Here is the link.

Some interesting parts:

The way to build self-discipline is analogous to using progressive weight training to build muscle. This means lifting weights that are close to your limit. Note that when you weight train, you lift weights that are within your ability to lift. You push your muscles until they fail, and then you rest.

Comment:  This seems to be true for some things, but not others.  Example:  I can be disciplined for meditation and exercise, but not, say, IT study.

It’s a mistake to try to push yourself too hard when trying to build self-discipline. If you try to transform your entire life overnight by setting dozens of new goals for yourself and expecting yourself to follow through consistency starting the very next day, you’re almost certain to fail. This is like a person going to the gym for the first time ever and packing 300 pounds on the bench press. You will only look silly.

Again, I'm not sure how true this is.  If I set a goal of 30 minutes meditation, and 30 minutes exercise, I will do those goals, but if I set a goal of 10 minutes guitar playing (which I love) or 10 minutes IT study (which is okay, interesting), that I don't do.

So something else is going on, besides building the "self-discipline" muscle.

Similarly, if you’re very undisciplined right now, you can still use what little discipline you have to build more. The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets. Challenges that were once impossible for you will eventually seem like child’s play. As you get stronger, the same weights will seem lighter and lighter.

Perhaps you try to work a solid 8-hour day without succumbing to distractions, and you can only do it once. The next day you fail utterly. That’s OK. You did one rep of 8 hours. Two is too much for you. So cut back a bit. What duration would allow you to successfully do 5 reps (i.e. a whole week)? Could you work with concentration for one hour a day, five days in a row? If you can’t do that, cut back to 30 minutes or whatever you can do. If you succeed (or if you feel that would be too easy), then increase the challenge (i.e. the resistance).

That example simply isn't my reality.  My own experience is, you truly need at least 30 days, maybe 90, for a new practice to become habitual.  (This is also something that Pavlina says, which is true, in my experience.)

But what will happen with a "new" practice, practiced independently, is that I'll keep it up for a few days, then fall off the wagon, then sporadically continue, until I give up again. (Or come back to that practice a couple of weeks later.)

So, in my case at least (and I'm being honest here about my lack of self-discipline) it seems to me that there are two options, for those who obviously never learned true self-discipline, but simply learned enough to "get by". 

a.  Immersion:  Especially for any new trait, the "AA" route is useful.  Full immersion, and daily support, for the new trait you are attempting to instill - until it becomes a habit.
b. Immersion again - in a program to learn "self-discipline" as a trait, in and of itself, separate from any actual practice.
c.  Bill mentioned this once - work with one's psychology, or inner voices, to understand what inside of one's psychology is indulging in self-sabatoge of growth. 

I would criticize Stve Pavlina, actually, from presenting a "system", or a guide of how-to's, that in a lot of ways, "assumes the close".  Meaning, assumes the self-discipline already exists, with which to "improve".
The A to B straight line of self-improvement that Pavlina endorses, while sounding wonderful, glosses over the challenges to the "normal" person.  As such, is of very limited use, to effectively creating change.

From Zen Habits:

Thanks to Integral Options for the link.  Good advice for integral practice.

For myself, sporadically keep various goals.  Sometimes it is better, sometimes worse. 

That's something you don't see the Steve Pavlina's of the world talk about. 

For me, there are three versions of what to do - "what I must do", and "what I want to do that's rewarding", and "what I do that fun, but an empty time waster". 

1."Must do", includes things like going to work, cleaning up, paying bills, etc. 

2. "What I want to do" are the various integral practices that make for a fulfilling, balanced life.  Exercise, meditation, volunteering, playing my guitar, learning a language, tech study, etc.  Even better, expanding my career, finding the next opportunity, integraly study, etc.

3. "What I have fun doing that's an empty time waster" is things like browsing the internet for hours on end, playing a video game, reading a pedestrian sci-fi novel, etc.  Watch movies, comedy shows with my sweetie.

I'm not too bad at the first category on the list.  And some of the activities that would be in category 2,  I do well - I meditate regularly, and I exercise regularly.  But some of the other goals there, I do much less.

Now category 3?  3, I'm pretty good at.  If I spent as much time on category 2, as I do on category 3, wow, I'd be an accomplished guy!!    (Internet, and the tv, as wonderful as it is, is a great tool for mental masturbation).

My longterm goal is to substitute more category 2 activities, for category 3 activities.  In terms of time.

And I've done a lot on this ground -

a.  Visualized my motivations - daily
b.  Setup umpteen schedules for activities.
c.  Started a regular practice of activities - that then falls away.
d.  Attempted various, and different, structures, to do more  activities. 

Still, 3 always ends up being what i do more of. I fall of the wagon.  I get distracted (except for meditation and exercise).  I go for three days, then go three days off, or a week off.

I've probably gone on a self-improvement kick - attempting to do more of category two activities more than category three activies - more than one hundred times in my life.

It's REALLY annoying to read these self-improvement guys, such as Pavlina, who basically don't acknowledge the move towards the baseline, of human nature.

Funny enough, I'm old enough now, that I don't "beat myself up" about doing less of category 2 than category 3.  First off, lots of time I spend "doing nothing" is spent in a pretty incredible place, where the "I" slips away, and only Being is happening.

But it is also pretty clear that the inherited habits (my own childhood background, was lacking both in any form of wealth, or much actual examples of spending a lot of time in category 2), tend to dominate actual living, the activity of this body.

Which is a shame, really - as the information on "how best to live", is pretty much all over the internet.  Working with resistance, changing those habits, moving out of baseline - as Wilber has said, what ACTUALLY causes change, in a person, what ends up actually motivating a person, despite the tens of thousands of hours of research, is still a mystery.

Tricks and tips to learn faster and longer, at Online Education Database.

I always need to remember the breakfast one, myself...

Awhile back I blogged about Blackboard, and how they filed for a pretty obvious patent - e-learning - and were granted it.  Then they turned around and sued another e-learning company. 

The patent is pretty bogus, so I am glad to see a group challenging it.

I clearly haven't been posting a lot here - mainly because I've been pretty busy.

But also, this particular blog has focused on the "basics", of integralism (when not veering to tech stuff and philosophy!)

For various dimensions, it is now pretty clear what the basic practices are.

Physical - I've blogged before - but 2 to 3 times a week, cardio, stretching, and weighlifting for exercise.

For diet - barring special circumstances - less carbs, and balanced eating.

Meditation - while there is a lot around the map here, the basic practices involved for integral involve:

Basic Zen/Vipassana sitting
BigMind/Advaita training
Compassion/Heart work


Now, of course, I'm missing a lot of the I-Thou meditations.  Perhaps I could blog them.

In terms of professional, career - one of the best books out there for this is Pathfinder, and What Color Is Your Parachute?

Both are passionate and practical, and give a very good sense of what are the gifts one has to GIVE, in terms of skills, abilities, and desires.

Psychological/interpersonal- while there are a lot of books out there, self-assessment is fairly easy to use, and I have also used this site to point to inexpensive therapeutic options.  And then there is the Shadow Work of the 1-2-3, as well as Byron Katie's work.  I could write more about relationship as well, but it is so easy for this to become narcissistic, in my opinion.

Now - community - this is probably one of the biggest lacks that I personally have, or have not written a lot about, and I've been attempting to address this through the Ken Wilber MeetUp, and organizing the San Francisco ILP Group. 

And then, when you do all the above, do you have time for rest, play, and creativity? Where is the balance?

I still believe there are things that are important for an "integral practitioner" to deal with - deeper delving into the interpersonal, dealing with MOTIVATION and destructive subpersonalities (just because all the practices are out there, doesn't mean you are doing them!), and also re-introducing some concepts into the integral community with ethics - such as "duty", "community commitment" etc.  A community is defined by the individuals that "take on" the duties of that community, and it is duty and volunteerism that is the glue of community.  Which conflicts a bit with "my/your integral growth".  And you want to keep away from any cultism, as such.

At any rate, opening up for questions - what integrally, needs to be worked on?  My integral growth, rather than "our" integral growth? 

I just had a cool idea, when emailing a friend, (and I mean literally *Just*.  I emailed out to him a quick distillation of my thoughts, hit send, and then thought "I have to blog this!"), so I thought I would put it here. 

I have a history here of pontificating, ruminating, on Web 2.0, blogging, and spirituality.  And there have been all types of implementations.

Many times, I've thought to setup a SCOOP style site - for either Skillful Means posts, or for Integral posts.

However, at this point, Zaadz - which already has a bunch of other features that a SCOOP site wouldn't have - needs to do TWO things - and then there the NEED for a SCOOP style site, is made completely superfluous.

Ability to search blogs by tags (does Zaadz already have this?), and then ability to RATE a blogpost.

Most of my blogposts are mediocre.  I accept that. 

BUT

Some of my blogposts are excellent!! 

I know that is true as well. 

If people can RATE a blogpost, and you can lookup a blogpost based on recommendations, ratings, and taggings - well, then why do you need a SCOOP site?  You already have the functionality that, say, DailyKos is so useful for, right?

So - how is that coming!?



also posted at Zaadz

Good PDF on emotional intelligence, covering different dimensions of emotional intelligence.

Good post from elearnspace.

Cross-institution studies, informal learning (in the form of a portfolio, and other online activities are kept in separate containers. For education, an identity system should be one that allows users not only to authenticate, but to bring the content of their learning activities into a space each individual controls. In this regard, I find portfolios to be of greater value than a simple ID system.

This should be the same in practice networks.  Those who are practicing ILP, or Body For Life, or completing daily advaita lessons - all of these fundamental activities - and any associated learning/online trail - should be controlled BY the individual, through their own identity and associated attributes - then these would be relayed to any application/systems through an agreed upon open protocol.

I've had this discussion - or at least posted a couple of comments about eportfolio functionality - to Brian Johnson at zaadz, previously. 

This type of networked "skill and growth" portfolio - we'll see if there is a market for it, and, if there is, who will be the first social network to enact it.

Great little tool.

This is actually a tool whereby people can start creating more focused assessments, based on certain diets, exercises, career assessments, etc.

Architecting the skills, competencies, and assessments available for the integral practice.

Integral Practice starts with a five emanation star, emanating outward, thickening with the depth of the levels developed.

Creating these assessments using online tools, then gathering together practice groups for activies that suggest themselves out of the assessments.

The main five areas -

Body

a. Diet assessment
b. Flexibility assessment
c, Strength assessment
d. Supplements assessment

Spiritual practice

a. Meditation practice - brainwave assessment
b. Nondual understanding - assessment based on probing questions, assessment given online - answers rated by peers in the practice.
c. Merging assessment - seeing others, all,  as yourself
d. Dis-identification assessment - seeing others, all, own self, as NOT the Self.
e. Energetic practice

Career as self-expression, service

a. Personality assessment, broad trends and interests.
b. Career assessment - online, based on Pathfinder.
c. Initial and near term goals - evaluated by peers.
d. 5 year goals - evaluated by peers, based on a-c above

Interpersonal

a. Partnership needs/health assessment
b. Friends and family assessment
c. Community service assessment

Psychological health - personal and shadow work

a. Personal psychological assessment
b. Empowerment index - personal and 360 assessment
c. Blame/ownership pendulum.  Family and friend 360 assessment
d. Emotional reactivity/nonreactivity assessment

ACTION REQUEST: 

Since these assessments can begin to be created, I'm assuming the knowledge for the assessments is already out there as well.  For any of the above life dimensions, if you are aware of associated assessments, I would appreciate you pointing them out to me!

Looking forward to this book.

Ideally, in the job situation, at some point, I want to go from a six or seven assessment  (like my job, good pay, interesting) to an 8 or 9. 

And I've always liked the idea of working for myself.

We'll see.  I may be too lazy to do that...

From Dave Pollard.



I hope for something like this for spiritual subjects, as well as other expertise.  But this is the ultimate Skillful Means project, with a peer to peer overlay.  The only additional proposal I would add, is to add a "satisfaction report", similar to the 360 degree assessment model. 

At this point, the online community I want has the following elements:

a. Personal blogging - text/audio/video.  Ability for community to rate posts.
b. Personal Profiles
c. Rating of blogging/expertise
d. Events scheduling
e. Feedback mechanism, on events, practices, experts.

You can pretty much get all of the above, expect feedback, through SCOOP, and maybe a couple of blogging platforms.

What are others insights on this?

Getting to Integral Work.

I may comment more later, but life is busy busy busy right now...

This will be useful - chalk one more up to immediate social gratification.

Not only will I be able to create and Integral Feed - I can also show headlines on the site.

Of course, this is similar to the current Integral Feed I have - but from the same interface I read from - Google Reader.

Also based on tags you develop for each feed, which is great as well.

I came across this article on personal web applications, that gathers in one place all the ways you can keep the data that is important to your life online

Pretty much everything:

Email?  Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc, etc.

Calendar? Try Kiko - or stay with Yahoo Calendar.

Simple Word documents?  Writely

Spreadsheets?  How about NumSum?

PowerPoint app?  How about S5?

Full office suite?  Well, you have ThinkFree and gOffice. 

Want one place to read all the blogs and news items you are intrested in, through RSS feeds?  Well, you have a million of course.  Google Reader, or Bloglines, or Kinja.

How about a very good personal organizer?  This is where Backpack comes in.

This article also pointed me to Barnraiser.  This looks like a REALLY good social networking application, that includes events, degrees of separation, interests,  and both your own blog, and reading others blogs, upload files, and a personal wiki!

The point here is, that over 90% - maybe more - of what a person does with his life in terms of data and productivity, can now be done online.

You know there has been all this discussion of whether Google, or Yahoo would come out with an office application, and "take on" Microsoft.  (And notice, nowhere did I mention Microsoft in ANY of the above applications, or actually anything installed on your desktop.)  And for myself, I always thought that it would be stupid to challenge Microsoft in terms of Office.  Office is a great product, and always has been.  Notice that Office is still an amazing seller on Apple machines, when there really is no NEED for it, per se.

But the truth is, the online world, and the various web applications are ALREADY taking on Microsoft.  If Google, or Yahoo, don't get in the game, or BUY one of the above better applications  -

they'll be left behind.  So they have to get moving, there really isn't much of a choice for them.

Also, what this means, in terms of Vince's Leapfrogging Dangers article. With a 100 dollar computer, you NOW have full, unfettered, and free access to a full office suite, a scheduler, you can create a network, read all your personalized news, blog, be a writer, form groups and advocate, improve the state of the world with your own wiki, or keep up a wiki of a subject you are interested in -

The future is HERE and the future is NOW.  For anyone on the planet who has an internet connection and a computer.  (Of course, that is easy to say, isn't it?  For billions, having a computer never even enters the consciousness of the person.)

It will be interesting to see what forms these applications take for the future, as they improve.

If you have the time, the popular articles from the site.   Lots of good information for managing life.