In order to become smarter we must either learn to explore our inner reality or we must learn from books and the exterior world around us. In whatever way you wish to, you need to always try and develop your intellectual capabilities. It is truly the case that the quality of your life is directly related to your intelligence and to the quality of your thinking. You don’t need to have schooling or some kind of higher learning education certificate. But you do need to constantly strive to increase your intelligence by reading and studying those things that are important to you.

It is the case with me that I did not really begin to increase my intellectual capabilities until I left school. I was never very good at studying those things that others told me I had to study and I could never follow their study methods as they just seemed forced and rather mechanical. It could be that this is the case for you, that you are still in school either studying something that you love or continuing your education in order to get to a place that you desire. It could also be the case, as it is with me, that you are just studying things that interest you and as a result are developing your intellect in whatever way you choose. Whatever the case might be, these are some points to consider when you are studying something, they will help you to better internalize the ideas that you have just read or discovered.

• If you’re reading something, it is always a good idea to take notes. This can seem rather tedious at the time but it’s a wonderful way to review the things that you have read and to also allow your mind to contemplate these ideas on a deeper level. Taking notes forces you to make a more concise statement so that you don’t have to write as much; in other words you are trying to not copy the book Word for Word. In this way you are forced to intellectualize what you have just read so that you can take clear and concise notes that you can go back to whenever you want to refresh your memory.
• You should try and reread these notes every evening and focus on those ideas that you have studied earlier in the day. Contemplate these ideas and try to internalize them, you can do this by rereading your notes until you can create a silent dialogue of these words for yourself and in this way begin to contemplate them at an even deeper level.
• If it is at all possible, try to explain the ideas that you have read to someone else. The more that you are able to articulate the ideas that you are learning, the better an understanding of them that you will have. If you are by yourself, it is even possible to just speak out loud to yourself or to a pretend audience that you are trying to explain the concepts to.
• As you contemplate these new ideas, try to find the best place to practice these new ideas. Try to figure out where these ideas are most applicable and how you would go about using them in different situations such as work, with your family, or with your peers.
• As you contemplate these new ideas and how they are applicable, run through certain possible scenarios in your mind. In other words try to conceptualize possible outcomes to you using these new ideas and possible solutions to any problems that you might face. In this way your ideas become even more entrenched into your mental processes and you can begin to see every angle of the new idea and how it might relate to you personally. If these ideas are of a grander nature where you cannot apply them directly into your life in one way or another, try to see how these ideas might fit into a greater scheme, and how they might change world perspectives if they were either applied in one form or another or if they were taken into consideration by the world at large.
• Try to keep the ideas that you are considering and contemplating in front of your mind. A good way to do this is to use sticky notes and to write down certain statements that allow you to better conceptualize and remember when you are trying to learn. You can stick these notes anywhere such as; your car, your refrigerator, or your desk at work. Little sticky notes like this will allow you to focus your thinking on the key ideas that you have learned and this will naturally get your mind churning in the proper direction.

These are simple little points you can use in order to develop good study strategies for yourself. The key concept here is to not just read a book and put it away, or go through some material and then forget about it only to engage in something else. The idea is to begin to really internalize those things that you are studying. By doing this you will actually create new neural patterns that will become stronger the more you conceptualize your new ideas. You memories and ideas will become stronger in your mind and will not be so easily forgotten. This data will go from being random information to actual and actionable material that you can apply to your life or that you can use as a base to increase your intellectual understanding. Learn to truly internalize the ideas that you find most important so that these ideas begin to make a real difference in your life.

We can all be a little prideful at times. When we have devoted a lot of time to certain thing it can be quite easy to believe that we know everything about that particular thing and it can be very difficult to hear another person’s point of view. This is natural, it just shows that you take pride in the amount of effort that you’ve put into something and have developed a certain sense of confidence in this area. You should always be careful though that you don’t become overconfident because this overconfidence will create a barrier that won’t allow you to learn new things. If you believe that you know everything about everything or something, then there’s nothing else that you can learn and this is of course not true. Try to always maintain a certain sense of humility so that you are able to contemplate new ideas from different angles and are therefore always able to expand intellectually and in all areas.

Try to stay logical and always identify when you don’t have enough evidence to prove your point completely. It is most important that you learn to approach any endeavor in a logical fashion so that you can objectively study what you know and what you don’t know about whatever you are engaged in. Through logical progression and objective detachment you can separate your ego from your knowledge.

If you are not completely sure of your particular point, if you do not have all the evidence to prove your particular belief, always make sure that you phrase your belief in a way that does not make you sound like you are the final and undeniable authority on this particular point. You can easily do this by starting a statement in this way; “I may be wrong, but what I think is…”. You can also say something like; “based on my knowledge in this area, I would say that…”.

Maintaining a level of humility is always good strategy. It allows you to adopt a position where you can state your point without being attacked because you are sounding like you are somehow indisputable in your knowledge. In order to maintain this personal humility, and therefore maintain superior position, make sure that you are able to identify when you are arguing a belief without evidence to justify it. This can be rather tricky as we can all develop certain ‘blind spots’ to our own beliefs. The two biggest reasons for these are our ego and the fact that we have never questioned a belief but always ‘assumed’ that it was completely right.

It is always therefore a good idea to question every single belief that you have. Beliefs can take on the trait of being ‘invisible beliefs’. This happens when a belief is completely skimmed over because we completely assume that this belief is totally and utterly true; it is beyond question. Learn to question even your religious, cultural, and political beliefs. If you do not then you will make general assumptions about things and believe your points to be irrefutable. Always remember that *“assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.”

Whenever you can it is also a good idea to find alternative sources of information. This is most important because even if the information agrees with what your points of view are, they can be presented in different perspectives and viewpoints that might allow you to see things in a different light. This might allow you to consider new possibilities and to perhaps even see things that your sources of information have not seen. Also try to find sources of information that totally contradict your point of view and contemplate those sources with an open and objective mind.

You should never be afraid to explore your beliefs and to explore new beliefs that you have never considered before. By exploring our existing beliefs we can begin to understand our fundamental reasoning which can greatly increase our intellectual ability. Being open to new beliefs can allow us to be open to new insights and possibilities that we have never considered in the past.

A great exercise is to take a topic or an individual and make a list of everything that you know to be absolutely true about a certain thing or individual. Then make a list of all the things that you think might be true but you are not sure about. And lastly make a list of all the things that you don’t know about that certain subject or individual. When you are done, either show this information to the individual or try to dig as much information as you can on the subject. You can get some very valuable insights as to your thinking process and discover certain blind spots that you had not been aware of. This exercise can help you discover the nature of these blind spots and can show you where you have been making assumptions.

Personal pride in what you know is a healthy thing. This personal pride lets you know that you have developed confidence in the subject. This personal confidence is usually achieved through hard work and personal study on your part. This personal confidence is actually a type of armor that you use on a regular basis to protect your individuality from any stray belief that others might try to impose upon you. It is though the case that you should always maintain a strategic stance whenever you are trying to express your beliefs and make your points. By maintaining a stance of humility, you put yourself in a superior strategic position by letting others know that you do not consider yourself to be beyond refute. Maintain a stance of humility and you will be able to express your points as you wish. You will also begin to open yourself up to new ideas and beliefs which will greatly expand your intellectual capabilities.

*Eugene Lewis Fordsworthe

If you want to be true to yourself, you must continually be on the lookout for times when you are giving people a double standard. A double standard is really a form of hypocrisy where you hold people accountable in a certain way but you do not hold that same accountability for yourself. In order to develop your ‘self’ and your personal integrity, you have to be able to hold yourself to the same standard that you hold everyone else to.

A double standard is most obvious when we tend to have a certain standard for ourselves but then we have a different standard for all those people that we do not agree with or do not like. This is a most dangerous type of prejudice because it does not allow us to see the correct picture of the situation; which can be even deadly at times. It is up to you to choose who you like or dislike for whatever reason you like; just remember to be fair in your assessments or you might be blindsided by something you did not see.

Sometimes we fail to live in accordance with our own professed beliefs and ideals. This too is a double standard because we often times tend to impose these ideals on others while deep down we believe that we do not have to live by them ourselves. It becomes really easy to see yourself as a savior or a godlike figure in your own mind while everyone else around you is seen as a flawed being that must be saved or shunned. If you believe that everyone sucks while deep down you feel superior to them, then you are engaged in this type of hypocrisy. If you believe that you suck along with everyone else, then it is perhaps time that you question that belief; it is certainly not helping you in any way.

It is even the case that we create a type of double standard where we think that those above us are somehow beyond reproach while we are all quite flawed and deserve what we get. This last type of double standard can allow you to survive injustices that are imposed upon you but if this hypocrisy is not questioned then tyranny is never stopped. This is the worst kind of hypocrisy because at least in the others you were better or equal to others. This type of hypocrisy turns you into a serf.

Always try to see where you are using a double standard. Sometimes this can be hard to actually see because it can be something that we blind ourselves to, where we believe that for example we can do a certain thing while our spouse should not be able to. Try to identify these cases and the beliefs that you hold here so that you can begin to question the standards that you hold for yourself and others. By questioning your standards and bringing them into the light you can begin to realize what you are doing wrong, which can sometimes almost seem accidental in that you do not realize you had been doing it, and to change them at the root core of your beliefs. Questioning your beliefs will shed light into your reasoning and will allow you to change these beliefs accordingly. This will change your standards and hopefully end any hypocrisy on your part.

As you begin to identify these beliefs that do indeed shape your reality, make a list of the beliefs that seem to be most important to you on any one particular subject. See if you can identify situations where your behavior is inconsistent to what you believe you should be doing in that one area. This would be an area where you are saying one thing but you are doing something else altogether. It is good to realize that your actions are controlled by your beliefs. By contemplating your past actions in a certain situation, you can begin to see where what you say and what you do tends to differ. It is in these areas that you must study your beliefs because it is quite possible that there are beliefs in this area that you are completely overlooking. This is an area where you are not really being true to yourself, you are lying to yourself by doing one thing and saying another. Unless this is a completely conscious act on your part, you need to question your beliefs.

Whenever you believe that others have the right to do something but you do not have that right then you must discover why this is so. You will never be able to discover a black and white answer to this, you can only discover what you believe to be the case. By realizing that there is nothing that is black and white, you will begin to realize that others cannot impose their beliefs upon you. It is perhaps one of the greatest discoveries that there is; the discovery that there is no real truth in life but that there is only personal belief. This discovery can be incredibly frightening because it shows you the incredible freedom that you have in all areas of our life. Discover your personal beliefs on a matter and question any belief that places you below someone else.

Hypocrisy is something that must always be identified. You must always notice any contradictions that you have in your life, where you are doing or expecting something from yourself while at the same time you are expecting something else completely from others. By understanding these double standards, you will begin to understand your beliefs. Especially those beliefs that can take on a type of invisibility; the invisibility is caused because we believe them to be facts and therefore beyond question. In order to increase your personal integrity and expand your personal awareness you need to discover this hypocrisy and you need to discover the beliefs that are causing it.

Having a good scheduling system can be the difference between getting things done and failing at whatever it is that you do. We all have a desire to accomplish things. We sometimes have plans or big ideas that we would like to see come to fruition. Many have these great ideas and plans but are never able to get anything done, as a result they think that they are dreamers that will never be able to accomplish anything because they just don’t have the power or the discipline to get things done. Most don’t realize though that the reason that they are not getting things done is because they’re not scheduling their activities and are not planning properly.

In order to get anything done you have to have a good schedule. Try to be very creative in the way that you maintain a schedule, create unique reminders and have all sorts of different calendar systems that work best for you. While it might seem that scheduling and keeping a good record of things can be quite boring, the reality is that most find scheduling boring because they are following some antiquated system that makes them yawn. If you are able to be creative, using different colors and different personal schemes, you can create a scheduling system for yourself that can be quite fun to do. There is no reason to do the typical calendar entry for example, you can create all sorts of fun and interesting ways to schedule your tasks and to implement your new strategies. Try using large boards, create collages, use different colors and different material, experiment with funky sticky notes. Get as creative as you want and turn your scheduling system into a personal art form.

The art of good scheduling can be the art of discovering your personal intuition. As you think of something to do or as you get a flash of a great new strategy, write it down. Now! Write intuitive flashes down so that you have them on paper and you don’t forget about them. It is easy to forget something when you have a flash of insight and then you try to tell yourself that you will do it in the future. Flashes of insight and intuitive feelings are sort of like dreams, if we don’t write them down we soon forget them. If you have a good scheduling system you can add these intuitive flashes into your schedule or your calendar and then try to find the connections that will allow them to work perfectly in order to accomplish your tasks.

Having a good scheduling system allows you to break down your projects into steps. This is an amazingly useful way to accomplish complex tasks. If you are able to break down a complex task into small chunks, you can do anything. By breaking things down you make that final task or goal seem much easier to accomplish. You are also able to focus on smaller individual tasks that are easier to manage and far easier to accomplish. With a good scheduling system you can even create project sheets for really complex ventures. What this means is that you can devote larger paper space to break down and create positive strategies for large complex projects, this act expands the amount of time that you contemplate this large project. More time equals better strategy and less worry. Again allow your creative mind to work on these project sheets so that you come up with interesting ways to showcase the goals and strategies to yourself. Develop a functional schedule that will showcase the strategies that you have developed and the ways that you have broken down this large goal into smaller chunks. This can be a really fun process if you allow your creativity to take over.

Getting something accomplished is a great feeling. Showing yourself that you are capable of creating something does amazing things for your confidence. You are no longer a dreamer without direction or reason. You become a doer that can accomplish whatever you desires. The first step to getting anything done is developing a great scheduling system, one that you will enjoy and one that will work very well for you. Develop your own personal scheduling system and with it you will be able to accomplish even very large and difficult tasks.

Success is a natural desire that we all have. We tend to define success as the ability to accomplish an aim or a goal. Some even define success as the attainment of wealth and profit, perhaps even the attainment of popularity and fame. The best definition of success is the ability to accomplish our desires and to fulfill our values in life. Success then goes beyond the accomplishment of a particular externally defined ideal, into the fulfillment of personal values.

As we look upon the world, we see that there are some people that are very successful while there are others that seemed to find no success at all. If we define success as the fulfillment of our values, we can say that there are some people out there that are successful even though they are not considered so by everyone else. Even in a time where we are continually coerced into a very limited set of beliefs, there is still a very large variation between my values and yours. Even though we can go on about the fact that most people are just interested in money and fame, it is still the case that many are interested in fulfilling other values that we might not consider important ourselves. Success therefore is a relative thing and each individual must decide for him or herself whether he/she has been successful in fulfilling these desires and values.

So what is it that makes one person successful and another person not so successful? Are there certain key points that one must keep in mind in order to become a success? I believe that there are and that these points don’t necessarily relate in any way to incredibly hard work are keeping your nose to the grindstone. While I believe that it is the case that focus is definitely a necessity, hard work is a relative thing; how much masochism is involved in value fulfillment can be directly related to personal beliefs. The most important key points to keep in mind when you want to attain success are:

1. Be able to expand self awareness. This is a most important point because without self-awareness there is really very little chance of that person identifying what his or her true values are. Without self-awareness you will not be able to discover your values and the beliefs that will shape those values into objective existence. Even though it is the case that simple desire can lead you towards value fulfillment, these values will never be fully realized until you truly understand the core issues within yourself that drive you in a particular direction. If success is an underlying feeling of personal fulfillment, then success cannot be fully achieved until you become completely self-aware of the values that shape your existence.

2. Through self-awareness you will be able to comprehend the extent of your ideals. With this understanding you will find it far easier to focus on specific desires and goals that will allow you to fulfill these ideals. This is the beginning of unbending intent. By focusing your will or intent in a particular direction, you begin to naturally move in that direction. Unbending intent is the ability to stay focused on this one particular goal until you have achieved success. Unbending intent is ‘deliberate’ single-mindedness , ‘precise’ action, and ‘sustained’ focus of your will in the direction of a particular desire or goal. You will not achieve success without unbending intent.

3.  Once you have focused your unbending intent into a particular goal, because you are self aware enough to discover the true nature of your values and desires, you will need to stay flexible so that you can adjust your course in relation to the obstacles that your face. Without flexibility you will not be able to achieve success because you will not be able to adjust yourself in order to surpass your environment. It is very hard to change the world around you, it is far easier to change yourself in order to navigate through this world. The most flexible creature will always be the most successful creature.

Success is a personal desire that we all have. Success cannot be defined through what we consider to be the correct external evidence. True success can only be measured in another by our empathic understanding of another person’s attainment of personal fulfillment. Personal success can only be achieved through your attainment of feelings of personal fulfillment within your own life. If you keep the three points above in mind, you will be able to find success in any aspects of your life.

You must always try to consider time as your friend and not your enemy. Most of us have little patience and tend to rush into things that we end up regretting in the long term. While I have said in the past that impulses are something that should be used to your advantage, because they tend to usually be subconscious messages that are far more legitimate than many realize, it is also the case that ‘forbearance is a virtue’.

If you do get an impulse or a desire of some kind, to act in a certain way, then you should pursue that action or at least consider the consequences of this action fully. There are times though when we seem to be lost and there are no answers to be found. When this is the case it is always a good idea to have patience and let time create its own answers by providing solutions that can only come about when you let go.

When you have tried in different ways to try to find solutions to difficult answers without success, it is quite possible that you just need to let go of the need for these answers for a while. By being patient and forgetting about the problem for a while, you allow deeper parts of yourself to mull over the problem in a more natural way. Having patience often times is just the ability to forget about a certain thing for a while so that other, greater parts can find solutions or perhaps provide answers that you are not currently able to see.

If you find yourself stuck, one of the greatest things that you could possibly do is just sleep on it. In order to be able to actually get to sleep of course you will need to be able to just let things go. The best way to let go and to also find the answers that you require, is to ask yourself, two ask your deeper self: what is the solution to this question? By doing this just before you go to bed, you are asking your inner self for a solution. Your inner self will always answer these questions, even though it is sometimes the case that we do not understand the answers.

Many times these answers take the form of a dream which we sometimes forget or only partly remember. Other times the answers can be certain omens or synchronicity that we tend to overlook if we do not pay attention. It is even the case that you can receive direct answers through flashes and intuitions that become quite clear. It all really depends on how much of a connection you have with your inner self and how much time you have spent contemplating your personal thoughts in the past.

If ever you find yourself torn between what you think you should do and what you feel like doing, it is always a good idea to just let it go for a while. I quite often find it difficult to make even simple decisions; these are times when I know what I should do and I know what I want to do but I just can’t get myself to do what I should do. When this is the case I just wait for a while and let things happen by themselves. Doing this usually allows the problem to resolve itself, or the extra time allows me to understand what I am conflicted about. Given enough time this conflict either resolves itself or I discover that there was another issue that I was not considering or wasn’t strong enough to face at the time. With time, I can see all this clearly along with my reasoning, and I therefore can make the correct decision for myself.

Patience is truly a virtue and it can allow you to solve difficult problems. While it is not the case that you should stifle every impulse that you have, as these impulses have much to show you, it is however a good idea to practice forbearance whenever you are having a difficult time trying to solve a problem. Time allows you to find inner resources, and this can allow you to develop the strength and the wisdom that you need to make the correct decision. Whenever you have a difficult problem, sleep on it; ask your inner self to give you an answer to your problems and pay attention because the answers might come in ways that you do not expect.

We all have a blind spot. We all have areas in our lives that we just can’t see because we are too deeply involved in ourselves. Our ego and our familiarity with certain things can make us blind to what others might find to be obvious. This personal flaw can be very serious when we are competing in a high-stakes game or when we are trying to seriously improve ourselves.

This blind spot does not allow us to see our weaknesses. Often times our ego will not allow us to see ourselves in a clear way because by doing so it admits that we are less than perfect. Even when we constantly put ourselves down and exaggerate faults, it is often the case that these faults are not our real problem. The ego cannot see these faults so how could it possibly find them, at least the correct ones. Self bashing usually involves the bashing of minor eccentricities, real problems could never be faced by a self-deprecating ego because these faults are beyond the egotistical personalities grasp.

This personal blind spot is also responsible for not letting us see our strengths. We all have natural strengths, just like our faults we are able to slightly perceived these and can sometimes use them, but it usually takes someone else to point out what our true gifts really are. The more that we are able to use our strengths, the more that we will find success in everything that we try to achieve. It is therefore incredibly important that we try to find these merits as soon as possible.

The best way to get around this blind spot is to get feedback from individuals that you trust. These individuals should be honest, trusted, and considered by you to be intelligent enough to make positive appraisals. It is sometimes the case that people that we consider to be critics or enemies can give us very good evaluations because these people are not interested in trying to make us feel better and therefore will not ‘sugar coat’ their appraisals of us. If you can though, stick to getting advice from trusted friends because discovering your merits is as important as discovering your flaws.

When you discover this trusted individual(s), ask him/her for feedback. Tell them that you honestly need to know what they think and that they should forget about your ego because you are interested in their honest evaluations. At first these evaluations might hurt but eventually your confidence will improve as you are able to fix flaws and work on strengths because of this honest feedback. As you become more capable and understand the true value of honest feedback, your confidence will increase to the point where you will be in constant search of this honest evaluation.

The whole point of this honest evaluation is to make improvements on your weaknesses that stop you from using your strengths better. You will seldom find a successful person that is not constantly seeking these kinds of evaluations. Through these appraisals, they are able to discover things that others cannot because their ego will not let them see what is quite obvious to others.

We all have a blind spot. Some of us are able to overcome this blind spot by being able to understand the range of our ego, and to look at ourselves from outside this range. The best way to overcome the blind spot though is to have honest appraisals from people that you trust. With the help of these people you can overcome your weaknesses and finely honed your strengths. You can even begin to understand your ego and the boundaries of your ego, discover for yourself the reasons why it does not allow you to see certain things clearly. Self understanding is a continual process and can only be enhanced through honest appraisal by others.