Thursday, August 14, 2008

Avoid Confusion in Self-Improvement

 Change Your Life Direction

Self-improvement is considered to be a good thing. We can evolve, we are optimistic, we are humble, we can be and do better. The inner critic can really thrive on this if it is not modified by focused intention on our goals, in reference to what we want rather than what we don't want. To change your life direction and avoid confusion, define things for yourself and don't get caught up in dumbed-down re-education systems that capture your focus with slogans and catch phrases.

In striving for self-improvement, remaining independent and being able to ask for help when needed, is a balance worth aiming for.

There are many social fitness gurus and organization systems that demand an amazing degree of adaptation to lifestyle changes that take you out of the social mainstream, rather than successfully further into it.

In addition to that, many systems strongly enforce bringing others into them. After your journey into self-improvement, you may be too busy to apply anything to your life. You are encouraged to actually give up your life to share the system full time. "Sharing" has become a word that makes the hair on my neck stand up. Groups really want you to hard sell.

Emotional and intellectual support is expected by the (often anxious) self-improver. A new vision is hoped for, that replaces confusion with clarity, insecurity with confidence, and jumbled bits of philosophy heard about on the tv talk shows, with certainty.

An involvement in study scheduled more than a couple of evenings a week, roughly a semester long, should be considered with discernment. Study days that don't allow for proper meals and sleep are obviously aimed at creating a weaker frame of mind in the participants. For whose benefit would that be? Needing proper nutrition and refreshing movement may be presented as needs that prove you are not truly focused on self-improvement. You allow physical functions to distract you, as a way out of facing up to your miserable deficiencies. What is wrong with you?

This is gourmet inner critic fodder. Yum.

Actually having a life and wanting to maintain it, during an extensive re-education program may be met with criticism of your lack of commitment. Commitment to what? And for whose benefit?

The one-size-fits -all transformation process is really one-size-fits-no one. If you are an individual, what system of any kind can possibly apply to you?

Using The Law of Attraction requires time with yourself, not all that much. It does requires some daily routines that help you to remember and recreate the good feeling of your desired outcome.

If you use a system that requires or encourages self criticism or criticism from others in order to "break" your old patterns of thinking, then it would follow that you require getting put back together again. There is usually a blueprint presented for that, not your own.

Avoid confusion. Change your life direction. Use your choice of meditation, contemplation, yoga, exercise, music, drawing, whatever helps you achieve a focused intention that helps you clarify your goals. Your goals, not someone else's. Use the simple Success Switch.