Ten Principles To Navigate Your Growth

Self improvement and the desire to reach higher levels of possibility for myself has always gotten me into trouble. So today in this article, I want to write down the best overarching principles in which it is beneficial to follow during times of decision making so that we avoid pitfalls and setbacks. Let's begin.

#1 - Resource Allocation

Often when we think about resource allocation we think about the physical resources we have. However, this is not the real resources which are available to you. The only resource you have in your life is your time and energy. Any and every other thing is only a consequence of how you correctly allocate your time and energy.

Most of the time we have are wasted through regulation behaviours. You should notice that after certain periods of growth, you will fall back and go into a zone of comfort doing familiar things. These behaviours are to "regulate" yourself back into a state of mind where you are ready for action again.

The key to not waste time is to make your regulation behaviours effective and productive. Regulation behaviours are rather beneficial for self-introspection and giving yourself some space between you and the problem. If you do not generate insights by the end of your regulation, you should consider that you are just escaping reality.

As for energy, mainly we only get a set number of hours in a day. You have to determine if the things you are doing is really meaningful to you. Would you regret doing it 100 years later? There is no right or wrong thing to do. There is only the life you want to create for yourself, and that requires the right action to create the corresponding consequence.

#2 - Health Comes First

Most people abuse their bodies. The USA spends about 3 trillion dollars on healthcare, which I find to be totally unreasonable. Without your health, your life is doomed in terms of growth. You want to engineer your body in such a way in which when it comes time to die, you will just drop dead without any disease or struggle.

First, we have to see that the body is a very fragile thing. Without the body giving you an individual experience, then you simply cannot exist. If you dont exist, then the other stuff you want to do is not possible. So the prioritization should always be maintaining our good health because you only have one body.

Second, health requires a holistic approach. The body is a very resilient thing, and there is many safety mechanisms to offset one another. Therefore, any health conditions that becomes present is a consequence of the actions you have taken 10 years ago. So for many people, the effect and cause is not that clear.

The best way to take charge of your health is through Hatha Yoga. Google it up and see who is the closest course provider in your area and take their program. For me that was Isha Foundation's 8 day residential program in Kuala Lumpur. There are many schools of Yoga from many different Guru lineages, it is important that you experiment with a few and do the one thats the most effective in private practice.

#3 - Patience For Results, Focus On Fundamentals

It is the folly of many noobs to want the results quickly. But have you slowed down to think about the idea of a result? A result is simple a consequence of the action you have taken. Therefore the focus should never be the result itself, but the daily consistent actions you take everyday to achieve the results.

If a result comes "fast and explosive", that is a shortcut and it usually cannot be maintained. If a result can be achieved without a consistent daily practice, then it cannot produce results. The most important factors for producing results are the inputs you generate hoping for the consequence you want.

Therefore, be patient but not stupid. If after 3 months of consistent practice and you feel that there is no progress, then you must switch it up. Either that you are doing something wrong in terms of execution itself, or the entire technique you have learnt is defunct. Lead with a mind of a scientist and allow reality to do the talking if you want results.

#4 - Trade The Abundant For The Limited

This is very counterintuitive for many people because most people have a defensive mindset rather than an expansive mindset. Many problems can actually be solved if you find ways to expand rather than trying to manage your current resources. But most people place too much emphasis on survival rather than growth.

Survival is really simple. You need to have a roof over your head and some food to eat. How complicated is that? Even an earthworm is doing that everyday. So instead of allocating your thoughts, emotions, time and energy towards managing the existing resources, use them to expand the resources you have. Internal and external resources.

For example, it is always wise to trade money instead of health for something else. Money is abundant, the government is printing more everyday to stimulate the economy. But there is only one body, the government cannot print another body for you. There are so many other examples of this, but trade the abundant for the limited by recognizing that survival is not very complicated.

#5 - Suffering Is Not Necessary

Contrary to a lot of hustle influencers and educators online telling you otherwise, suffering is not required when you need to expand your self of self. Yes, hardship and difficult situation might be encountered, but you personally need not suffer from these situations.

If you fear suffering every step of the way, then you would only take half a step. It would be very difficult to make any progress if you half ass things. Commitment is needed because if you do not commit to the daily practice to a set period of time, then the result will never occur.

So suffering is not necessary. Suffering is a result of your psychological process, a situation is a situation, it doesn't mean anything more than that! Instead of using your mind to ruminate upon your faliures, see how you can break your limitations instead. That would be a better use of your time.

#6 - Tolerance For Discomfort

Growth is always uncomfortable, because it is by very definition a situation that you have never dealt with before. If you touch the first hurdle of difficulty and go home crying, then you're only just hanging out in the spaces of your comfort zone. You need to build up a sense of resilience and self confidence, that you can handle unknown situations to create a positive outcome.

Life will always be uncertain and uncomfortable. If you want to be comfortable, then you can lie dead today, because that is the most comfortable state you can be in. But if you value life for what it is, then there should be no problem with discomfort.

In fact you can even do uncomfortable things with a sense of ease. How you experience an action is at the end of the day how you perceive that action. If you perceive everything in a wonderful manner, at the very least you can move through everything effortlessly instead of dragging your feet.

#7 - Avoid Egotistical Behaviours

Serving the ego is the easiest way to get yourself into trouble. What is ego? Well ego is just your self interest and survival. Like we have mentioned, if we reduce your ego to just a roof over your head and food to eat, then our ego can be very small.

But if I inflate my ego and expect life to give me a mansion and 10 beautiful women who will serve me grapes upon my golden toilet, then I am in for a surprise. Everything in this existence is interconnected in some way, and when you turn towards your ego too heavily, you become cancerous.

What is cancer? Cancer is just a cell that has turned towards its self interest. Similarly, when you become a cancer, everything else will naturally want to obliterate you. If you do not wish to be obliterated, then you need to see how you can transform your personal action into benefits others can experience.

To become rich, you would need to serve your customers instead of yourself. To have wonderful relationships, you need to serve others instead of you. To make everyone look up to you and be a leader, you need to advocate and fight for their interests. The moment you stop providing value and turn cancerous, you break yourself off from the interdependent nature of life.

If you are yet to see the value of interdpendence, it is very simple. You cannot exist without something else providing support. Almost everything you see, touch and eat is a product of another person or life. So by being a net contributor, we actually force the existence to support us, because life as a whole would become worse off without our contribution.

#8 - Your Life Is Your Making

Every result you have and the situations you find yourself in is your making. Only by taking responsibility for your circumstances can you hope to change them. Who caused it and whatever can be debated, but once the situation comes into reality, then you need to take responsibility because nobody will deal with it on your behalf.

When unconsciousness is ruling someone's life, the first thing they will do is blame the external enviorement. This is because they do not see how they are influencing their own outcomes and results. If you gaina awareness over how life works and take control, then naturally you would not be blaming anyone other than yourself.

A plethora of unconscious tendencies and automatic behaviours are so unconscious, that we do not even know how they influence our daily life. So freedom is not about gathering money, women or whatever materialistic thing, but it is to transcend and break free from your unconscious to do whatever you wish from choice.

If you remain unconscious, then you never have a choice. The value of taking action is when you choose to do it, not when you are forced to do it. If it is totally unconscious, you will attribute it to the external environment, if it is somewhat conscious, then you are in self-improvement, and if it is totally conscious, you will be in control. That is the value of freedom.

#9 - You Are Not Very Smart

It is natural to see yourself as the Hero of your life. But in a holistic sense, nothing we do is very special or noteworthy. Many bengineer and intermediate members of self improvement think that they are very special for "breaking off from society" and choosing their own path.

Although yes, this is a less comfortable path compared to the mainsteam, but among self improvement cohort who have done the same thing you, comparatively, you are not very different. Anything that you can explore and do have been done by someone else in the past.

So sometimes it is best not to be too smart, and just adopt the systems and techniques that our ancestors have laid out for us. There are so many things to explore and master, and if you think you are very smart, you will take 10,000 years to get everything right.

Adaptation and improvisation is really left to the people who are really at the edge of their field with years and years of experience. For any domain that we do not know inside and out, it is best to take a system from another competent fellow so that we do not go off the rails.

#10 - Emotions Reflect Truth

Too many people place too much emphasis and importance on their emotions to the extent that emotions become a limitation in their lives. You must see emotion for what it is: a hormonal reaction from the body and mind. Emotions and thoughts by itself have no value other than the experience it produces in the present moment.

If we understand that emotions is a hormonal reaction in the body, then we are creating our own emotions every moment. What emotions we create is a limitation of our perception, if we can see beauty in everything, then we can always maintain a beautiful chemistry of emotions.

But if we perceive terror in everything, then is it not natural that we will create a chemistry of fear? If we perceive hardship, is it not normal we will create a chemistry of resistance? In a sense, if we perceive the truth (seeing reality for what it is), then we can always maintain a pleasant assortment of emotions.

Conclusion

I hope these thesis of principles can help your growth and development, it has helped me a lot in the sense that I have supercharged by growth when I internalized and integrated these principles in my day to day life. I hope it can do the same for you too.

These principles can be applied to any domain of growth, not just in dating and relationships. If you are attempting to become more than who you are right now, then I find that these principles will be relevant in one way or another.

That's it for me. Best of luck. Please check out my other posts and practice everything holistically. Send me an email if you want a specific topic written. You can see "coaching" to see if I have room to onboard new students.

Cheers,
FriendlyWrenChilling.