Steve Pavlina is  a man on fire.

Well it’s literally true, but Steve Pavlina does have some great ideas. About 9 months ago I was searching the internet for some information about my calling/purpose in life and what I should do with myself and came across Steve’s web site Steve Pavlina.com. There seems to be a lot of great information on this subject out there, which I found interesting and so I thought I would share some of the resource that I found and thought were useful. Steve Pavlina’s was one that I liked a lot for a number of reasons and I like to promote sites that I think are useful and helpful.

I got really involved in this site for a while and still regularly go back there when I am looking for resources or inspiration, as Steve Pavlina seems to have a down-to-earth approach about what he is doing. First and foremost it’s about helping people move forward and valuing themselves. His book and tag line is “Personal Development for Smart People:” and the book was a really good read. On his site you will find lots of posts, (I believe over 3000) and some podcasts as well. There are a variety of subjects, from finding your purpose in 20 minutes, raw food diets, self discipline, to creating a blog and much more.

This is where I got my inspiration to build my own blog. Steve Pavlina’s site may not be the definitive resource on all these subjects but I found it a great place to begin and get my mind thinking. Some of the titles are very intriguing and I tend to go along with Steve’s philosophy, such as “Ten reasons you should never get a job”. As I have worked for myself mostly for the last twenty years, I’m not sure how well I would work for someone else in a 9-5 job. I think it might be a little confining and then there is always the bit, where I will probably be told what to do rather than blazing my own trail, for better or worse.

It’s a little like tuning into a reality show at times on Pavlina’s site and very dramatic, although it is simple and low key with not a lot of hype. Whether he is encouraging people to take the next step with courage, talking about religion, money, career, meditation or one of his experiments that he is performing, usually on himself, it’s all good. There are also Pavlina’s more personal stories, such as his polyamorous relationship (open marriage) with his wife and their eventual separation. Pavlina shares his learning in the process of doing these things and his willingness to share the results, and be open to the feedback that comes his way. I always learn something from my visit. I really like the fact that he does not try to hide or pretend, that what he is doing is anything else but that which it is. From reading his posts I find that he’s a very what you see is what you get kind of guy, which is kind of refreshing in a world where it is often hard to know where people stand and whether what you see and hear is fact or fiction.

He claims to make money doing his blog, but by his own admission he is not very greedy. Steve Pavlina explains his reasons for promoting a few select products, most of which are to help you get ahead but he does have other motives and I quote him,  ”Of course my sinister ulterior motive is that I need to make sure you have enough money to buy my book , not to mention copies for all your friends and family! I know… I’m evil, but it’s a good kind of evil.”

So my thoughts are that he gets two thumbs up for his site and his approach, and it is well worth the time to go check it out. It would be interesting to hear your comments on Steve Pavlina’s site, so please feel free to leave a comment about your experience there.

The trouble with commitment is its seems huge and intangible sometimes, but it is required if you want to get anywhere. With out some degree of commitment there’s no chance of moving in any direction.  Most of us want to  achieve our goals, but have little or no commitment to that end.  Whether you are trying to lose weight, quit smoking or even get married it requires some degree of effort to move forward. A friend of mind comes up with new ideas all the time but rarely gets past the starting gate, and if he does start it is usually left in a pile with all the other unfinished projects. The problem with this is that his friends no longer believe that he will do as he says he will and worse than this is that he know longer believes  that he will do what he says he will do. It’s easy to come up with new ideas to keep one distracted from moving forward in the direction you say you want.

There seems to be a couple of things with commitment. Picture sitting on a fence, a spiky fence, it’s painful Right? on both sides of the fence there is a choice, a field of opportunities that you want but you find yourself sitting on this painful fence not committing to either side. Either side is an opportunity to move forward, grow and obtain what you want and yet somehow this pain is better than committing to something that you do not know the outcome of and the fear of failing, looking stupid or the fear of losing what you already have. You can always climb back on the fence and get commit to what you have there by making a commitment to live that way or live a long and painful life by wishing you could have something that you don’t have.You could also get off the fence and really checking out the pasture on one side of the fence, you may really like it and want to climb another fence in that direction or you may want to climb back over the original fence and check out the other  side. Either side is going to be an adventure and you will gain an experience of life that you would otherwise not have.

Two of the things that make a person move are value and pain. The first is value, people always find enough time, money and energy to do the things that they want to do. You have probably come across someone who is crying the blues that they are broke and don’t know what they are going to do but have enough money to buy cigarettes and booze, maybe you are one, or that have all their credit cards to the max but still keep on buying stuff that they don’t really need, maybe you’re one. The first step to committing is make sure that whatever you are committing to is of higher value to you than the reasons that you have at the moment for not committing. Write the reasons down for committing and your reasons, excuses and justifiers why you can’t have it or it won’t work and then post it somewhere you can see, because if you don’t, the mind has great strategies to justify not following through.

The second is pain, we like to move away from pain towards pleasure. That is why sitting on the fence can be more fun because we think that what we want is going to cause us a lot of pain on the journey to getting there. It’s going to cost money that could buy a nice holiday somewhere or take the time away from the TV. You could upscale this too, I won’t have any time to be with my family and justify with a good excuse, so you won’t do this but you’ll be grumpy and down because you did not get what you wanted.

The saying that “Once committed providence moves to make it help make it happen”  is true.  Once committed there are no other choices to be made, focuses on the goal at  hand  you move into the flow of possibility to achieve the goal, this is a great thing, a place of warm possibility, a place of comfort and challenge, a place of openness, a place of opportunities, a place where one is with the universe, and best of all the mind quietens down and a sense of peace and calm takes over your being because there is just one thing to think about.