Entering the Praxeum

I started dabling in PD (Personal Development) about about a year ago, when I found Steve Pavlina´s self-discipline articles. While I was initially wary of so called "self-help" material, I came to realize that I had several issues bothering me in my life which could benefit from other people´s insights. I quickly saw I would have to separate the wheat from the chaff, but there was some interesting material out there and I decided to give it a try and get over my prejudice.

After reading quite a few of Steve Pavlina´s articles, I dabbled in a NLP book, which gave me some interesting tools. I also started visiting a lot of PD and "life hacking" websites, such as Zen Habits, Raptitude and others (you can see the link bar to the right for the whole list).

While I´ve certainly improved several areas of my life, I think I still need to get a lot of techniques and ideas into action. I thought using a blog would be an effective way to get other people´s impressions and advice. Also, it will double as a personal accountability system of sorts. Many people insist on the usefulness of having a journal; in a way, this blog will double as a public, more sparse journal.

I´m still a bit shy about my interest in PD, so I thought I´d frame this as a sort of game, using imagery which motivates me. As I´ve been paying little attention to my geek side lately, I decided to go back to basics and turn to one of my favourite sagas: Star Wars. I will be framing this whole experiment as a Jedi padawan (that's Star-Wars speak for "apprentice")*. This idea seems both motivating and funny, so I care little if it`s a bit juvenile. The issues I´ve been struggling with lately have to do with self- discipline, fear, learning and self-knowledge, so the idea of picturing myself as a padawan in training looks accurate enough.

My following post (coming out today or tomorrow) will have to do with the first tool I would like to master: habit forming. If you find the premise of this blog interesting, please do visit every once in a while and drop me a comment. I'm really looking forward to getting other PD-minded people to help me on the way.

May the Force be with you! ;)

* just to make things clear, I do not beleive I can harness the Force, nor do I have a lightsaber (sadly); my delusions are a bit more complex...