Personal Development for Smart People: A Review
Steve Pavlina's Self Help Book on Personal Growth & Self Improvement
Jan 8, 2009
Steve Pavlina, creator of the popular personal growth website and blog Personal Development for Smart People, has published his first book by the same name. Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth proposes that all personal development should be anchored by core principles.
Fundamentals of Personal Growth
Pavlina developed his fundamental principles after over two years of study by researching philosophical, psychological, and spiritual frameworks looking for fundamental principles that underlie effective growth in each area. He searched for fundamental principles that were universal, complete, irreducible, congruent, and practical.
Three Core Principles of Personal Development
Pavlina's research resulted in identifying three core principles and four secondary principles as follows:
- Truth: a core principle
- Love: a core principle
- Power: a core principle
- Oneness: a secondary principle derived from Truth and Love
- Courage: a secondary principle based on Love and Power
- Authority: a secondary principle made up of Truth and Power
- Intelligence: the final secondary principle, a combination of the other six principles
The Truth/Love/Power triangle (figure 1) depicts these principle relationships.
Of the three core principles, Truth and Love are self explanatory. Power often implies domination over others, but this is not Pavlina's definition. He defines Power as "...ability to consciously and deliberately create the world around you." It is essentially the quality of taking responsibility for one's own behaviors and life results.
Structure of Personal Development for Smart People
Part I of Personal Development for Smart People is devoted to definition and examples of each of the seven principles. There are numerous exercises enabling the reader to try out the principles.
Part II describes how to apply the seven principles to six aspects of personal growth:
- Habits
- Career
- Money
- Health
- Relationships
- Spirituality
Tips for Personal Growth
Pavlina has some excellent tips for people focused on personal growth and development. Among these:
- Regard any life-change activity as a 30-day trial. This bounds the new behavior enabling a person to try it out. A secondary benefit is that activities become routine after 21 days, so a 30-day period ritualizes the behavior.
- Go on a 30-day media fast. Avoid the influence of media-induced fear and "buy now" marketing by giving up television, radio, and newspapers. Devote the newly released time to personal growth goals.
- Have a conversation with a "future self" and "past self," gaining the perspectives of these versions of oneself.
- Goals need not be SMART, but they should be inspirational. A goal that doesn't make a person feel better now in anticipation of reaching it is probably not a goal worth achieving.
- Pavlina's exercise on discovering life purpose (page 166) is inspiring and has been personally effective for this writer.
- If only one idea sticks with the reader, Pavlina suggests "The most intelligent thing you can possibly do with your life is to grow."
Who is Steve Pavlina?
Trained in computer science and the owner of a former computer game development business, Pavlina has become a noted personal growth guru though lacking credentials other than insightful writing based on his own personal development experiences. His website is famous for his ability to earn a hefty income without directly selling products or services.
Base Self Improvement on Core Principles
Pavlina says that "the intelligent, 'smart people' approach to personal development is the direction that moves you into greater alignment with truth, love, and power." He also defines intelligence as "alignment with the principles of truth, love, and power."
Related Article: A Seven Stage Personal Growth Plan
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