Refining Your Personal Growth Palate

When you’re on a path of personal growth, it’s to be expected that you’ll eventually outgrow some lenses or tools that you used in the past, even if they were useful and effective. Your goals and interests may change, and other tools may become more useful to you. You may also integrate some practices well enough that you no longer have to think about using them as separate tools. Be careful about treating lenses as laws or beliefs, and be especially cautious to avoid wrapping them into your identity. That gets people stuck a lot. Treat lenses as tools that you can pick up and experiment with and then put down afterwards. You needn’t weave a lens into your identity. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, for instance, I don’t use the lens of attraction much these days. It’s fair to say that I’ve outgrown it. I still think it’s a useful lens, but it’s not sophisticated or nuanced enough for my current interests. To use that lens now would be like using an old spiral-bound Thomas Guide to navigate by car. Those guides were great when I was in high school and college, but we have more sophisticated navigational tools available today. Another lens that feels like it ran its course was looking for activities that scared me and then doing them. That lens can be very useful in creating growth experiences, but “do what you fear” is a rather blunt instrument. It works wonderfully for basic courage training, ...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Lifestyle Source Type: blogs