Personal Development for Smart People^TM

Have you noticed that when you communicate with another person, sometimes you get a wonderfully effective exchange of information that leaves both of you changed for the better, and other times you just seem to butt heads with both of you only becoming more entrenched in your views?
What’s the difference?
The difference is that when you and […]

Arrogance (too hot)
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.  - Proverbs 16:18
Arrogance is overbearing pride that attempts to juxtapose others as inferior to yourself.  Although this quality is considered honorable among Klingons, it tends to annoy human beings.
Arrogance makes genuine socialization difficult because it paints others into a competitive position.  By treating others as […]

StevePavlina.com Personal Development for Smart People podcast #11
Today’s podcast is called “Raising Awareness Through Multiple Perspectives.”  The goal of this podcast is to help you answer the question, “How shall I live my life?”  The present conditions of your life probably won’t give you enough clarity to provide an ideal answer straightaway.  At best your […]

Excuses are lies we tell ourselves to avoid dealing with unpleasant truths.  But as long as we buy into those excuses, we can never move past them.  Instead of addressing the underlying problem, we merely hide the symptoms.  One of the most important steps in personal growth is to uproot excuse-making and confront the real […]

It’s been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it.  While obviously there’s a great deal that’s out of your control with respect to events that haven’t occurred yet, you should at least have some control over how you spend your time today and tomorrow.  And one of the best […]

When I started this site 16 months ago, my goal was to help people with their personal development.  And based on the thousands of pieces feedback I’ve received since then, that expectation is certainly being realized.  However, what I wasn’t fully prepared for was the massive amount of personal growth I would experience as a result […]

“Time Management” is a new article I just posted to the free articles section.
Time management is a subject I’ve investigated extensively, and this article explores my most recent thoughts about it.  When I first began seriously studying time management in 1992, I learned a myriad of low-level tactics that allowed me to increase my personal productivity.  Graduating […]

Today a visitor referred me to a lengthy article about polyphasic sleep.  You might find it interesting if you’ve been curious to learn more about the topic.
The article basically attempts to dismiss the possibility of polyphasic sleep for human beings by referencing a number of resources, especially noting the large number of bloggers who’ve tried to adapt to it.
This is […]

Silly beliefs sometimes steer people away from the pursuit of spiritual development and higher awareness.  One of those is the belief that the pinnacle of spiritual evolution is to become a hermit-like cave guru who’s completely withdrawn from active participation in the world and basically does nothing but meditation and fasting.
While some spiritual seekers eschew the modern world and […]

Deciding what to do with your life isn’t remotely easy.  Most people never make this decision at all.  But since we all end up doing something, if we don’t make this decision consciously, then a decision will still be made, but it will be an unconscious one.
If you don’t decide how you’re going to live, […]