It’s not hard to think of new ideas. We have them all of the time: at work, at home, in the shower, and before bed. In fact, we are constantly thinking. Generating new thought after new thought.

Writer’s block? It must be a myth. I hear people say “they can’t think of anything” – but I don’t believe them. Often I find it harder to stop the flow of ideas, rather than to get it going.

The problem isn’t that someone can’t think of anything. This rarely happens. The problem is that people can’t think of anything that they think is good enough.

That’s a key distinction.

Get rid of the “I can’t think of anything” excuse.

Next time you find yourself using the “I can’t think of anything” excuse, I want you to look a little deeper.

Ask yourself: is it really true that you can’t think of anything – or do you just not like the ideas you have?

How good ideas are actually born.

An average idea can become a good idea over time. But that will never happen if you wait for that one golden moment. The truth is you need to take what you have and start building off of it. Now.

During most creative projects, the final product often looks drastically different than the original idea. This is why taking action on an idea is often more important than waiting for that “right” idea to come to you.

You may think you have the best idea in the world, but if you can’t put it to action then it’s worthless.

And you may have a mediocre idea, but when you begin playing with it, something beautiful can begin to grow.

The key to developing good ideas is to take what you have and start from there.

Don’t wait.

I know you have ideas. And you know you have ideas. So just grab one of your many ideas and start working with it. Play with it – and see what it transforms into. You’ll probably be surprised with what you come up with.

Mind Opener MP3

In this article, I attempt to answer these important but often difficult questions. I then share 5 fundamentals on Regaining Consciousness, as laid out by psychology blogger Sam Spurlin. These fundamentals aim to cultivate a higher state of awareness toward key areas of our life, such as our values, health, work, thinking, and relationships.

Consciousness is the bedrock of your personal development.

Consciousness is more than just a passing thought, feeling, memory, or imagination, but the underlying awareness that permeates every experience you’ll ever have.

In order to define consciousness, it helps to first think of it as a spectrum of awareness.

On one end of the spectrum, there are lower levels of consciousness, including being distracted, lazy or bored. Usually in these states, we maintain some awareness of our environment, but not very much. We can probably get a lot of tedious chores done while being distracted or bored, but this isn’t the optimal state you want to be in when trying to achieve a big or meaningful goal.

The very lowest levels of consciousness are states like drug intoxication, sleep, or a coma, where we actually aren’t conscious at all – but unconscious. Most of the time we don’t get anything productive or creative done in these states (mostly because “you” aren’t actually around when you’re unconscious).

And on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are very high states of consciousness, like mindfulness and flow. These are states of mind where an individual is highly attentive and engaged with their environment, often interacting with it in very skillful and sophisticated ways (like a painter working on their masterpiece, a baseball player pitching a perfect game, or a life-long businessman pitching a big sale).

Unlike lower levels of consciousness, higher levels of consciousness are very optimal for goal-achieving and success in virtually any domain of life. This is because higher levels of consciousness always include supreme focus and discipline.

What I want you to understand is that, ultimately, the level of consciousness we cultivate throughout our day is the most fundamental components to our well-being and success. Personal development without conscious living is simply impossible – the more aware we are of ourselves and our environment, the more power and control we have to change it.

5 Steps Toward Regaining Consciousness

Sam Spurlin writes about Regaining Consciousness in his insightful e-book. The lessons covered are intuitive and thought-provoking, but also widely applicable to cultivating consciousness toward different (and often underestimated) areas in our life.

It reminds me of a more “contemporary” version of the popular Mindfulness in Plain English, because it’s primary focus is how to practice healthy consciousness throughout our daily activities (even with common things like eating and exercise) – not just during meditation.

Sam understands that cultivating consciousness is not just for Zen monks camping out in some cave, but something that can also be applied to the “American way” of living too. This means we can work on regaining consciousness even with a 9-5 job, bills to pay, and a family to take care of.

In the book there are 5 crucial steps laid out that anyone can follow to facilitate conscious living. I’m going to summarize each step here, but if you really want to read more about each one, I recommend you check out his book for yourself. I honestly couldn’t put it down when I first started it.

Find your values.

Going through life without a clear sense of our values and goals is a sure-fire way to not find happiness. Many people live their lives aimlessly and unconsciously (like a puppet on strings), without ever introspecting and asking themselves, “What do I really want in life? What direction do I want to go in?” To cultivate more consciousness toward our values in life, Sam suggests:

• Make a list of core values and narrow it down to your top 3-5. Imagine what your life would be like if you acted in accordance with these values.
• Don’t chase other people’s dreams – question the values you learn from authority figures, the media, TV, and pop culture.
• Listen to your heart and mind above all else. Do what you honestly think is right.
• Have priorities. Sure, you may value playing video games, but is it more important than taking care of your family or studying for school or doing something more creative like writing a song? It’s up to you.

Take control of your health.

Consciousness toward our health is absolutely crucial for physical and mental well-being. Everyday we make decisions that have to do with our bodies: what we choose to consume, and what kind of physical activities we choose to partake in. The more aware we are of what we eat and how much exercise we get, the better off our health will be. Sam suggests we:

• Make small and deliberate decisions to be healthier. Start by cutting down soda intake and replacing it with water. Or try just going for a short walk every morning. Start with little things and build from there.
• Be a conscious eater. When you eat, don’t distract yourself by reading the paper or surfing the internet. Instead, pay very close attention to how the food tastes and how your body is reacting to it.
• Tune into your body during physical exercise. For example, while running pay close attention to the mechanics of your legs/body, the motions of your breathing, and any other pain/aches/sensations in your body that you may be experiencing. Think of any physical activity as a way of meditating – and your body is the object of your meditation.
• Learn from the wisdom of your body. Our body is always sending us signals on it’s condition (like when you are hungry, when you need to use the restroom, when you tore a muscle, etc.) The more we are aware of these signals, the better we can respond to our body’s needs. You’d probably be surprised on just how much you can learn from your body if you listen to it.

Doing work that matters.

Next to our health, one of the biggest factors in achieving happiness is doing meaningful work with our lives. A dead-end job that doesn’t align with our values can feel like a curse. Instead of inspiring us and motivating us, it drains us of our energy and leaves us feeling empty inside. On the other hand, a meaningful job that actually matters to us is drastically more fulfilling. Here’s what Sam recommends we do:

• Re-evaluate your current job. What do you like about it (if anything)? What purpose do you fulfill? Does it align with your values?
• If you aren’t happy with your job, begin searching for alternative career paths that you find more fulfilling. In the book, Sam mentions how he used to be a teacher (and he liked his job), but becoming self-employed aligned with more of his values and interests, so he made the switch.
• Pay attention to activities that put you into a state of engagement and flow. Very often these passions of yours can point you in the right direction when choosing a job or career.
• A big goal in my personal life is to find work that I love but also serves an important function in improving society.

Master your mind with conscious thinking.

A big part of Regaining Consciousness is taking more control over our education, thoughts, beliefs, and perspective. Throughout the guide, Sam asks us to challenge our old assumptions and beliefs, accept our ignorance about certain topics, and willingly seek to improve our knowledge and attitude about the world. He recommends you:

• Acknowledge that you have a limited perspective. You don’t know everything, so don’t be stubborn and act like you do.
• Try to look beyond any biases or prejudices you may have by looking at new information as neutrally as possible.
• Become an active learner. Choose a topic that has always fascinated you, go to the library, and then take out a few books on it. Read up on it and share what you learned with others.
• Go “Wikipedia surfing.” Go to an article, read through, it and click on any links that interest you. Keep continuing the process until you feel you have learned something new and interesting that you didn’t know before.
• Always maintain a healthy curiosity and willingness to learn. We don’t stop being students after we graduate high school or college.
• Listen to everyone’s views. Respect that other people may have different experiences, knowledge, and beliefs than you do. Ignore the trap of having to label everything “right” or “wrong.”

Nurturing conscious relationships.

One of the most important steps toward conscious living is becoming more aware of the relationships that make up our world. For some of us, we may cling onto toxic relationships that end up hurting both ourselves and the other person. For others, we may have trouble cultivating meaningful relationships. In both cases, cultivating higher consciousness is crucial. Some of Sam’s suggestions include:

• Recognize the “vampires” in your life. These are people who are always being negative and sucking the energy out of you. They are the buzz-kill to every party and the rain to every parade. Stay far away from them. They are miserable – and they expect you to be miserable too.
• Associate with “vampire slayers.” Vampire slayers are people who crush negativity in their lives. Instead of draining you of energy, they empower and motivate you. They encourage you to pursue your values and goals, and they are always around to lend a helping hand when you need it.
• The essential rule of cultivating conscious relationships is to invest positive energy into the relationships that are valuable to us, and let the one’s that aren’t valuable fizzle out. Although it may be painful to get rid of old friends, it is sometimes the necessary thing to do.

Free Preview of “Regaining Consciousness.”

If you visit the Regaining Consciousness page you can check out the first 15+ pages absolutely free.

This is why you should view your personal development as a “practice-based philosophy.” The very nature of the subject “personal development” requires that you are capable of putting your values, beliefs, and ideas into action. Action is the primary requirement. Without action, you’re in a place of personal stagnation.

Have you ever heard of a “keyboard jockey?” A keyboard jockey is an individual who spends more time typing on their computers about how to do something than actually practicing it in the real world. It’s a term that first became popular in the Pick-Up Artist (PUA) community.

Whether or not you agree with PUAs, they were right on this one. They understood that in order to learn something, or get better at it, you need to go out into the “field” and practice it.

Michael Jordan didn’t become a professional basketball player by reading books about basketball. Gary Vaynerchuk didn’t become a Wine expert by reading books about wine. And Style didn’t become a Pick-Up Artist by reading books about seduction.

Nothing can replace practice and personal experience.

So what happens when we don’t practice and just theorize?

Paralysis by Analysis

In effect, we begin to think about a situation so much that we actually inhibit ourselves from ever taking action. We get an idea for a new business, then the very next day we think of 2 or 3 other possibilities. Eventually, our list keeps piling up, but we never follow through on any of them.

Paralysis by analysis is especially prevalent in today’s world because we have so many damn choices. There are so many different foods to eat, girls to date, careers to choose, places to see, music to listen to, etc. Sometimes there are so many possibilities that we don’t know where to start. So we just do nothing. We become so overwhelmed by the amount of choices we have that we’d rather not make a decision. Perhaps it’s because the “opportunity cost” of missing out on all those decisions is too much for us to bare.

The more we ruminate on our options, the more likely we are to suffer paralysis by analysis. This is one very obvious way that too much theorizing can greatly inhibit our personal development.

Goals become more clear and vivid when we begin working toward them.

Often we don’t really know what we want (let alone how to get it) until we get a taste of it. This is why experimenting with new experiences can be so beneficial. Sure, we may have some rough moments along the way, but that will just give us an even better idea on what we want and don’t want out of life.

Sometimes it’s better to let the bad things happen rather than keep theorizing and worrying about them inside your head. You may find:

• It wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be.
• You gain experience and learn from it in a way you never could just by thinking about it.
• You build resilience – “what doesn’t kill you often makes you stronger.”
• You develop a deeper understanding of your preferences and values.

Now, I’m not saying we should act recklessly without any sense of caution, but I do think that often the things we worry about are more harmless than we make them out to be.

Beliefs Should Be Practical and Flexible.

Sure, it may be fun to think about all these unknowns, and it may even make us more critical thinkers, but if these questions begin taking up too much energy and time, then it is probably best to re-focus on more practical matters. Focus on the ideas that bring you results and ignore abstract matters which are often inconsequential.

I recall the earlier years of my conscious pursuit for personal development. I began to become really infatuated with Buddhism, eastern philosophy, enlightenment, and seeking an “absolute truth” about the nature of reality and consciousness.

I would go to my universities libraries and take out books on all kinds of stuff, not excluding astral projections, the afterlife, paranormal activity, philosophy of mind, etc. It was a long and tiresome journey, and nothing very fruitful came out of it. I eventually had to abandon the pursuit, accepting the fact that there are some things I don’t know and can’t know, and those things aren’t worth obsessing over.

Since then it feels as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Being able to accept that you “don’t know and can’t know” everything is one of the most liberating feelings in the world.

It’s also the best reason to keep your beliefs flexible. It would be pretty presumptuous to think you can discover (and settle) for a few beliefs and principles and live your whole life in accordance to them. The universe is way too complex and humans are all too fallible for us to base all of our decision-making on a few static principles.

That’s not to say we should abandon all principles and values, only that it is important not to be bounded by them when they no longer apply. That is the big idea behind being ground in practicality vs. being grounded in theory.

You may make it a general principle “not to kill others,” but if you find yourself in a situation where someone was attacking you, then you may be willing to kill them in self-defense. In the same way, there are situations I may not even be able to imagine where I may need to compromise, adjust, or abandon certain values depending on the circumstances.

I want to finish by saying I believe choosing practice over theory also opens us up to more possibilities and more freedoms. Being completely fixed on our principles makes us stubborn and narrow-minded. But giving ourselves the flexibility and freedom to adapt to our surroundings allows us to navigate throughout life much more effectively.

Imagine a tree in wind:

The more hard and rigid it stands, the more likely it will break when met with wind or resistance.

The more flexible it is, the more it will bend with the wind or resistance, not break, and persist another day.

The same is true for our beliefs. When we remain firm and stubborn, we are more likely to fight resistance and hurt ourselves. But when we allow ourselves the freedom to be flexible, we can more easily bend (or adapt) to the resistance.

Moral of the story: Don’t cling to superficial beliefs, but practicality – swallow your ego and do what works.

Questions: (answer in the comment section below!)

• Have you ever been so fixated on your beliefs that it later back-fired on you?
• Describe a time when you had to compromise your beliefs in order to be more practical?

Steven = 1

Young Thugs = 0.

Upon reflection, I figured that the robbers didn’t really want to hurt me, they just wanted to intimidate me; they expected me to feel overwhelmed and just give in, taking the path of least resistance.

I thought more and realized that actually describes a lot about the obstacles we face in life. So often I find people quitting or selling themselves short when the going gets tough. Maybe they are writing a book and they can’t think of how to end it, or they are trying to build something and they find they made a lot of mistakes. Some people give in whenever they are met with the slightest bit of resistance or uncertainty, and that can stop many from achieving really great things.

Self-efficacy, feeling capable of overcoming obstacles, is key to facing resistance. If we are met with a challenge and think we are powerless, then we automatically submit any control we have over the situation. You can only take action once you think your actions have an effect. Having self-efficacy doesn’t mean we don’t ever face challenges, just as courage doesn’t mean we don’t ever have fear; in fact, both are required. The point is that you try to do your best in spite of whatever resistance that arises.

So I want you to take a moment and reflect on some of the resistance in your life, whatever it may be – work, health, relationships, etc. And I want you to try and find how resistance can be a necessary part of life, growth, and self-improvement. You can’t avoid it in all situations, and you can’t avoid it forever, so you need to learn how to face it head-on, perhaps even embrace it. Whatever you do, don’t give up so easily.