Self Determination

[Guest]

Not a great title but I feel like getting out some stuff...

This post is for times when you feel down, hurt, disgusted at women, blaming them and feeling inferior to girls.

This comes from the most excellent CD/Book [b][i]Goals![/i] by Brian Tracy[/b]. Go get a copy. I think its $20.00.

Brian Tracy talks about how he was all alone in college in a small apartment and he had to stay inside because it was so cold out and he didn't want to go outside of his apartment.

With the cold wind blowing outside, he came to the realization that no one was coming to his rescue and that he had to be responsible for his own life.

Its amazing how many people go about blaming other people for their troubles. It continues into adulthood for many many people.
They blame their asshole bosses, their coworkers, their parents, their neighbors. They go around blaming the other drivers on the road or the random girl at the bar who didn't want to talk to them. They blame the government or the president.
The "blame game" is another way of abdicating their own responsibilities.

But if we claim our responsibility, if we truely own it...we are free.

Think about it. Its freedom.

Blaming is like being a whiny little child. I remember sitting at an ice cream station in Central Market and listening to a crying kid wanting ice cream. "Waaaaa! Waaaaa! I want ice cream." over and over.
The unfortunate mother was trying to leave with a cart full of groceries. But she finally gave in to the crying kid.

Adults are prone to being like the little whiny brat as well. Blaming others is exactly the same behavior.

In fact, as Brian Tracy says Blaming goes along with justification. Justification is when someone explains an otherwise socially unacceptable situation as being socially acceptable.
In the community this is sometimes referred to as "qualifying yourself". Think about it, do you really need to explain your actions to others?
You do what you do with the information you have. That's really it. As more information comes available, you adjust course.

The WMD in Iraq turned out to be a waste of time, but no one knew that at the time. Just after 9/11/01, the choice to invade another country who harbored weapons of mass destruction sounded plausible, even justified.

Looking back, it was an incredible blunder.

Colin Powell did his duty with the information he was given. And he later resigned. He did not try to justify his position.

The new president, Obama, has a rather large popularity. But his policies of using TARP or bailouts for banks may come under scrutiny. Yet he is making these decisions with the information he has now.

There are times when one needs to justify. But people who constantly do this are really not all that useful or effective. They will not reach whatever goals they set for themselves.

The other thing that Brian Tracy talks about is the unlimited potential of people. You can literally learn anything if you take the right steps and use feedback along the way.

"The Failure to Feedback" presupposition from NLP is useful.

However, what you focus on determines your outcome.

This is also Freedom.

I met a girl on Saturday who was hot. I asked her for her number. She said "I can't" and I said "Ok" and walked away.

Why would I choose to dwell on that interaction that ended in an unexpected or poor outcome?

Unless I can learn something from the interaction, some questions just are not worth asking.
I'm talking about disempowering questions like...

"How come I never get girls?"
"Is there something on my shirt?"
"What's wrong with me?"
"What's the problem?"

See, what's wrong is always available. Gravity is constant. We need to push up in order to get up.
The focus should be on the positive.

A friend of mine said it best.

[b] "Ignore that which does not serve you."[/b] There's an awesome catchphrase to remember.

Alot of the successful guys I know are into process improvement, goal setting and self improvement.

Think about it, without a plan or a map, you can't build a house (or much of anything).

That should help some of you guys out there. If you need further help, go out and get [b]Tony Robbins [i]Personal Power [/i]or [i]Unlimited Power[/i], [i]Introducing NLP[/i] by Jospeh O'Connor, [i]Goals![/i] by Brian Tracy, [i]The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People[/i] by Stephen Covey, Bandler's new book (I forgot the title), [i]Psycho Cybernetics [/i]by Maxwell Maltz, Earl Nightingale, [i]Frogs to Princes [/i] Bandler and Grinder[/b]. I probably left alot out.
Sometimes you can download stuff online and sometimes you have to scour used bookstores.

The point I'm trying to make here is don't just look at PUA material or what is here on the message board. Some of it is junk.

Read stuff, listen to CD's, take classes. Be proactive and into your own personal growth. Don't rely on others to take you by the hand.

I hope you guys really ponder this post. I think we need a reading list of great books and resources. ASF has such a list. Perhaps that list is worth copying and pasting somewhere.

Trib