At one point, becoming “the next Tony Robbins” was actually my goal, a goal I now feel embarrassed to admit I once had. Especially since I saw recently that James Arthur Ray had beat me to it:

From 3:57-4:07 James tells a joke that is exactly the same as joke I’ve heard Tony Robbins tell. Of course, Tony is no stranger to plagiarism either–a good 75% of what he does comes directly from NLP, which he reworked and renamed NAC to avoid a lawsuit.

After extensive research, I’ve discovered the top 7 “success strategies” for becoming a personal development cult leader:

1. Bigger is better. If you want massive success as a pop icon of personal development, you must think and act in larger-than-life terms. It helps if you are over 6′6″ tall and weigh over 240 lbs (solid muscle of course). Speak loudly and quickly. Take up a LOT of space–that way, there will be no room for people to think or object. Dress either in fine suits, or like a rock star–your choice. Your seminars should be at least 2000 people, even if you have to pay people to attend at first, although some have had success with smaller groups (especially therapy process groups). 50ft jumbotrons, stadium music, lights and lasers are all a nice touch. Here’s a good example of your future lifestyle from Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Power Within (warning: the volume is loud and distorted):

2. Use the word “unlimited” as much as possible. People hate the inherent limits of the conditioned world. Instead of providing a way of overcoming suffering by accepting the world as it is, simply deny that limits exist by creating a fantasy world of words. For example: “unlimited power,” “your unlimited potential,” “the unlimited market potential,” “unlimited wealth,” etc. Everyone knows all markets are limited by definition, potential is limited by all sorts of factors, and only a megalomaniac would want unlimited power or wealth. To overcome this minor objection, induce a state of mania with a large group (see above) while appealing to people’s greed. This should eliminate deviance and insure compliance. You’ll be amazed at how suggestible and gullible people are!

3. Model your inner circle after other successful cults. Why recreate the wheel when so many have already succeeded at creating devoted followers, sleeping with hundreds of beautiful women, getting people to work for free, etc. So much research has already been done on cults and cult formation. Offer the “opportunity” to work for you for free, and then cull members of this volunteer workforce to join your inner circle of devotees. This handy training video says it all, really:

4. Offer free or cheap initial seminars to hook victims. All great personal development gurus make sure that the initial seminar is free or reasonably priced. This is a great bait-and-switch, and also makes people feel like they owe you something. Use the altered state you have elicited in your audience to deliver a long, multiple hour, extremely aggressive pitch right at the emotional peak of your workshop. Don’t forget to use all of your advanced understanding of human psychology, sales, and manipulation!

Make sure to charge at least $5,000-10,000 for this “advanced” training to create extreme perceived value–equivalent or greater than a college education in 5 days–even though the advanced training is basically the intro repackaged. Encourage participants who don’t have the money to put it on a credit card or post-date a check, using the magical manifestation powers thinking they’ve learned in the seminar to somehow find a way to make the money by the time the check clears. Distract from the fact that many will issue chargebacks or bounce checks when they realize they were being manipulated–have your trained collections team (or what we like to call “financial coaches”) work with such resistance later.

Answer objections about the outlandish prices in advance by framing resistance to impulsively buying as “limiting beliefs” that will cause financial failure throughout their lives if they can’t “break through” them now, ignoring the fact that many previous participants in the advanced courses declared bankruptcy due to this “success strategy” and the high costs of the workshops. If necessary, plant people in the audience to run to the sales tables to create social proof. That should get you a good 2/3rds of people signing up, and even after chargebacks and bounced checks you’ll still net a pretty profit.

5. Publicly thank people, but don’t cite anything. Thank authors that you’ve ripped material from publicly and with tears in your eyes. This will end up sounding like you have referenced where your ideas came from (most of which are not original, after all, since the only thing you are an expert in is your own PR). Yet since you haven’t actually referenced any idea in particular, you’ll still sound like you made up all this stuff on your own. What better way to come off as a nice and incredibly brilliant guy when you are actually a narcissistic megalomaniac! By the way, don’t get a degree in any psychological field, so you won’t have any pesky colleagues or overseeing boards. In order to pull that off though, you must…

6. Polish your image, not your content. You could focus on better techniques for helping people and relieving their suffering, but how would that help you become a rock star and get all the ladies! Don’t be silly. Work on what’s most important: your image. Get your teeth whitened and capped. Get on Oprah. Surround yourself with celebrities at every opportunity (even get them as clients). Sue the crap out of all detractors. Superficiality breeds success. If you want people to treat you like a god, you must look like one!

7. Start a Multi-Level Marketing scheme. Multi-level marketing is great…if you’re at the top of the pyramid! By starting an MLM, you can leverage the hype from your CDs and seminars towards making you money. MLM’s don’t actually provide any real chance of anyone making money, but you won’t need to worry about that, for you can twist your teachings by spinning structural inequities as being the fault of individuals who aren’t “going for it 1000%,” have a “negative attitude,” or have a bad “money blueprint”…which means they are in need of more seminars!

There you have it–the 7 Secrets of Success for developing your superpowered personal development cult…er mastermind group.

Have any additional tips? Please add them in the comments.

The questions I never hear asked however in personal development are “who doesn’t need more personal power? When does someone have too much personal power? How much do we want? What is the optimum amount, and what happens when we have too much?”

From my personal experience watching people in personal development communities and developing personal power myself, too much personal power can definitely be a bad thing. Let’s take an example.

Imagine a weak, shy young man who has terrible luck with women and who decides he wants to become more confident with the ladies. He does all sorts of inner work to get in touch with his emotions and communicate more authentically, all of which is really good stuff. But since he’s framed his life around the development of personal power, he now sees all social interactions in terms of hierarchies, and aims to be top dog (alpha) in all situations. While he’s not exactly a macho jerk due to his innate sensitivity and his new slick communication skills and emotional authenticity, he’s still a bit of an asshole in a strange way. For instance, nobody else can get a word in when he walks in the door due to his overwhelming personal power and charisma. He can’t be missed, as he now dresses in stylish and even flashy ways. He tells extremely interesting stories, talks loudly, and takes up a lot of space.

Sound far fetched? Sound like “it could never happen to me?” Well, yes, it can happen to you. It happened to me for a while, and I’ve seen it directly happen to others I know personally and peripherally. It’s a strange experience, going from a sense of such deep unworthiness and shyness to suddenly (and very naturally) dominating conversation, holding listeners enraptured with every word, beaming confidence and taking up space.

When one is afraid of taking up space, often the injunction from personal development literature (and popular men’s work and “seduction community” stuff) is to confidently take up space, even with your body language (hold your legs apart when you sit, speak loudly and quickly, etc.). But this frames social interaction in terms of a zero-sum game (if I win, you lose or vice versa). If there is only so much social-emotional space to occupy and I’m now taking up more than my fair share, it leaves less room for others.

When you see social interaction as a non-zero-sum game (we can both win), then personal power becomes far less important, and in fact having a lot of it can overwhelm or overpower someone else who is say wanting to contemplate an idea slowly and carefully.

When I was first developing and working on getting enough personal power, I held certain people up as role models: Tony Robbins, breakdancers, even rap artists. But now I see things a bit differently. The Tony Robbins of the Personal Power tapes sounds to me like a self-absorbed narcissist (I don’t know him personally though, and it was the 80’s). Breakdancers sometimes appear overly confident, as if picking a fight so they can show off. Rap artists seem sex and power obsessed (how many women and cars does one man need?).

Everyone has a need for personal power, just as everyone has a need for food. But just as our need for food is not infinite, and taking in too much can be harmful, too much personal power could be problematic for an individual, or at the very least for the people around that individual.

What do you think? Is there a limit to how much personal power is appropriate for a given person in a given context? Add your thoughts in the comments.

I just read a short book called The Underachiever’s Manifesto: The Guide to Accomplishing Little and Feeling Great by Ray Bennett, M.D. It’s appropriately very short–you can read it in 30 minutes, after which you feel you accomplished something…something very small.

While nearly everyone has the potential to improve their lives, often times our idealistic standards keep us from doing anything, or even make us more unhappy than not having them. Because the neighbor is a raw foods evangelist claiming “cooked food is poison,” we don’t even bother eating a serving of vegetables at dinner, reasoning “it’s too much work to be healthy.” Yet we feel like crap–not because of the food we’re eating, but because of the thought that we should be eating better! If we’d simply lower our standards to the bare minimum to meet our real needs, we’d find it’s incredibly easy to improve our lives in substantial ways.

Here are 3 ways to lower your standards for greater happiness and real achievement (I’d write more, but that’s enough for now):

• Exercise 20 minutes a day, max. Go for a walk, do some pushups and bodyweight squats, and stretch comfortably. Don’t let yourself do more! Do you really need to be more fit than this? Get fit over a year or more’s time, not in a 12-week blitz.
• Get Rich Slowly.
• Find work you love by working less. Do something you enjoy in the extra time you’d be putting in at the office. Find at least 10-30 minutes a day to have fun or do something creative. By developing your passions, you’re less likely to burn out, and more likely to learn something fun that you could also get paid for.
• Less courage, more consistency. I often recommend to clients that they do something each day that is at a level 2-3 of courage out of 10, and avoid doing things that require an 8-10 of courage whenever possible. Reserve your adrenal glands for life and death emergencies!

Ha, I gave you 4 points. That’s a tip called underpromise, overdeliver. It’s easier to go the extra mile when you only promised you’d run one mile than if you promised a marathon. This is something I’m really working on personally.

The things that I’ve made the most significant progress on in my life have often been areas in which I set minimum standards and worked on them over long periods of time. For instance, when I had social anxiety, I would attempt to make eye contact and smile with a couple people a day until that felt comfortable. Sometimes I got too wound up and tried to make huge leaps in progress, but I inevitably crashed.

What can you achieve less at today?

p.s. I thought about putting a photo in this post, but it doesn’t really need one. Plus, I put a lot of work into the Precision Change podcast, which is where more of my strengths and interests lie anyway.

Photo credit: El Garza

Succeeding regularly is comfortable. I regularly succeed at making myself breakfast. But I’m 28 and of average to high intelligence, so I don’t put a check on my goal chart for cooking myself some eggs. I’m grateful for my ability to feed myself, but if I don’t have some goals I could and probably will fail at, then I’m not really living up to my potential.

I do not like to repeat successes. I like to go on to other things.
~ Walt Disney

Many people have no real goals, i.e. goals that matter deeply to them that they are actually working towards, goals that there is a good chance they could fail at–and that to succeed at them they’d need to seriously grow. It’s a shame, because unless you have goals like this, you are not really living or feeling the aliveness that comes from “living the dream.” And yes, the dream is like an always receding horizon, but the quest is still worth it.

A Brief History of My Successful Failures

I’ve been a part of several failed startups. How cool is that? I really went for it, tried to do something new and exciting and even world-changing, and it didn’t work. From these experiences I’ve learned a ton about…

• how to make ideals real
• when and how to get practical without losing vision
• how to work well with others
• why sometimes you do everything right and shit happens anyway, and all you can do is let it go and bounce back
• how to stay positive even after your ideals get shattered, your heroes sometimes act like assholes, and businesses you poured your heart into fall apart in 48 hours

(There’s the obligatory personal development blog bulleted list.)

But even having experienced the pain of business failure, I don’t understand how anyone could work a soul-sucking corporate job. Personally I think the 40 hour workweek is archaic, let alone the 50, 60, or 70 hour workweek. Of course, what do I want to do with my free time? Study, practice, create, dialogue with friends, write, and work on personal projects like this one.

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
~ Winston Churchill

I’ve quit many jobs, risking failure and poverty, because I simply would not do the mind-numbing work that was being asked of me. Have I achieved success? Success by who’s criteria? I value my mind, my free-time, and the possibility for creating something unique and meaningful more than a steady and well-paid job, so by that criteria I am totally successful. For someone raising a family, or desiring to impress the neighbors by the size of their television, they will have a somewhat different criteria for achieving success. But no matter the criteria, if you are not failing often, you have become stale or your vision is too small.

On the personal front, I’ve had many failed relationships. My current relationship is overall quite beautiful and wonderful, but that in many ways is because I risked–and experienced–a great deal of failure. I grew up with intense social anxiety, so bad that until junior high I regularly peed myself in class because I was too shy to ask to use the bathroom. I had a crush on one girl from 3rd grade to 8th, and never once talked to her (although she was on my softball team for several years).

I never asked a girl out until college, where the first woman I kissed I ended up in a 2 1/2 year relationship with. I was a co-dependent, depressed pushover through most of the relationship, and when it ended, she took all my friends and I had to find new ones! Luckily I kept playing a bigger game, kept risking failure, and doing so with an open heart. I kept courageously going for what I wanted (failing even at that) and many years later, after many heartbreaks, I have a wonderful woman in my life. And at least every month there are challenges in our wonderful relationship! This is what happens when you are growing.

Risk Failure, One Day at a Time

I love talking to people who are smarter than me, which is one of the joys of hosting the Precision Change podcast. Today I interviewed David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. It was wonderful talking to him, in part because I suck at doing things. Really! I hate todo lists. I’m basically lazy–passionate, but lazy. I’d much prefer to sit around and think about things, or read something interesting, or just relax outside in the beautiful Boulder sun than to get something done. My friend Theo joked recently that I should write a book called GTOYP: Getting Things Off Your Plate.

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

But yet I love David Allen’s GTD system, because it gives me the tools to manage a weakness (doing) utilizing a strength (thinking). And David Allen himself is a creative philosopher type, like me, who created this system in order to help himself to stay organized and get things done.

When I first thought of emailing his company to get him for the podcast, I felt anxious. What if he thinks we are small potatoes and laughs? Am I worthy of his time? But I felt the fear and did it anyway. What are you putting off because you are afraid you might fail? If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly at first.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from all of my failures is that when you are really trying to do something important, when you are really trying to change the world, you are probably going to fail hard and often. If you try new and audacious things, at times you are regularly going to look like an idiot and a flake. If you take the creative and unique path you were born to live, your family may disown you. If you think outside the box, people will think you’re crazy, and try to stuff you back into their box. But for those who want to live fully, doing anything less than fully expressing your unique gifts just won’t cut it.

“I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
~ Henry David Theoreau

Of course, failing too often, or purposely taking on extreme challenges can be dangerous and counter-productive. I have my fair share of personal experience here too. Don’t be stupid about the challenges you take on, but do regularly challenge yourself so that you continue to grow and express your unique gifts.

What can you risk failing at today?

The transformation try-out however is a slightly different concept, that Duff McDuffee, Ryan Oelke, and myself came up with. It’s different in that we want to constantly evolve the try-out process itself, and because we’ve added these key distinctions and suggestions when performing the 30 day try-out:

1. Keep in mind that changing a habit is often very hard work, and while the benefits are often enormous, doing so can often be massively destabilizing. Often times if you push the edge too far in transformational work, you can end up with a break down of multiple systems, instead of the breakthrough you are looking for. Because human beings are a system of many different tendencies, belief systems, habits, and so on, one major shift to an element of the system can have unforeseen impact on the system-at-large.
2. Know which habit to try and change, at what time, and in what order. Perhaps in order to make other bigger changes you need to start with the simplest one’s of all. For example, say you want to start your own business, but you are in extremely poor health and barely have the energy to maintain your current lifestyle. The 1st thing you may want to change is your energy levels, and to do something related to your health, so that you can have the energy to commit to other larger changes and goals.
3. Clear parameters and the appropriate tracking are invaluable. In order to follow through with a transformation try-out you first have to be very clear about the parameters of the change, and then need to have a reliable way to track your progress. It could be as easy as creating a small calendar on an index card and checking off each day that you perform the new action you are trying to do (or avoid a harmful action). Or it might be more elaborate, require more detailed metrics, happen over a digital medium, or have a collaborative component.
4. While you are participating in a transformation try-out it is also a good idea to keep some sort of record of the process. Keeping a journal with observations about the process, or blogging if you’d like, can help with sticking to it and also learning from the process.
5. Tell people what you are doing, and find others who can understand and support your decision. The more you talk about it, thinking about it, and reference it the easier the try-out will be.

Keep your eyes peeled for transformation try-outs from me and my friends, as we share our successes and failures, and hopefully the larger lessons that we learn along the way. We’ll be posting many of these in a blog format, and hopefully will continue to evolve the “transformation try-out” process itself.

You’re not crazy. Trust me.

We all have voices inside of us speaking their minds about our life - our projects, hopes, dreams, problems, and challenges. The good news is that having voices is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s through giving them a microphone front-and-center, one at a time, and hearing them fully that we succeed in life. Unfortunately, we often spend our time rushing through our days, ignoring them, and worse yet, letting one voice overshadow all other voices, giving us a very narrow perspective on life.

Ok, so you might have some doubts about all this, wondering just what a voice is. Think of a voice in the same way that you say things like, “A part of me feels/thinks this____, and a part of me feels/thinks that.” As an example, a part of you might want to get your financial debt under control, another part says it’s way to hard, and another part say to hell with it, live for today! Now, we haven’t quite got to the voices yet, only things the voices are saying.

Who or what is behind these statements?

Using the example again, a voice behind the first statement could be your Planner voice - the part of you that is always focused on long-term success and well-being, and with any issue in life, this Planner will take that side and present its case. Sometimes, you’ll value its perspective and other times you won’t, but if you don’t acknowledge it, there’s a good chance it will eat at you consciously or unconsciously. The important point here is to understand that we all have voices that take certain positions relative to any issue we’re dealing with.

So, what happens when you don’t listen to your voices?

Someone suggested this to me recently about a problem I was wrestling with, “It’s like you have a board room filled with people yelling at each other, and no one’s getting heard.” I thought this was a perfect metaphor for the experience of having lots of voices (parts of ourselves) speaking, but not hearing them out individually. Hard to run a company that way, and equally hard to be the CEO of our lives. As a result, one of two things (usually) happen when we don’t listen to our voices:

1. You remain frozen, indecisive, and unable to take action.
2. You take action, but are not fully committed, doubting yourself.

You can only make strong decisions in your life when you have fully heard yourself out, when you’re not fighting yourself, when you have expressed everything on your mind and have come to terms with it all. This doesn’t mean that, after listening to your voices, they just go away, only that you are not held back by them. You might still worry about your debt, but if you have gone through this process, and feel that you’ve thought it through, you feel much more at ease about it all.

In the end, the only way you’ll know what I’m talking about is to actually give it a try, so let’s go over the process.

Let the Voices be Heard!

The first step to listening to your voices and integrating their perspectives is to give them the time to speak. The first time you try this, set aside at least an hour. Make sure you won’t be disturbed. If quietness helps you to reflect, make sure you have it. If music gets your juices flowing, kick on some tunes that help you relax. Now, the actual process can be done in a more extroverted or introverted way, depending on your personal preference. One way involves, speaking out loud and using a couple of chairs that you’ll move back and forth from. The other method, my personal choice, simply involves paper and pen - in other words, bust out a journal. Either way, the essential process is the same, so go with what feels most comfortable.

The second step is to bring up a problem or challenge you’ve recently been struggling with. It could be an opportunity you’re considering taking, like a new job, or dealing with a thorny problem, like debt. It’s important that you have the issue clearly in your mind before you start. Once you have it, begin speaking or writing whatever comes to mind. After a few minutes, take a step back and ask yourself, what voices are speaking here? Often, it might be only one voice, having spoke it’s mind fully. Sometimes, it’ll be a whole bunch, but try to differentiate the different perspectives your voices are bringing to the table.

Next, once you have a few voices identified, you’ll want to have them “speak” alternately, one at a time. If you’re using the chair method, you should get up and move chairs for each voice, speaking from a distinct and different voice when you move to a new chair. Two chairs is fine, even if you have five voices, just make sure you clearly distinguish them, but the more chairs the better. If you’re journaling, write as though you’re composing a play, writing each character and their lines.

An important thing to remember is to fully embody each voice as a distinct and separate voice. It’s easy to start combining voices and get confused. Keep in mind that there is no “set list” of voices, so be creative and name as many voices as you have and feel the need to distinctively identify. Of course, there are certainly some common voices that everyone seems to have - the protector, the parent, the child… - but we also all have our own unique voices that emerge in our lives.

Each time you do this, it will start very naturally and organically. There is no rigid, predictable method. Over time you will be aware of all of your most common voices that could have something to say about the issue at hand, but you won’t be able to necessarily predict any or all of them.

Each time you do this process will be like picking up a bread crumb trail, or like a bloodhound catching a scent - at first you have to find the trail (identify the issue), then follow each crumb (listen to all your voices) and more bread crumbs you follow, the closer you get to a realization/understanding, much like a bloodhound hones in on its target. There is also no predictable time it takes for this. Sometimes the process might take five minutes, other times it might take a handful of hour long sessions. The goal with this is to arrive at a point when you feel that you have expressed all the sides of an issue you’re internally taking, and can take action with confidence and a clear conscience.

photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/pingnews/

In Part 1 I described the difference between victimhood and full responsibility, and how one can move toward full responsibility. In this post I wanted to push the envelope a little, and describe territory that I believe most self-development literature is unaware of (or even worse confuses with victimhood). This is the living understanding of integrated responsibility or what one could call cosmic responsibility.

The Synthesis of Opposites: Living in Complete Accord with the Universe

Integrated responsibility is the bringing together of the key insights from the previous two stages of responsibility. From victimhood we see the key insight that the world is a complex and sometimes uncontrollable force. From full responsibility we see that we (or the other) have a much larger part to play then we once thought, and that intention and surrender are deeply powerful forces with regards to causality.

The difference in integrated responsibility is that we don’t conceive of our “personhood” in the same way as we did prior (where the sense of a solid separate self was maintained as part of the equation). We also begin to see the deeply systemic nature of causality, and the limits of full responsibility.

Going Beyond the Self

For either victimhood or full responsibility to be maintained we have to think that there is a “self” that is at the receiving end of causality. That self is often experienced and understood as radically separate from the rest of causality (though becoming less so in full responsibility). When one begins to see through this sense of self, as ultimately existing, then the focus on self, and indeed on our always getting what we want starts to diminish radically. At this point one switches away from self-actualization, which characterizes most of the self-development literature, and moves toward self-transcendence, which tends to involve contemplation and introspection.

Systemic Thinking is Key

Another thing that can bring about the awareness of integrated responsibility is a kind of systemic thinking, in which one begins to see how systems operate, where their leverage points are and what the limitations in systemic change are. A great example of this type of thinking can be seen in “systems theory” with such thinkers as Gregory Bateson, Fritjof Capra, Ken Wilber, and Peter Senge. Our personal influence on changing things is seen in the light of larger systemic dynamics that are at play.

To get a better sense of how this might play out, think about the weather system. You may want it to rain, may do a rain dance, etc. but how much does your personal intention play in the larger confluence of wind, air pressure, humidity and competing weather patterns. Probably not that much!

Another thing I’ll mention about integrated responsibility is that one begins to have the flexibility to notice how and why their personal intentions have the results (or lack of results) that they do. One begins to appreciate the strong power of habits and forces in the universe, and develops a certain level of surrender to them. They also become more able to leverage these systems in amazing ways and can become phenomenal masters at shifting whole systems. In many ways these are the alchemists, magicians, and agents of change!

Here are some tips for how, if you are already operating from a perspective of full-responsibility, to move toward integrated responsibility:

Tips for Becoming an Agent of Change:

• Have a regular contemplative practice – Contemplative practices, from any of the wisdom traditions, provide insight into a deeper, wider perspective that is broader then your “self”. This naturally leads to integrated responsibility.
• Study thinkers who think systemically – Studying the great philosophers, thinkers, and theorists who have put forth material in a systemic way is a sure way to be challenged to think this way, and start moving into a sense of integrated responsibility. I mentioned a few earlier in the post, but there are many.
• Think about things from multiple angles – Challenge yourself to see the things that happen in your life from multiple viewpoints. For example, I recently heard that my wife and I were receiving (along with many other people in the U.S.) a rebate check for $1,200. I can view that as simply chance, can see that because we have been on top of our taxes we are receiving it, can view it as a the universe doing me a favor, can see it as a larger governmental response to the current recession, etc. There are so many ways to consider the things that happen in our lives, and by doing so we become disillusioned with any simple answers or perspectives.

When we open fully to the larger context in which life is happening, that isn’t solely reducible to my experience or my desires, then a greater level of surrender & happiness can result. The happiness isn’t one borne from getting what we want, but rather from seeing how things really are.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brunkfordbraun/

Much of personal development work has to do with our relationship to the world and ourselves. New challenges and opportunities are constantly arising, both internally and externally, and how we are conditioned to relate to them will largely determine the degree of peace and happiness we experience in this life.

What I’ve observed is that there appears to be three main ways that individuals can relate to the world, and that is either as victims, with full responsibility, or with integrated responsibility. The other thing I’ve observed is that this is largely a developmental process, where we move through these levels and at each new level there is a greater experience of freedom, flexibility, and happiness. In this series I’ll take you through a guided tour of each of these levels and also give you specific tips on how you move from one level to the next.

The Victim: Everybody has Got it Out for Me!

Victimhood is the predominant mode of being that we must initially fight to overcome. The world is so complex and crazy, especially when we’re younger and we’re still trying to figure things out. It’s no wonder that the first relationship one might have to that world is one of feeling victimized by it. It can feel at times that things are happening to us, that our completely outside of our control. And with that lack of control comes a phenomenal amount of fear, resentment, and anguish.

Oddly enough, sometimes the victim’s stance is take credit for something when it works out but then to feel deflated and depressed when it doesn’t. In this way they bounce between excitement and fear, being completely at the whim of outcomes. Also, they don’t really see there part in the “struggle of life”, or rather don’t see how their own beliefs and habits end up shaping their experience of life, and their participation in it. They are caught in a battle—with themselves and the conditions of their life—and it’s a Chinese knot that gets tighter with each new pull.

Full Responsibility: If It’s to Be It’s Up To…

At some point, one may realize that they are experiencing a tremendous amount of pain being the victim to conditions outside of them. If they realize this and then are exposed to the possibility that some other alternative exists, i.e. full responsibility, then there is a chance that if they have the courage to do so, they can begin to shift their relationship to life. The shift must be radical though.

Full responsibility is a movement toward beginning to think and act in the world, as if, you (or some other) are %100 responsible for what occurs in the world. Everything outside is seen as a reflection of this power, which can either be your individual power or the power of some Other (i.e. God). One’s mantra becomes, “If it’s to be it’s up to me” (or it’s up to God), and thereby begin to identify and work with the heart of the causality in the universe.

This radical movement begins to sever the victimized mentality that came before, and one now feels empowered to act in the world in whatever way they choose. This empowerment often brings with it a heightened sense of confidence and unshakeableness. No matter what happens, I can choose to relate to the situation in a fully mobile way. In this way we can begin to unwind and change the personal habits that no longer serve us, and we see that it is within our capability.

The other thing that full responsibility does, is to allow us to see the world not as a force that acts against us, but that one that works for our greatest good, either through our individual action or faith. One could argue that putting your faith in an Other (especially fully) is actually an extreme case of victimhood, but in reality it’s the opposite. When one looks for instance at the vow that Mother Theresa made—perhaps the most fully devoted woman of our times—to “Not refuse Him anything, under pain of death”. To truly fulfill this vow, and to put one’s faith in an Other fully, one has to exercise an extreme amount of self-reflection and is acting out of the same kind of responsibility that one who is seeing themselves as the source of all things is. In either case we’re dealing with some sort of ultimate power (whether it’s localized internally or externally) and that remains radically different from the stance of the victim.

Here are some tips for how, if you are operating from the role of victim, to move toward full responsibility:

Tips for Becoming Fully Responsible:

• Take the perspective that you are responsible for everything that happens - In every situation imagine what it would be like if you were ultimately responsible for everything. How does that change the situation, and the way you choose to respond in it. If for instance your partner and you get into a fight, you can ask yourself, how was I responsible for this fight? Instead of immediately blaming them, or becoming a victim, look at the ways in which you acted that helped to cause the situation. Then from there instead of perpetuating the fight, you can take responsibility for it.
• Take the perspective that a benevolent Other is responsible for everything - If you come from a background of faith, and feel a strong resonance with it’s teachings, try seeing everything that occurs in the world, including your own bad habits, as being in the hands of a benevolent being. Consider that everything that happens is for your, and others, greater welfare. Your practice then becomes to surrender fully to everything that arises, seeing that it is all an act of benevolence, even if you don’t know why, and you seek only to act in ways that in accord with this benevolence.
• Speak a language of responsibility - Notice when you say things like, “I have to…” and begin thinking, and speaking in terms of getting to do things. Also, notice how often you speak in terms of “you or they did this” and begin also speaking in terms of “I”. Instead of “She made me feel this way” one could instead say, “I choose to feel this way.” These shifts in language have a tremendous impact on our experience.
• Hang out with fully responsible people - Spend time with others who are already seeing the world this way. Find friends, mentors, and teachers who exude this degree of responsibility, and find out what makes them tick. Emulate the best parts of them, and step into greater freedom.
• Take new risks! - We’re always dealing with new challenges and opportunities, but part of what we did when were a victim was to try and isolate ourselves from those things, because they were seen not as opportunities but as threats. Now we can more fully engage with things we might not have otherwise tried, such as a new job, travel, a new skill, etc. Personal development becomes possible at this point, so give yourself to it fully!

The next post deals with yet another level of responsibility, one I’m calling integrated responsibility, and also gives tips for how to achieve it.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/d_vdm/533344086/

Last year I finally did it. I got myself to exercise nearly every day. And instead of being a chore, it was a wonderful thing I looked forward to!

How did I pull this off?

Well, I wasn’t born loving exercise. I’m a skinny intellectual who in the past would have loved to download his mind into the matrix rather than care for and feed “human body 1.0.”

The previous five years I unsuccessfully started and stopped various exercise programs, usually pushing myself really hard the first few weeks, achieving some results, but then burning out quickly. But last year I successfully practiced yoga daily, only missing a few days and easily picking up the routine again without guilt or shame.

Two weeks ago, I decided to up the ante by joining a gym. I’m starting to get in decent “yoga shape,” but my strength and cardio is lacking, and I’m wanting more energy and overall fitness. I used the same principles as when I took up yoga, and I have barely even noticed that two weeks have passed–except for some sleepiness the first few days and some mild soreness. I’m already feeling more energy and vitality at work, and in *ahem* partner yoga.

If you don’t already exercise regularly, it’s probably because when you think about exercising, you experience aversion, otherwise known as fear of pain. But exercise doesn’t have to be painful, and nowadays I look forward eagerly to going to the gym…even though I’m still not in that great of shape!

So what is my secret formula for mastering exercise motivation? How do I get myself to go to the gym 5+ days a week, and even do yoga at night some days?

Well, I didn’t learn how to cause myself pain and tolerate it. What I learned is a way to love exercising, by following these simple principles:

• Exercise daily. I find this to have several advantages. First, it feels good to move my body daily! I work at a desk, so this is really my only opportunity to get my lungs, heart, and muscles working. Second, by committing to exercising daily, I don’t push myself too hard on any given day, because I know if I do, I’ll be sorry tomorrow! This reduces soreness, fatigue, and injury, which in turn makes exercise less painful and more fun! Third, daily exercise gives you more frequent direct feedback on your physical condition. In my experience, this encourages the development of a gentler relationship to my physical experience instead of trying to push my body into submission and “shape up.”
• Make minimum commitments. I used to set extremely high goals for myself, like “do 100 pushups.” Now I set minimum commitments, like “show up to the gym 5 days per week and do whatever I want once I get there.” With my yoga practice, my minimum commitment was 20 minutes every day. Since my yoga sessions always end with savasana (relaxing on your back), sometimes that meant 10 minutes of stretching and a 10 minute nap! But setting a minimum commitment works well for me, because while some days I feel tired and lazy, just as often I am excited about doing more or exploring a new exercise. By setting minimum commitments instead of lofty goals, I develop both integrity (because I’m doing what I committed to doing) and enthusiasm (because I leave myself extra energy to go above and beyond). The reason I used to set high goals is that I thought I was naturally lazy; I never thought minimum commitments would work. But instead I quit my brutal regimes when I got too sore and tired from them, and I easily stay on my new programs because they are so fun!
• Create a menu of options. Along with my lofty goals, I used to set very precise and strict routines for working out. But I’m not an elite athlete, and I don’t care to be! I’m not motivated by beating other people at sports, or anything else for that matter. I simply want vitality, health, fitness, and energy to do the things I really care about. So instead, I now have a menu of options available for me every time I exercise. The menu only includes things that are good for me (in that they lead towards my outcomes) and fun (otherwise why do it?). One of my options on my menu is sitting in the sauna. If I’m especially tired and lazy today, I’ll usually do the elliptical machine for 10 minutes and then sit in the sauna for 10 minutes. This beats the exercise I’d get at home sitting on the couch with the Macbook!
• Start with a check-in. Before beginning my exercise, I quickly jot down a few words about my physical and emotional condition in a little journal. Just taking a minute to do this provides a context for how hard I can realistically expect myself to work. For example, if I’m feeling frustrated about something in my life, I can usually push myself really hard on the elliptical machine! But if I’m exhausted and stressed, I’ll go easier, just to “work hard when it’s hard to work.” I also jot down the exercises I do, both to monitor my practice over time and to remember what I did yesterday when I’m feeling exhausted today.
• End with rest. Happiness studies have shown that we generally remember experiences by their peaks and their endings. In particular, if something is painful but trails off slowly, we tend to remember it as less painful. People who got colonoscopies where the tube was left in there for a few minutes at the end were more likely to return for future procedures, even though the total time for this uncomfortable process was longer. Applying this to your workouts, if you end with relaxation, either in savasana (lying on your back for a few minutes) or sitting in the sauna or hot tub, your whole memory of exercising will be that of feeling wonderful–even though it may be 5 or 10 minutes longer! This will make it more likely that you will continue with the program, and even begin looking forward to it. Make sure to really let go and relax during this time. How often do you take even 5 minutes to enjoy life and relax deeply, with nothing to do and nowhere to go?
• Go with others. I decided to join the gym in part to support my girlfriend, but then I realized she was supporting me! Everything is easier when done together. As social mammals, we are often more likely to do something for someone else than for ourselves.

If you are not currently consistently exercising, you are missing out on the health and vitality that you are meant to enjoy. Please try this strategy out, starting today, and let me know how it works for you by leaving a comment below.

If you have a different strategy that works for you, please share that in the comments as well.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tasteful_tn/

I was speaking with a friend this morning, who is a committed martial artist and a meditation practitioner. She was sharing a recent event in which she was sparing with a beginning student and she found herself laughing every time either of them made a mistake. She apologized for laughing, as she noticed that the guy she was sparing with was getting more and more frustrated with each mistake. Wondering why she would laugh at something like that, we reflected together on the process of mastery and how with any skill or discipline there is a move toward greater and great lightness, acceptance, and humor. I mean come on, if you do something all the time, and have for years and years, you better damn well be able to have fun while doing it! But I think what she was really getting at is a heightened sense of acceptance that comes with mastery, in which having seen so many mistakes, fuck ups, and less-than-perfect scenarios we start to soften up to the inevitability of the dark with the light, and in the end we may even begin to see the inseparability of these polarities.

That isn’t to say that mastery is simply a move towards greater and greater acceptance, because there is also a movement toward greater and greater subtlety. In my friend’s case she can now see when someone’s stance is off because their right foot is pointing a hair to the wrong direction. An even more developed martial artist would probably be able to distinguish even more in-depth subtleties.

Meditation Mastery

With regards to meditation practice, which is my primary area of interest, this movement towards greater subtlety and deepening of acceptance and lightness are both means by which I’ve come to understand the progress of practice. The acceptance and lightness have mostly to do with the movements of my mind, and the relationship that meditation has uncovered to it. There are many times where I find myself having ridiculous thoughts, or going through patterns of craving & irritation, but instead of getting mad at myself I often just have to laugh. Oh, here is craving again, or here is irritation again. Mental states come and go, can’t ultimately define me, and will never be able to fully capture the fullness of reality. In that sense there is little need to push them away, or take them all that seriously. In a sense the mind is part of a larger cosmic joke.

With regards to subtlety all of the myriad states of heightened consciousness that one can experience (of light and bliss, deep calm, formless experience, or even of radical emptiness) are traversed during the course of meditation. They become more easily accessible and meditation actually becomes enjoyable at a certain point (not all the time, mind you). One also becomes aware of more and more in their experience, and is able to make finer and finer distinctions about mental and physical states. There is also a speeding up and expanding that happens with awareness, in which more and more sense objects can be seen with greater rapidity and in a broader perspective. This fluctuates, but is definitely a development related to intensive meditation practice.

The process of mastery, of moving from the gross to the more subtle, and moving from the stuck to the fluid is a brilliant process. That the lessons learned with one type of mastery can also apply to some many other domains is also quite fascinating. So next time you’re sparing with a master, and they start laughing at you, keep in mind that they’re just enjoying the process.