The Stages of Self-Improvement

Improving and perfecting the self is a straightforward process that requires nothing more than concerted discipline and continual application of time and energy.

But although that process is simple in form, never is it easy in application. For changing the self requires constant effort towards resisting impulses of the brain and thus short-circuiting unwanted behavior patterns within that quantum supercomputer.

Thus if you're working at modifying your behavior towards stopping yourself from saying negative things, you need perpetually override all habitual prompting from the brain when it sparks alive and compels you towards spouting rude statements in moments of duress. And you perpetually need continue those acts of rebellion against its commands until those orders forever cease.

Only through persistent and unwavering resistance unto habitual behaviors can you cease performing them long enough where they fade out from the neurological structure of the mind. And only through unfailing attention unto your actions can you stop yourself from instinctively performing those feats.

Yet that attainment of awareness never happens instantaneously. You need put in the requisite amounts of time and energy towards becoming cognizant of that habit before you can modify it prior succumbing unto bouts of reflexive action.

And those stages work like this:

The first stage is complete ignorance--which means you perform the habit without ever becoming consciously aware of its execution. And we've all caught ourselves doing this from time to time, whether it involves biting our nails without thinking or automatically continuing eating long after we're full.

Breaking this stage requires dedicated attention unto the habit you want identify and change--for only by so doing can you become aware of physical or psychic cues preceding its execution. For example maybe stress serves as a cue for biting your nails, and maybe watching television signals your compulsive action towards overeating.

So by becoming conscious of the behavior you want modify, you learn develop a feel for what sparks the neurological compulsion towards performing those acts. And that leads unto the second stage of self-improvement:

Within the second stage, you catch yourself performing the unwanted behavior only after you begin performing it. Thus you attain conscious awareness of the situation only after commencing gnaw upon your nails or with a mouthful of pretzels already half-swallowed.

Now the challenge becomes increasing your scope of consciousness over those actions until you start noticing those behaviors happening whilst they still remain impulses send unto you by the mind. And this is the third stage of self-improvement, where you notice the neurological signal compelling your nail-biting or overeating--and can thus abort the behavior before performing it.

Perform acts of abstention long enough during the third stage--refrain perpetually from obeying the dictates of the brain in regards unto that unwanted habit--and you'll eventually make it dissolve from the structure of the mind. Thus no longer will the brain prompt you towards saying rude things, or biting your nails, or overeating without cause... because that habit will no longer exist in your head.

That's the fourth and final stage of self-improvement--the diametric opposite unto the first. For whereas within the first stage you practiced subconscious obedience unto the habit and performed it unknowingly, now you unthinkingly abstain from that behavior without conscious consideration: because the neurological compulsion towards performing it no longer resides within your brain.

Attaining that fourth stage of self-improvement should be your ultimate goal for every habit you want remove from your repertoire of behaviors--because only by achieving that state can you ensure that habit will perpetually remain gone.

Refining the self is therefore a simple but slow process where you need wait until you properly and perpetually ingrain necessary adjustments into the mind. And that explains why so few people manage make lasting changes unto themselves, for far too often attention wanes and intention ceases long before their new chosen habit becomes properly ingrained within the mind.

Thus keep that danger in mind whilst refining yourself. And always remain cognizant of the stages of self-improvement, so you always fully complete one personality change before moving onto another.

Only in that way can you truly complete and perfect the self.

And only in that way can you ensure that never will you cease evolving in positive directions whilst progressing eternally into the future.

originally posted by: TrachelThe Stages of Self-Improvement

"Self-improvement is masturbation! 'Self' destruction is the Key!"

There's nothing wrong with you?. Why do you need to improve?

a reply to: Trachel

This is the second time I have seen you post something like this and you keep leaving out a very important fact: all of the negative impulses are negative because they have been perverted.

What I mean is that, the impulses themselves are good and are needed, because they invoke and make achievable good things - good conception - but the way in which they have been conceived, or conceptualized - that is what is bad, or has been perverted: they have become harmful or achieving of bad conception.

So... we cannot simply dissolve impulses without causing problems. Instead, we need to reform them into the good impulses they are meant to be.

e.g. Eating too much stems from a good impulse to replenish yourself (for achieving good conceptions later on), and the satisfaction of fulfilling that good conception to replenish yourself; and maybe they are one, like a impulse for satisfaction. Nevertheless, it is an addiction to the carnal pleasure, or satisfaction felt when eating, which causes an increase, or perversion, of the impulse to eat [thereby becoming a gluttonous or harmful impulse]. But as you know, we cannot simply dissolve the impulse to eat - no, that would kill us. So, instead, we need to remake the impulse into a desire to only derive pleasure from sustaining ourselves, and not from over indulging.

But yeah, other than that, I wouldn't change anything you’re saying - and I'd add an emphasis on becoming aware of the impulses -- I think that is a very key part: becoming aware of the impulses byway of how they feel before they're enacted, and through that improved conceptualization, or conception, we can "restructure" the impulses so they're conceived properly.

a reply to: Bleeeeep

Awesome contribution--thanks for taking the time to add in your perspective on the issue!

Cheers!

You might not realise this, however, anyone whom even has a small hint of self-control in this world is pretty much considered to be a superior being. Those that can actively "re-engineer" themselves and thier behaviors are seen as some kind of "super-humans" - for the rest, they pretty much assume that they cannot change their tendencies and have to work around them as opposed to developing the power to alter them.

originally posted by: SystemResistor
You might not realise this, however, anyone whom even has a small hint of self-control in this world is pretty much considered to be a superior being. Those that can actively "re-engineer" themselves and thier behaviors are seen as some kind of "super-humans" - for the rest, they pretty much assume that they cannot change their tendencies and have to work around them as opposed to developing the power to alter them.

That is true! I only recently was blown away by the realization that in the culture I currently reside in, there is no conception of self development of this sort!
I am what I am, is what they believe, and any attempt to change that is not only being a traitor to yourself,
but doing so out of a desire to become superior to others.

I am struggling with this view, it is so contrary to my own motivations. But they seriously don't understand how I could possibly observe and work on myself without that being relative to others. To be in competition with myself (become better than the me of yesterday).

Their question in response to that is quite pertinant - but...how can you separate who/how you are from your relationship with those around you? How can you just forget them, as if you are an object in a void???

How indeed? I sit with my jaw slack in response. I don't know. What was I thinking? How do I do that?


This has become, of late, a sort of existential crisis for me.

a reply to: Bluesma

It isn't relative to them, but to the truth of the one who is moral righteousness.

That is, morality, or "better", is based upon what must be objectively true of will, and will is only of sentient beings -- so we must conclude: objective moral truth must be the truth, or conception, of someone who is not only morally righteous, but is moral righteousness - God, basically.

What I mean to say is that, someone must have always been morality itself, otherwise, the notion would insist that morals come from a source that is not sentient or of will; in which case, morality and "better" would just be make-believe.

So, it is only relative to others in the sense that everyone's moral truth is relative to the person who was, is, and will always be, morality -- any attempt to become objectively "better" is an attempt to become godly/like God, and not necessarily like "those around you".