The Mastery Process, Or How To Never Feel Unworthy Of Yourself When On The Path Of Self-Actualizing.

I've always been sort of a double take person when working on big things in my life or anything for that matter. I would start working towards my goals and I would be in the zone for a few days, and then one fateful day I would feel languid and sluggish and heavily resistant. I would stop and relax... and then I would splurge on some mind-numbing activity. Then at the end of the day I would guilt myself or blame myself for being such a worthless idiot. This would happen for months until I realized, "I'm trying to avoid an uncomfortable truth here but what was it?"

Then I dedicated a few days to find out what that was and I came to the conclusion that I expected the journey of gaining a new skill exponential and an endless climax and when I would hit a plateau I would feel bad about it because I identified it with indolence. I got a taste of Mastery.

Mastery: What Is It?

Mastery is the whole procedure of taking in another ability or creating mastery in some region of life. It particularly alludes to the mental difficulties of building aptitude. Most of the mastery process is spent in arduous focus and bland practice. And even then your skills don't progress evenly with time or effort. Sometimes you put in lots of effort without any noticeable improvement. And when this happens you can fall into one of these 3 labels of a mastery underling.

1. The Dabbler - Basically he/she always starts things ecstatically and tells all her friends about it and for a while she is doing some good progress but when she starts to plateau, her excitement wears off and off to the next thing to dabble on.

2. The Obsessive - The ambitious one who starts off great and tries to bull through plateauing but ends up backfiring and comes crashing down self-sabotaging himself.

3. The Hacker - The complacent one who does just enough to get by but never going over her limit. And after a while of no progress quits.

We all fall into one of these, Someone might be a dabbler in playing the guitar but an obsessive in his sports hobby. We can even label our whole life into one of these three. Since we don't have any choice anyhow, Love the plateau. Since most of your time will be spent working, and not seeing much improvement in your skills, you have to appreciate being on the plateau. Let go of expecting climaxes, and start appreciating the subtle joy of diligent practice. Your goal is to practice just for the sake of it. And don't be attached to the results. Masters do not chase peak experiences or results.

How To Deal With Resistance

Resistance is the mind-body's norm, or tendency to preserve your current state, even when it's not favorable to your higher self. Your body wants to be in homeostasis — maintaining your past level of balance. Your mind generates resistance by creating excuses for why you can't or shouldn't do something. Your lower lizard brain just cares about survival and security. It's a battle between your higher self and your reptilian brain.

Negotiation with the resistance is key here, You can't be complacent but you also can't bull your way through since that creates self-sabotage. You're going to have to be self-aware of it and take a step back for every two steps forward. Some ways to combat it are to meditate, look over your mission in life, eat healthier, or have a warm-up procedure for building micro-momentum every day. Surrender to the resistance and watch it disappear. Love the endless path and prosper.

References: Mastery by George Leonard