make the shift.

Things are shifting too fast.

You can't keep up with the rapid pace. Goals you make become obsolete in a week, and you can't analyse the changes properly. You need to move into Intuition. Under normal circumstances this shift is hard, but if you have this problem, you're halfway there. As soon as you fully accept you can't control this, and you're just along for the ride, you can let go and let your intuition guide you.

Conclusion

The progression path has it's pros and cons, but is especially strong in the more scientific areas of growth. As long as you have lots of room to grow in formulaic areas, the progressionist path will serve you well. In order to supplement this path, you should learn to trust yourself more so that you can take on less measurable challenges and grow holistically.

Until next time, may you get from A to B within X days following Route Y:)