Personal Development for Smart People
Seven Principles of Conscious Personal Growth and Self Development
Sep 11, 2009
Steve Pavlina is the owner of a popular personal development blog, where he writes detailed posts on all areas of personal growth. Pavlina set out to look for the common patterns behind all successful growth efforts. He noted that the self improvement field is fragmented into many different niches, each with its own experts. And the experts often disagree.
Pavlina's goal was to identify the principles behind all conscious human development.
In his book Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth, Pavlina lays out what he considers the three core principles of personal development: truth, love, and power, plus four secondary principles: oneness, authority, courage, and intelligence.
Truth for Self Growth
People seeking self growth must first understand how to identify and accept what's true for them. Truth starts with perception – looking at one's life and recognizing what is and isn't wanted, what is and isn't working. Once a person has identified their truth, they must fully accept it and become self aware enough to release their attachments to lower states, such as addictions and negative emotions, that do not serve them.
Although truth is important, Pavlina acknowledges that it isn't always easy. The many blocks to truth include social conditioning, media conditioning, false beliefs, emotional interference, and addictions.
Love in Personal Development
Pavlina explains love by saying that one of the fundamental choices people face in every encounter is to approach or avoid. The essence of love is the decision to connect.
A person who wants to grow consciously must deliberately decide which connections to strengthen and which to let weaken. Love is then deepened through effective communication and developing a sense of bonding. Blocks to love include a disconnected mindset, fear of rejection, incompatibility, and lack of social skills.
Power for Conscious Creation
Pavlina defines power as the "ability to consciously and deliberately create the world around you." Although the word power has negative connotations to some people, power can be aligned with truth and love or with falsehood and disconnection. It's important for honest, compassionate people to exercise power to avoid the suffering caused by dishonest, uncaring people who abuse power.
Power has six components: responsibility, desire, self-determination, focus, effort, and self-discipline. Without power, people are victims; with power, people become conscious creators.
Secondary Principles of Personal Development
The secondary principles of personal growth are each a combination of the core principles. Oneness is truth plus love. Authority is truth plus power. Courage is love plus power. Intelligence is truth plus love plus power.
Oneness is the recognition that all is connected. Oneness is a conscious choice of choosing to see oneself as part of a larger body and deliberately tuning in to this connection.
Authority purposefully blends knowledge and action to produce intelligent results. The five key aspects of authority are command of self, effectiveness, persistence, confidence, and significance. People of authority focus on what really matters to them.
People who want to live consciously require courage because it enables them to choose long-term gain in the face of short-term obstacles. Pavlina invokes the words of Carlos Castaneda: "Before you embark on [any path] ask the question: Does this path have heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and you must choose another path."
Pavlina considers intelligence the highest form of human experience, what defines human beings. The qualities of intelligence include authenticity, creative self-expression, growth, flow, and beauty.
Personal Development for Smart People
In Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth, Steve Pavlina presents a clear and logical way of looking at self growth, with a breakdown of principles that can be applied to all areas of life. People looking for principles to help them on their journey of personal growth will find this book a useful addition to their self improvement library.
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