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One-Minute Relationship Challenges
While you can do lots of different 30-day challenges solo, consider that you can also do them with a relationship partner. Rachelle and I often do 30-day challenges together, especially with other Conscious Growth Club members. This month we’re doing NaNoWriMo together, so we’re each writing novels by chipping away at the word count day by day. For another type of partner challenge, consider doing one specifically to connect with your partner in some pleasant way – emotionally, physically, romantically, etc. I suggest that you make it a super easy commitment – just one minute per day. Anyone can fi...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - November 8, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Relationships Source Type: blogs

NaNoWriMo – Days 4-5
Here are my latest progress updates for my novel: Day 4 I had a very pleasant writing session on this day, now at 6872 words total. I’m starting to enjoy this more as the scenes are coming together, and I’m getting more familiar with the key characters. I spent some time organizing the manuscript scene structure before I wrote any scenes this time. I created placeholders for the remaining signpost scenes, found a cleaner way to arrange my existing notes, and did a little more journaling with my characters. In general I find that journaling with my characters and asking them what we ought to write today is a...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - November 6, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Lifestyle Productivity Source Type: blogs

Here ’ s Why Nevada ’ s Ballot Counting Is So Slow
So lots of people are asking: Why is the counting so slow in Nevada? I’ve lived in Nevada since 2004, so I was curious about this too. You’d think the home of Las Vegas would be superb at counting – money at least – and the population of the state is only about 3 million… so what gives? Last I checked the count has been stalled at this: 588,252 votes for Biden580,605 votes for Trump So that’s only 7647 votes difference. And the state has a lot of mail-in ballots still to count. One reason is that any ballots postmarked by November 3rd and received by November 10th are legally valid h...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - November 5, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Values Source Type: blogs

Obedience Test Results
Four days ago I posted a simple obedience test. I’m still getting more responses each day, but it looks like the patterns have become clear enough to share what I’ve learned thus far. The basic idea was that I commanded people who read that post to read 5 more articles from my website on that same day and then to send me feedback about their experience. They could choose to obey the command or not. Why the Obedience Test? It was a simple idea that popped into my mind at the time, and I opted to run with it. That’s likely because I’ve been thinking about the theme of obedience lately. Much o...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - November 4, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Productivity Relationships Values Source Type: blogs

NaNoWriMo – Day 2
On Day 2 of NaNoWriMo, I wrote 1743 more words, so I’m at 3439 words for my novel so far. Today I’ll pass 5K words. While the challenge is technically to write 50K words in 30 days, I’m framing it as a daily commitment to write at least 1667 words per day. So I’ll surely end up with more than 50K words by the end. My approach is less flexible since I won’t be taking any days off, nor will I reduce the daily quota based on my ongoing word count. It’s easier for me this way since I’ll never let myself fall behind, so I’ll avoid the trap of having to write thousands of extra ...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - November 3, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Lifestyle Productivity Source Type: blogs

NaNoWriMo – Day 1
I did my first day of NaNoWriMo yesterday, writing the first 1696 words of a new novel – basically one full scene from start to finish. It took an hour with a 10-min break in the middle, so it was 50 minutes of writing time. And oh it’s bad – so hideously bad – but it’s a start. It introduces a couple of characters, including the protagonist, sets up the theme, and has a bunch of dialog, but as far as fiction writing goes, it needs a lot of work. I made some editing notes too, just to jot down some changes and improvements that popped into my mind along the way. I put those in a different section of the doc...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - November 2, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Lifestyle Source Type: blogs

Starting NaNoWriMo
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) begins today, and this is the first year I’m participating. Shortly after posting this, I’m kicking off a 30-day challenge to write at least 50,000 words of a novel this month, which works out to 1667 words per day. Here’s how I’m framing it: I’ve never written a novel before, and I’ve always wanted to. It’s something I want to add to my life resumé. While I could do this entirely on my own, it’s more fun and engaging to ride along with the energy of NaNoWriMo. I’ve thought about doing this for many past Novembers, and the ye...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - November 1, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Lifestyle Productivity Source Type: blogs

A Simple Obedience Test
I want to try a little experiment today regarding something I’m curious about. This test is valid on whatever day you read this post, not just on the day I originally publish it. This is a simple obedience test. I’m going to command you to do something – just a simple command with no extra reward or punishment – and I just want to see if you do it. The only reason to do it is because you choose to obey the command I’m going to give you. This is a test with just two core options. Either you obey the command, or you don’t. Let’s see what you end up doing. Here it is: I command yo...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - October 31, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Creating Reality Source Type: blogs

My 2020 Election Prediction
Here’s my prediction for the U.S. election, which is just 4 days away… and also some predictions for what I think will happen in the months after that. I expect that Biden is going to win by a landslide and that it’s not even going to be close. Yes, Trump and the Republicans will continue doing their best to suppress the vote, especially in the swing states, but I don’t think it’s going to make enough of a difference to change the election outcome. The fact that they’re doing this at such an unprecedented scale is a sign of incredible desperation. Even with such overt attempts to c...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - October 30, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Lifestyle Values Source Type: blogs

Win Before You Begin
If you tend to procrastinate on certain projects, one reason could be that you haven’t created a victory in your mind first. When you think about a project that isn’t advancing very well, consider these questions: Do you have a clear vision of what success for this project looks like?Can you see your desired end result clearly in your mind’s eye, like you’re recalling a vivid memory?Is the path forward relatively clear, from start to finish?Can you visualize the key action steps to bring the project to completion?Have you firmly decided to do the project now (as in this week, this month, or th...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - October 29, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Creating Reality Productivity Source Type: blogs

How to Overcome Your Feelings of Neediness
Why do you feel needy sometimes? You feel needy because your own brain doesn’t believe you. Your brain sees what you want. It also sees what you don’t want. And it genuinely expects that you’re going to keep getting what you don’t want. It doesn’t believe that you’re going to get what you want. Your brain believes that your efforts to get what you want will ultimately provide inadequate. It believes that you’re going to fail. So you feel needy when this happens. That’s actually a good signal, but you have to interpret – and act on it – correctly. You can so...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - October 28, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Abundance Creating Reality Emotions Lifestyle Source Type: blogs

Lying
Why do some people lie? One reason is that they don’t trust the receiver. They may be worried about a negative reaction to the truth. That’s an obvious answer but not really the deepest one. Perhaps a better answer is that a person lies to control the receiver. By withholding the truth and sharing something else instead, you can semi-control people’s responses – or so you might assume. So in that sense, lying is a form of manipulation. The deeper trust issue could be framed as a lack of trust in reality. When you speak the truth, reality gets to respond to that truth. When you speak a lie, real...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - October 27, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Values Source Type: blogs

For the Experience
One framing that I find empowering is to do something for the experience. If you choose not to do something, you don’t get the experience, which means you miss out on a lot of potential benefits. When you lean into new experiences, you’re likely to gain some or all the following: New lessonsMore character growthPerspective shifts and reframesInsightsNew friendsMaybe a whole new social circleNew income-generating ideasNew invitationsNew opportunitiesNew memoriesMore knowledgeNew skillsMore emotional depthMore emotional resilienceA more optimistic attitudeMore excitement and passionLess boredomA sharper,...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - October 26, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Abundance Lifestyle Source Type: blogs

I Voted for the First Time Ever
I mailed in my ballot on Friday. This is the first political election I’ve ever participated in. Here’s the first question filled out (not a difficult one): Voting for Biden / Harris for President was the only sane option given how hideous the other candidates are. You may not even recognize two of the candidates on the list since they’re running with much smaller parties, and they’re far from popular – for good reason I’d say. Don Blankenship is a former coal company CEO who spent a year in prison for violating mine safety standards (which got 29 miners killed). I’d vote f...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - October 25, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Abundance Creating Reality Values Source Type: blogs

The Point of No Return
In Act 1 of a story with a 3-act structure, the protagonist often reaches the point of no return. Their old world crumbles, and they stumble forward into a new world, often reactively at first. There is no going back to the old world. In a novel or movie, there may be multiple progressive points of no return, each creating a deeper level of commitment and increasing the protagonist’s risk as well. Once Neo takes the red pill in The Matrix, he can’t go back to his old life. The old reality has ended, and now his world is permanently changed. Once Harry Potter learns that he’s a wizard, his world i...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - October 24, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Abundance Creating Reality Lifestyle Source Type: blogs