Daily Journaling: Your Path to Self-Mastery and Growth

It may well be that we don't need so much to correct our weaknesses as to improve our access to our strengths. -- Dr. Brett Steenbarger

The key word: Access, to our strengths. In my years as a daily reader of self-help and philosophical content, I am convinced of one direct way to access our strengths, while simultaneously becoming aware of our weaknesses: Journaling.

Weaknesses hinder progress by their destructive nature — generally it’s either we are OVER-doing something, or UNDER-doing something, normally we will UNDER-do something hard but important for our growth, and, astonishingly, we will OVER-do something trivial and harmful to our growth! We will over-eat, we will over-react to passing emotions, we will over-rate failure. Consequently, we will under-do exercise, we will under-do any form of self-improvement.

Consequently we will not discover and sharpen our strengths — and without strengths, how can we ever compete at the highest levels? Where talents and strengths contribute to victory.

Through daily journaling - you will raise your awareness on these human tendencies, or human weaknesses — and, you will improve, daily, weekly, yearly — you will master yourself.

You will strengthen your strengths & talents — you will starve your weaknesses.

Cancelo Alvarez

 Reading time: -1 minute

• 187 words

Train, Discover, Perform

 The more we improve how we train, the more we expand our range of possible performance. — Shane Parish

Another way to look at it, as Dr. Brett suggests: “When you exercise your talents, they will multiply.”

Consistent training leads to frequent and rapid discoveries in both our field of performance and ourselves. Through these discoveries, we learn our preferred tools and approaches, summarized as Best Practices.

In my experience, Best Practices focus on systematizing processes, conserving energy, and maximizing strengths. Experimenting with each best practice for at least a month is beneficial as it allows us to collect enough data on its efficiency and effectiveness. This means that if you’re continually experimenting, it is not unusual to replace a best practice multiple times before you find the one or two that truly resonate with you, implicitly and explicitly. 

Implicitly, you enjoy applying this tool or approach. Explicitly, it has proven to be the most efficient, conserves energy, complements your strengths, and increases potential rewards with growing experience.

We cannot achieve peak performance without experimenting with various best practices. Peak performance arises from understanding our field, developing cutting-edge shortcuts, and aligning our inborn talents with our preferences.

"Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own." — Bruce Lee

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Cancelo Alvarez

Reading Time: 194 Words

• -1 minute

The Power of Now — Teaching It To A Child

 Wherever You Are, Be There Totally. — Eckhart Tolle

The best description of a focused life.

Becoming Aware of the Constant Inner Voice:

• We often assume that a person is mentally ill only when they visibly mutter to themselves in public. However, even the majority of ‘normal’ people are excessively controlled by their minds—always thinking, judging, and comparing—mostly about useless and repetitive stuff. It’s not uncommon for this inner voice to be someone’s own worst enemy, tormenting and draining vital energy.
• Your mind is a tool, but when you’re addicted to thinking, you’re no longer able to lay it down. It negatively runs your life.
• Your habitual mental state attracts certain vibes and circumstances in your life. For example, observe the case of ‘gratitude’ vs. ‘ingratitude’. Sit down for two minutes with an ungrateful 60-year-old, and they will complain and decry how negative and hopeless life is—but this is merely their mental state. Another 60-year-old may be so grateful to have even reached that age. It’s a miracle to them.
• The greater part of human pain is unnecessary and self-created through some form of non-acceptance and unconscious resistance to what is.
• Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it — work with it, not against it. This is how resilience and courage are built into the human soul.

A Summary of Fear:

• The ego-dominated mind cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die. This manifests as fear of loss, fear of rejection, defending mental positions, and ultimately fear of death, which is non-acceptance of what is.
• Observe the habitual tendency of your mind to escape the NOW, either by imagining a better future, which gives hope, or a worse one, which causes anxiety—but ultimately, both are illusory.

The Joy of Being:

• The moment you realize you are not present, You Are Present. Be present as the watcher of your mind and thoughts. Otherwise, fear will dominate your mind.
• Adopt this as a daily exercise: Ask yourself— is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? Because the moment your attention turns to the NOW, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You do not derive your sense of worth from the material world—through fame, wealth, or success—you are whole and satisfied with yourself now.
• Gratitude for your life now, your current self, and everything you have will open gates unimaginable to you.
  • Check out the song: Blessings by Hlengiwe Mhlaba

Discovering Yourself:

• You discover yourself not by digging through the past—that’s an endless quest. Instead, you discover yourself by paying attention to the NOW: your desires, your reactions, your fears, etc. For example, if [name] says, “Let’s go rock-climbing,” my reaction to that will reveal a lot about my inner state and my past beliefs about heights and risk-taking.
• Egos are drawn to egos. Darkness cannot recognize light. Your circle of friends (and mentors) says a LOT about you.
• To attract decent, mindful, kind, and loving people in your life, be all of that first.

Benefits of Inner Peace:

• Aging also comes from overthinking and laziness, which is overthinking even simple actions.

  "We suffer more often in imagination than in reality." - Seneca

• The vastness and stillness of the universe is also within you—not in size but in depth—as peace, as love, as joy.

Conclusion

"What stops us from saying that the happy life means having a mind that is free, confident, fearless, and steady? A mind that is beyond the reach of fear and desire...

A person with such a mind will naturally be cheerful and deeply joyful, finding delight in their own resources and desiring no joys greater than their inner joys." — Seneca, Letters From A Stoic

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Cancelo Alvarez

Reading time: 3 minutes

• Words: 600

 

Life Is A Long Meditation

 “A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.”

I liken a man’s life to a long meditation, that is bound to come to an end. This is my mantra and philosophy.

If you’ve ever meditated before, or simply practiced Yoga - you might have realized the impatience and agitation your mind caused, even if you were just waiting for ten minutes of clock-time to end. Now, how you endure that ten minutes or forty minutes of meditation is quite an excellent reflection of how you are currently enduring, living, and appreciating your entire life.

In meditation, though you are simply seated — you encounter various mental storms, sunshine, depression and peace — to name a few! But that is exactly what we go through in our entire lives. And my conclusion is that if you master ten or an hour of meditation — master in the sense of experiencing prolonged peace, tranquility and gratitude — you will also master this game of life.

Storms you will reduce by your calmness, depression will be foreign to you, and you will indeed live in sunshine and peace — even though the external world may be in turmoil.

I assure this life game is a mental game. Study, observe, and understand your mind and you will have understood life in its entirety.

If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without. — Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

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Cancelo Alvarez

Reading Time: 1 minutes

• 251 words

 

Why We Sabotage Ourselves

 click on the image

• The talent you want is the training you avoid. 
• The growth you want is the suffering you avoid.
• The wealth you want is the uncertainties you avoid. 
• The health you want is the lifestyle changes you avoid. — Orange Book, Twitter

I recently read that those who lack the courage to do will always find a philosophy — a perfectly reasonable story to first tell themselves and then the world, as to why they cannot do something. Talent falls mainly under that category. Once the average person discovers the amount of work and commitment expected of them to achieve a certain skill and broad understanding of their field, they are thoroughly discouraged.

Few will overcome this instinct and commit to the work, but even for them, it’s only a matter of time before they say goodbye and find a good story too. We’re then left with what you hear called “The 1%” — the champions, the masters, the greats. When you look deeper into their lives, you simply discover a long, arduous, and disciplined journey of consistency regardless of innumerable obstacles!

Yet, of all these avoided paths, I am interested in the lifestyle changes an average person will avoid, and yet are required, to achieve the health, or fitness they desire. Here, it's less about sheer willpower or consistency and more about self-knowledge and a clear life-map -- the “WHY” you desire health will get you through all those simple veggies over mouthfuls of junk, those bitter alternatives over sugar, that ‘unreasonable’ weekly exercise program which seems to go nowhere for months of hard work. Perhaps your WHY is to feel vibrant in old age, or more attractive to employers, etc. No matter -- so long as it gets you out of your mind and onto the road - it's good enough. 

I feel Orange Book has captured the essence of life in just four lines, and Charlie Munger, the great investor, would somehow agree:

"You will be most successful where you are most intensely interested.

Cancelo Alvarez

Further Reading:

The Unsung Hero

Reading Time: 1 minutes

• 280 words

Anger: A Glitch in the Human System

 You get less angry as you get smarter. — Orange Book

The emotion of anger is exceedingly mysterious to me — the whole unfolding from annoyance to frustration to out-right anger makes a person dangerous and unknown to his very self. I am an adult so I have experienced this progression, in its many disguises, and I can humbly assure you it is very hard to manage and overcome — particularly depending on one’s upbringing and/or current environment & culture.

One of the greatest writers, Lucius Seneca, a stoic philosopher, wrote a whole book on Anger, a piece from it:

The point is to know what anger is; for if it comes into being against our will, it will never yield to reason—indeed, any movements that occur independent of our will cannot be overcome or avoided, like shivering when we’re sprinkled with cold water, or disgust at touching certain things, or the way our hair stands on end at bad news, or the dizziness that comes over us when we look down from a cliff.

In summary, since anger is an emotion, a mere fault in our minds — it can be healed by instruction, by self-awareness.

Constant reminders as you depart your house: “I will encounter many people who are devoted to drink, many who are lustful, many who are ungrateful, many who are greedy, many who are driven by the demons of ambition.” All such behaviors you will regard as kindly as a doctor does his own patients. Not because you are a doctor, but because you understand the human mind and the consequences of being carried away by anger to extremes and consequently to remorse and regret.

Advice from an 80 year old to the youth I once came across: “Avoid anything that will cause you remorse. It is a disease to the mind that is hard to heal.”

"The greatest remedy for anger is delay." — Seneca

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Cancelo Alvarez

• Reading Time: 1 minute
  • 300 words

Don't Dim Your Light

 We look up to people who stand out. But we are always trying to fit in. See the problem?

Are we not naturally and instinctively attracted to “heroes” as children — where we quite idolize a man or woman because not only are they exceling in their talent or role, but because they are exceling in something we love — a field we feel deeply connected with.

We are. And I would go further and assert that your particular hero in childhood made you come alive, they gave you a certain burning spirit, you may have even felt you had wings yourself, and swift legs, and a genius mind, and so on, — all from watching your hero.

Philosopher & Novelist Ayn Rand writes in the introduction of The Fountainhead:

The best of mankind’s youth start out in life with a sense of enormous expectation, the sense that one’s life is important, that great achievements are within one’s capacity, and that great things lie ahead … It is not in the nature of man—nor of any living entity—to start out by giving up…

But you will not see this anywhere, no. The majority of adults are taught and actually prefer a life of certainty & dependability. So they recommend it to the youth; yes, forcefully recommend fitting in. Because to positively “stand-out” is risky, stressful, foolish, unnecessary, reserved for so and so. But this way of living is detrimental because it plants a fear of failure, self-doubt, and self-pity — consequently we shrink from even the smallest risk of change or uncertainty. We become shallow through and through.

And yet, we look up to people who stand out as children because we feel deeply that their lives are exciting, vibrant & influential!

Fight the urge to fit in — live daringly.

“Only when there are things a man will not do is he capable of doing great things.”

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• Reading time: 1 minute
  • 300 words