I am a fan of the writing of Steve Pavlina. There are a lot of things I like about his approach. From his courage to post about controversial topics, to his frankness about success and failure. But the reason he originally caught my eye was his focus on conscious personal development.
What does conscious self-improvement mean? It means you stop leaving your own personal growth up to chance. We spend way too much saying things like: "I really need/want/should do a better job controlling my temper." So far so good. Stating a desire is a nice place to begin.
The trouble is what we do often do next. Nothing. We state the desire, we wish we had more control of our temper, we might even get upset at ourselves when we blow up at our kids. But realistically we don't change anything. We make a decision to change, but we don't plan out consciously how to make the change.
My goal here on this blog is to help you change that specific mentality. To understand the importance of making a conscious decision to change, and then following it up by consciously deciding how you will implement the change.
Think of it this way. If you want to lose weight, there are certain general steps you must take:
1) Make the decision to lose weight
2) Decide what activities you will start and stop in order to lose weight
3) Follow through on these new behaviors
There really is no other way. No short cut. Even if you decide to use surgery to help with your weight loss, it's still an activity you consciously decide to take.
It seems completely absurd to just think "I will lose weight" without consciously deciding how to achieve your goal. Yet in so many areas of our lives we do just that. We have a nagging feeling that we should change our study habits, or our productivity, or our use of language. Sometimes we even take the next step and commit to the change.
Conscious growth takes it a step further. It not only says I will make this change, it says here is how I will make the change. That's what change is all about. Wishing means nothing. Changes in behavior, decided upon with intelligence and thought, are what drive all successful change.
