It has been only by writing this series of essays that I’ve come to realize that I have a set of principles I follow for my personal development. They might not be right for everyone, but they’ve certainly served me well.
#1. Go deeper than the surface level
I’ve repeatedly found that the real fruits of any personal development program or experience lie below the surface. There is always an introductory “light” version, which can be useful if you’re just looking for a taste. But don’t expect that to produce real transformation.
I often notice that people who are “into” personal development will keep shopping around for different practices and gurus, only dipping their toes in the water before moving on to something else. This gives them the impression that they’ve “tried everything” and “nothing works,” when in fact, they’ve only inoculated themselves to a wide variety of powerful medicines.
For example, the Landmark Forum weekend seminar was impactful for me, but it was nothing compared to the half-dozen other courses from the same organization I went on to complete afterward. A single class can never compete with the impact of a full curriculum.
The best way I’ve found to go beyond the surface is to take on a position of service or leadership (which are the same thing). It was only when I joined Landmark’s leadership training program and saw what it takes behind the scenes to produce transformation in others that the teachings truly sank in.
I’ve attended and participated in a variety of other programs and courses that didn’t even merit a mention in this series, simply because I didn’t go deep with them. Therefore they never had a chance to make their mark and become a part of who I am.
#2. Commit for a set period of time
Related to the above, it’s important to dedicate a substantial period of time to a given practice. I’ve compressed a seemingly large number of experiences into my story, but in reality, I almost never pursued more than one growth practice at a time or even one right after another. It takes time to integrate.
For example, after taking Joe Hudson’s weekend Tide Turners seminar in 2018, it took a full year before I felt ready to enroll in his more intensive week-long Groundbreakers program in 2019, and then another year before I participated in his online program The Art of Accomplishment Masterclass, and then another year before my wife and I joined a couple’s retreat he led in 2021. That’s four years of participating in and absorbing one person’s teachings, during which I didn’t pursue any other personal growth practice.
My typical rule of thumb is to have one big personal growth experience each year, as a kind of “spiritual rejuvenation” to ensure I’m remaining connected to my deepest self and that I’m not ignoring too many uncomfortable truths about myself. I know it’s time for my annual tuneup when life starts getting dull and loses its color, indicating that I’m starting to lose touch with my emotions and sense of wonder.
Committing to one practice for a set period and allowing one to settle before seeking another also ensures I’m not just seeking an endless series of dopamine hits in place of real change, or using courses as a way to distract from the necessary inner work. There is truly no rush, and the truth is, you can arrive at many of the same breakthroughs via multiple paths. It’s more important to go deep in one of them than to keep shopping around looking for the “perfect” option.
#3. Find a teacher, peers, and a structured environment
I’ve found far better results when I had a teacher, and a group of people undergoing the experience alongside me. This provides a strong source of accountability to ensure I keep showing up for others who depend on me. But just as importantly, I believe there is a mechanism buried deeply in our psyches that makes change much easier when done in groups.
We are a social species, and many aspects of all three levels – mind, heart, and body – are geared specifically to learn from other people. Doing anything in isolation is inherently foreign and unnatural for us, especially if it’s a confronting or scary experience like changing our most deeply rooted beliefs and ways of being.
Other people give us outside perspectives to help shine light on our blindspots and give us comfort and encouragement at moments of fear. It’s also simply more fun and meaningful to undertake a challenge with others, and I’ve made some of my deepest friendships in adulthood as a result.
Even Vipassana meditation retreats, which ostensibly are all about finding your own internal realizations in complete silence, benefit tremendously from the shared nature of the experience. There are also daily recorded teachings from the founder Goenka as well as a daily Q&A with the meditation teacher, which provide context and a sense of assurance.
This is why, whenever possible, I try to join a course, program, retreat, or group coaching experience, rather than only reading or researching a subject.
#4. Occasionally go “off the reservation”
In contrast to the principle above, it’s crucial to occasionally go “off the reservation” and put yourself in an environment that is not planned and structured for you. If your breakthroughs depend on a perfectly ordered, predictable environment, then what good are they?
The true test of whether you’ve changed is diving headfirst into unstructured environments, such as when I attended Burning Man with almost no preparation. It forced me to adapt, and improvise, drawing on all the tools and lessons I now had at my disposal.
Another wonderful venue for this is travel, which inherently throws all kinds of surprising and uncomfortable scenarios at you. Although I haven’t included it here, I consider international travel and living abroad for longer periods a core part of my personal growth and do it regularly.
I firmly believe the ultimate goal of any structured program, skilled teacher, or new growth practice is to outgrow it. I don’t want to keep piling on one daily practice after another until my whole day is taken up in preparing to live my life, rather than living it. I see each new technique as a temporary season – like a metamorphosis I’m undergoing, until I eventually emerge from my cocoon as different from my previous self as a butterfly from a caterpillar, free to flutter off and live a full, vibrant life free of structures and rules.
#5. Share your stories in real time
This one is probably obvious by now, but I believe strongly in sharing your stories – not just at the end of the road when you’ve had all the insights and breakthroughs, but at each step of the journey.
This has numerous irreplaceable benefits:
- Helping you integrate and fully internalize what you’re learning by turning it into a narrative on the page and in your mind
- Allowing you to more effectively connect and cross-reference insights across experiences and at different levels of mind, heart, and body
- Documenting what you’ve experienced so you can revisit, recollect, and even reinterpret it in the future
- Giving other people in your life the chance to learn from and maybe even participate in a new experience they wouldn’t have otherwise (which if they do, gives you a lot of interesting things to talk about and relate over)
I’ve found that the best time to share your stories isn’t even at the “conclusion” of a single experience. You never know when a given chapter of your growth journey will end, and by the time it does, the most fundamental insights you had when you were a beginner are likely to be forgotten.
No, the best time to share is in real time, right at the frontier of your own progress.
For example, in 2019, I delivered a talk at a conference called Refactor Camp based on adrienne maree brown’s book Pleasure Activism. This was at the very beginning of my exploration of somatic, body-centric personal development, and in retrospect, I didn’t know what I was talking about. I had very little personal experience to speak from, so this talk was less about my expertise as it was about my curiosity, my open questions, my first tantalizing insights, and most of all, an invitation for other people in my network to surface potential next steps for me.
When you open-source your growth journey in real time, you’ll find that all sorts of people who are on a similar journey will be drawn to you. They’ll become your confidants, your partners, and your friends. Putting your story into narrative form can also be tremendously healing in its own right, as I’ve done with my father’s story in documentary form.
#6. Move toward where you feel shame
Looking back on the formative personal development milestones of my adult life, it all seems so neat and tidy, as if I sat down and planned it in advance. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was almost no point at which it didn’t feel chaotic, random, and accidental.
I now believe that personal growth isn’t really something you have to go out and pursue like wild game. It is constantly present all around you, and happening whether you like it or not. There is nothing more natural for humans than to grow and change, and life tends to conspire to give you exactly the experiences you need to grow (a lesson I learned from Michael Singer).
However, in our modern world of constantly multiplying optionality, you sometimes have to choose to pursue one path over another, if only for the sake of time management. In that case, the best rule of thumb I’ve found is to move toward whichever part of your life is most associated with shame. The feeling of shame is a signal that a part of you hasn’t been seen, accepted, embraced, and loved, and until it is, it will continue broadcasting pain. The longer you ignore it, the worse that pain will become and the more it will spread to other aspects of your life.
The reason I say “move toward” is that you don’t have to make a full frontal attack on that area, and probably shouldn’t. This isn’t about forcing yourself or dominating yourself. It’s about learning new ways to love yourself.
If there’s an aspect of your life that feels too overwhelmingly shameful to approach or think about or feel at all, then that probably means you’re not ready to. Instead, pick an area that feels shameful but one you have some curiosity or openness about. And you can start at whichever level you’re most comfortable with – mind, heart, or body. For me, that usually means reading books and articles, which allows me to start gaining intellectual familiarity and a basic understanding before diving into my feelings or my gut.
#7. Seek variety and diversity
As this series illustrates, it’s important to me to seek a wide variety of different “modalities” – to gain exposure to different ways of thinking, feeling, acting, and practicing personal development.
A lesson I took away from my religious upbringing is that no one has an exclusive monopoly on the truth. No one religion, or philosophy, or teacher has it all figured out. They each perceive one facet of the truth, and their blindspots have to be filled in by others.
By mixing and matching my approach to personal development, I protect myself against some of the worst abuses and pitfalls of metaphysics– the cult leaders who abuse their authority, the pseudo-science that dismisses logic and reason, the fundamentalist tendency to conform “perfectly” to one philosophy and denigrate all the others, and most subtle but important of all, the risk of confusing the map with the territory and mistaking my perception of reality with reality itself.
This life is too complex and wondrous to be easily encapsulated into a single perspective. This universe is too big and mysterious to be explained by any one mental model. This reality is too wondrous to ever be fully understood, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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The post A Quest for Self-Knowledge: From Self-Help to Somatic Healing (Part IV – My 7 Principles for Personal Development) appeared first on Forte Labs.