The vast labyrinth of self-improvement can be tricky to navigate. Where to set the focus, what direction to go, whom to trust and many more similar questions came up for me. I am totally exited about the topic of self-improvement and personal development. I want to share my insights and experiences with you.
Events and retreats
The most fun way for personal development is to join a retreat! This option is my favourite as the social interactions as well as the participants add tremendously to the experience and help to broaden the horizon. It is so valuable and fun to hang out with likeminded people. Retreats offer a place to network, learn, and where you are able to gain new momentum. People are able to interact and thus learn faster in comparison to reading a book. Plus, other participants are usually very inspiring and help to spark a new light or motivate me. Check out upcoming retreats: Brain Factor Retreat in Bansko (March23), or Mindvalley University in Tallinn (July23, find out more). Please comment if you have event suggestions, or get in touch with me.
Meditation
The easiest, cheapest and most readily available tool is meditation. Take your time, relax, breathe, and empty your mind. Sounds easy and for many it comes natural. For others it seems impossible to just sit in a meditation posture to unplug from the world for a little while. There are many ways how you can find access to mediation, besides, you can choose from a variety of different forms of meditation. To start out new, to meditate, may seem a bit odd at first. The more often you do, the easier it becomes. Meditation can be like a hike in the mountains, sometimes you may encounter a steep section where you may struggle for a bit, at other times, you may experience the uplifting feeling when stopping at an amazing lookout-point, or when you reach a certain peak. Meditation is a great way to start and end a day for me. It gives me the chance to calm down, recap the day, and to learn from the experiences of that day. Also, it may prepare me for the day and reminds me to keep calm and take on different perspectives, e.g. in order to navigate through a challenging situation. Tension has never helped me, also getting lost in details did never work out. Most things came easy when I was in a relaxed state myself. Meditation can certainly help with being more relaxed and present in the moment.
Journaling
For me journaling is one of the most insightful habits that I have established. It surprises me every time, over and over again! The most revealing insights and aha-moments came when I put a brain-dump in my journal. It is one of the most reliable sources of revelations to me and helps me to digest situations that I would otherwise carry around with me. It is so much easier to make sense out of a situation when writing it down. It is so easy for me to get things out of my system by putting it on a piece of paper, and additionally it allows me to recap and see it from a distance and allow for insights and guidance. I have had the best experiences when writing by hand (pen and paper). It definitely is a tool that I will keep sharp and which I can highly recommend to anyone! My Conceptum notebook travels always with me.
Membership based communities
Out of the Blue, Younity, The Flow Genome Project, Mindvalley and many more are offering many different ways and aspects to help you to learn to improve. Depending on what suits best to you, or what you are drawn to the most, this groups offer a vast amount of options to choose from. Vitorio and Evia form Out of the Blue offer a free group call every Friday that might spark your fire, check it out here.
Books that moved the needle for me
Books that I found really inspiring and insightful at the same time, I can highly recommend those: 1. Stealing Fire from Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal, 2. Game Changers from Dave Asprey, 3. (Re)Create Yourself from Dorota Stanczyk, 4. Trust your Vibes from Sonia Choquette, 5. Mindset The Way You Think from Dr. Carol Dweck, and 6. The Artist’s Way from Julia Cameron. Those books carry a punch! They are amazing and may open new doors for your personal development. I love those books, even though I would not recommend all the stunts that are mentioned in the 1st and 2nd book.
Sonia is amazing — full stop. Trust your Vibes is a book that opened a new perspective and helps me to trust my intuition and gain more confidence with my gut feelings. It is fun to play and she is really engaging with her stories and suggestions to learn more about your vibes.
Steeling Fire is a book about getting into flow or learning more about flow-states, either naturally or artificially. Steven and Jamie share their experiences and best practices as well as a bit of history and the wider area of flow-states. I found the book fascinating and uplifting and I saw clear parallels to my life. Flow occurs naturally and you might be able to recognise it next time when you are in flow and hat helps you to be more present, more productive, and more powerful.
Dave Asprey coined the term biohacking. He wrote the book Game Changers. It is a book that resembles a step by step guide for biohacking. His take is very specific as he learned to overcome some of his conditions and shares his learnings. Since he is a very successful entrepreneur, he has more financial means to really dig deeper on the topics and he has carried out a lot of research. I have the feeling that he has found a lot of ways to improve your body and to get fitter and smarter. What I miss with his approach is that most is based on nutrition, health, and the organism as such. He is more focused on the physical aspects than on meditation or mental work.
Mindset
The mindset you carry with you is crucial for any personal development. Do you look at your life to learn or do you look at life that is something as is and can hardly be changed? Dr. Dweck explains the difference of closed and open mindsets in her book. I had a big revelation when I read her book, it contains true game-changer material!
Conclusion
Community is key! Since the opening of my coworking space in Bansko, I was able to connect with many location independent people. For me it was fascinating to learn new perspectives and ways to sustain and live. People who are focusing on their lifestyle and experiences, are living more in the moment and allow for more serendipity to happen. This is where the magic unfolds and I cannot point out enough how important it is to find your tribe, a community that conveys what you have been looking for. It makes your life easier and allows you to align to what is close to you (versus you surround yourself with people who are draining, negative, or never seem to get your ideas — “you are strange”). The right community will lift you up and help you to develop and besides hanging out with the right people is a lot of fun!
Fear is a bummer! In the words of Dave Asprey:
“If there’s one key aspect of success that all game changers agree on, it is this: You must be fearless.”
I cannot agree more! To live to the fullest, to fully feel alive, you must trust your heart and ignore the doubts that your mind, friends, or else throw at you. My most enjoyable time I owe to a former boss of mine. Because he refused to increase my salary, I followed my heart and headed to Zimbabwe for development-aid-work. That led me to one of the best experiences and times I have ever experienced. I was fearless (and disappointed). You never know how things will turn out in the end,
“we have to trust the process and connect the dots in hindsight” (Steve Jobs).
For me it is about the social interactions, and the things that really matter to me, topics that are meaningful where I can learn and thrive. Life is vast and precious and if we just work and play we might miss the moments that really matter to us. It is difficult to say what keeps us moving, but by learning and keeping an open mindset we might as well enjoy life in a very different way with all the magic it has to offer.
For personal development there is no right way (or wrong way) in general. What keeps me going might not be the right thing for you and vice versa. Trying out different things and learn more about yourself. Making life more joyful and worth while is my main motivation for personal development. I imagine myself how I tell my stories to my grand children in a distant future, and heck yes, I want to tell them a hell of a story!
Enjoy! Yours truly, Uwe
