Self Mastery
Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering your Self and your Life.
Part 1: Understanding Self Mastery
Stage 1: Self Awareness
Stage 2: Self Knowledge
Stage 3: Growth & Development (Action & Feedback)
Stage 4: Self Mastery
Signs & Characteristics of Self Mastery
Signs of Self Mastery
Characteristics of Self Mastery
7 Skills of Self Mastery
Why Self Mastery can be so difficult
Two Powerful Forces: Growth vs. Safety
Personality Traits
Mastering Resistance through Balance of Growth & Saftey
Craft Your Plan: Self Honesty & Self Discipline Needed
Part 2: Self Mastery Crash Course
Beginning your Self Mastery Journey in 4 Steps
Step 1: Self-Awareness & Knowledge
Step 2: Your Intention & Will
Step 3: Discernment & Choice
Step 4: Realization & Manifestation
Part 3: Self-Mastery Advanced Techniques
Mastering your Personal Growth
Showing Up
Cleaning Up
Growing Up
Waking Up
The Self Mastery Daily Practice
1. Focused Concentration
2. Awareness Meditation
3. Contemplation
4. Action
5. Realization & Manifestation
OVERVIEW: This guide includes a 3 part crash course on self mastery that will take you through the most essential practices.
Self mastery is usually defined as self-control, the capability to exert a strong will against our impulses to guide our future to one of our choosing. But this is just one facet of the term.
Self mastery requires having a Mission centered around the vision for your future self and your contribution. And harnessing the will to realize that vision.
This guide is designed to assist you on your journey. It will point out the pitfalls and offer a roadmap and step-by-step instructions you can implement today.
What is Self Mastery?
Self-Mastery is recognizing, understanding, controlling, and making the most out of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual self.
It is gained through awareness, understanding, and command over your thoughts, emotions, and actions. It gives you power over the one thing you can control in any situation: yourself.
Self-mastery over your thoughts, emotions, words, and actions can change and transform your life and yourself.
What it is not
Self Master is often defined as 'self-control' or 'self-discipline'; however, this isn't a cold, heartless form of control via force.
Self Mastery is not about making yourself your own slave or forcing yourself to do or not do. It is not a pathological maximization of every area of your life or the result of any extrinsic reward.
It's not about controlling yourself or dominating those fearful, aggressive, needy, and flawed parts within us.
It's a method for resolving these inner tensions, finding wholeness, and transforming and transcending these parts.
Self Mastery is ultimately about freedom. The freedom to be able to actualize our highest vision by using all of the tools at our disposal, including the liberation from negative thoughts and emotions that hold us back as well as the freedom to do what needs to be done via discipline
Self Mastery is your Destiny
Growing is natural. In fact, all of life grows; it blossoms toward its potential. We all have an innate impulse toward growth.
When we answer the call to adventure, we develop our innate capacities to fulfill our destiny.
When we ignore or refuse the call, we fight our growth instinct, leading to depression and anxiety.
Only by embracing our destiny to live up to our full potential can we have freedom and fulfillment.
What are we Mastering?
Self mastery is a path, an orientation one chooses to hold toward oneself and life.
This orientation has 3 Guiding Principles.
These principles integrate both the Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions of Life. The Vertical Dimension is you. It focuses on what is already here and mastering it. The Horizontal Dimension involves learning new skills and gaining new abilities.
3 Principles of Self Mastery
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Autonomy is the desire to have freedom and be the director of our own lives.
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Mastery is the instinct to improve and master specific skills and abilities that help us in our Mission.
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Mission is the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. The direction of our lives and
Through Self Mastery, we become the captain of our Ship. We use skill to navigate the waters and vision to steer the Ship toward our Mission.
As we navigate toward our Mission, we become better and better at responding to the challenges that present themselves. By taking responsibility, we become more responsible and gain autonomy, freedom, and success.
Areas of Mastery
Developing self-mastery starts by focusing on one area of your life, typically your Mission.
As you realize your Mission, you'll slowly begin incorporating the other areas to the necessary degree.
As you grow, more and more areas will be included. At some point, you will notice that this orientation positively impacts every part of your life.
Self Mastery quickly becomes very wholesome and holistic.
6 Areas of Self Discipline
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Body: Healthy eating, sleeping, and exercise. For some, it might be becoming a Body Builder; for others, it might be being in good shape and having plenty of energy.
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Mind: Learning and mastering new skills and capabilities as needed to accomplish your Mission.
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Soul: Being very honest about our feelings and emotional states. Spotting patterns and understanding their sources. Addressing our emotions and working through them.
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Spirit: Being very present and self-aware. Gaining insight and self-knowledge by being the witness, noticing your mental and emotional patterns and triggers. Using Meditation to dissolve old patterns.
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Relationships: Fostering significant and loving relationships.
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Mission: Having a higher purpose, a Mission beyond yourself. This might be centered around your Business.
In time, Self Mastery is an integration of all of these areas. When self-discipline is needed, it is self-imposed. It comes naturally from our deep urge to realize our full potential.
Only in this way discipline leads to freedom.
Self Mastery Process
The road to Self-Mastery has 4 phases.
Stage 1: Self Awareness
It starts with self-awareness.
Self-awareness is having an insightful understanding of your personality traits, values, beliefs, capabilities, and Identity.
It is examining your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and actions to help you determine your values and principles. The more you understand yourself, the more command you will have over yourself and your life.
Self-awareness leads to the accumulation of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge identifies what you know about yourself.
Stage 2: Self Knowledge
Through self-knowledge, you can understand your values, beliefs, and purpose and can apply them to your life.
With self-knowledge, you will gain clarity and be able to work on weaknesses and build on your strengths.
Ultimately, self-knowledge can lead your awareness of your Identities and guide you to the realization of Self beyond Ego.
Stage 3: Personal Growth & Development (Action & Feedback)
Now it's time for action. Taking action allows us to realize the fruits of our insights and knowledge and get feedback. As we take small steps towards self-developing, we gain confidence and build a habit that cultivates a growth mindset.
Stage 4: Self Mastery
Cultivating a Growth Orientation and forming beneficial habits to help you realize your full potential.
Signs & Characteristics of Self Mastery
Signs of Self Mastery
People who develop self mastery show mastery over themselves and life.
When life throws them a curveball, they don't lose control or buckle under pressure. Circumstances and the environment do not define them.
Instead, they remain centered and address their negative feelings as they arise.
They stay calm and relaxed and exhibit more control than others. They focus on what needs to be done. They have courage and the effective leadership ability to act.
They are like the eye of the storm.
Characteristics of Self Mastery
Self-Mastery also mandates patience, truthfulness, purity, impeccability, and trust.
The patience to accept what is and to know when to allow things to unfold in their own time. To be true, not only in your words and actions, but also in being honest with yourself.
7 Skills of Self Mastery
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Self-Awareness
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Self-Discipline
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Being Honest
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Emotional Intelligence
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Positive Thinking and Emotions
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Mission & Goal Setting
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Commitment
Why Self Mastery can be so Difficult
Resistance to Self Control
Have you noticed how hard it can be to add a simple positive habit like working out?
Why is that? Why do we resist positive changes?
There are two main reasons we resist.
We are psychologically and biologically wired to resist notable changes.
Our bodies don't know if a change is good or bad. For example, if someone who lives a sedentary lifestyle goes for a jog, their heart rate will jump, they will start breathing heavily, begin feeling nauseous, and might even throw up.
This is Homeostasis in action. Due to the sudden behavior change, alarm bells start going off in their body. Now their entire biology will do what it can to regain normalcy. It is designed to maintain your current state.
So any changes in your environment, behavior, social situation, or friend groups can trigger such a Homeostic response, making it difficult to change.
In a nutshell, all forms of resistance are like a set of programs that get turned on.
Two Powerful Forces: Growth vs. Safety
Maslow describes the two major forces in human life: the impulse to grow and its opposing instinct, the desire to be safe.
Growing helps one move toward wholeness and discover one's uniqueness. This is a move into the unknown.
Safety, on the other hand, pushes us to protect our current self clinging to security out of fear of the unknown.
Both of these forces are pulling us in a different directions.
Our safety-seeking side is afraid of independence, freedom, and separateness—the things our growth side demands.
Personality Traits
These two forces are also expressed biologically in our personalities via the Big 5 Traits: Openness & Neuroticism.
Openness is related to exploring new ideas and solutions and venturing into the unknown. Neuroticism, on the other hand, is highly aware of dangers and prefers the known to the unknown.
Each strategy has benefits and costs. Openness has led to new discoveries and inventions, improving quality of life.
However, there is a cost. Most new ideas don't work, most new businesses fail, and each step forward is potentially a step into danger.
Accept Your Resistance
Acknowledge the fact that you have resistance to positive change. It's easy to beat ourselves up when we see that we're standing in our way.
Feelings of fear, shame, and guilt will only paralyze us and delay our progress. Furthermore, we will create harmful habits by acting on our resistance.
In contrast, self-acceptance and self-compassion allow us to take note of our resistance without judging or criticizing ourselves.
Next, you will need to negotiate with your resistance to change if you want to stay on the path to self-mastery.
Mastering Resistance through Balance of Growth & Saftey
Remember, resistance comes out of the urge to remain safe.
By its very nature, growing represents change that can be felt as threatening. Yet, if you don't grow, you are sure to suffer.
To move forward, you must balance the forces for growth and safety.
Just focusing on growth without safety is absurd.
Both strategies can inform and complement each other.
Consider
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Benefits of Growth: Consider the Upside of Growth and 2nd order benefits, such as learning and improving even if you don't accomplish your Goal.
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Minimum Effective Dose: What is the smallest impactful action you can take?
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Take Baby Steps until you become more confident.
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Fear of Success: What can you do to address your fears of failure and success?
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Do Fear Setting exerices
In essence, this is what alchemy is about. It's about transforming the negative into a positive by learning from it.
Craft Your Plan: Self Honesty & Self Discipline Needed
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. You will need to create a Master Plan.
To create an effective Master Plan, you must have the discipline of being honest with yourself.
This Plan will be focused on your Mission and what you want to do in the world. It will also address your fears and be a handy tool when faced with obstacles.
The following section is a Crash Course on how to do this.
BONUS: THE HERO'S Journey is a Free Program that helps you identify your Mission and create a Plan!
Self Mastery Crash Course
To develop self mastery, you first must be willing to be the Fool.
Beginning your Self Mastery Journey in 4 Steps
These steps can help you first realize your true potential in your imagination and guide you to creating your Master Plan.
Remember, you are doing this for yourself, so be as honest and as diligent as you can for your own self.
Before Getting Started
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Accept Your Resistance
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Lighten Up
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Anticipate Backsliding
Each of these Steps has several instructions and prompts, along with tools and resources that can help you.
Step 1: Self Awareness & Knowledge
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Awareness: Observe yourself for the next 3 days as if you're watching a total stranger. Do so without judging or getting caught up in exciting thoughts and feelings. Try to stay present and be the witness.
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Self Discovery: What topics do you think about throughout the day? What is the theme of your thoughts? How do you feel throughout the day?
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Self Knowledge: What do you value? What gives you joy? What is your bliss and happiness?
Step 2: Your Intention & Will
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If you could realize ONE Goal in your life, what would it be?
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What is the most meaningful thing you can do that extends beyond you?
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Why do you value these things?
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Underneath these things, what is your intention?
Step 3: Discernment & Choice
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Choose your Mission
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Align your Mission with your Identity, values, beliefs, and capabilities.
Step 4: Realization & Manifestation
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Create your Master Plan
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Set Mini Goals
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Manifestation starts when you act!
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Commit to Long-Term Practice and habit.
Please don't overdo it in the begging or have high expectations.
Remember, you will go through these 4 stages when learning something new.
This is the price to be paid, and it's paid with your time, dedication, and effort.
HINT: The Self Discover Program can help you get Started!
4 Stages of Learning
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Unconsciously Incompetent: You don't know that you don't know.
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Consciously Incompetent: You know that you don't know.
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Consciously Competent: You know that you know.
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Unconsciously Competent: You automatically do what you know.
Remember, during this process, to be kind, gentle, and loving to yourself. You are embarking on one of the most beautiful journeys.
Mastering your Personal Growth
Self Mastery is primarily focused on mastering what is already here, the self.
All of your work is going to be in these 4 Verticales.
The essence of these four verticals appears in all Personal Growth and Self Development work and was pioneered by Ken Wilber. What is unique about this approach is how holistic it is by integrating the four approaches.
Showing Up
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Mission: Serving Humanity via our Mission
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Daily Practice: See Below
Cleaning Up
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Shadow Work: Working with the unconscious parts of yourself that you repress and hide from yourself, such as your shame, guilt, rage, envy, greed, selfishness, desire, and the striving for power. These parts hold us back in 'safety mode' and are referred to as our 'shadow'.
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Processing Trauma: Process past trauma as it comes up. Trauma can often get stuck in our bodies, and bodywork like Yoga and Tai Chi can help.
Growing Up
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Emotional Maturing: managing your emotions, processing your traumas, being honest, gaining inner strength and self-confidence, and developing your character.
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Leadership and taking on responsibility.
Waking Up
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Meditation: Abide in conscious awareness.
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Spiritual Practice
The Self Mastery Daily Practice
This cycle can be used to accomplish your Mission. You can also use it to identify what goals, skills, and actions you should pursue.
A version of this routine first appeared in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. This is something Yogis have been practicing for thousands of years and is the original source of Yoga.
It can be done in the morning and lead you forward in the day. You can spend 5 minutes on each exercise. As you get better at it, increase the time.
1. Focused Concentration
Start by focusing your attention on your Mission. Imagine every aspect of it in vivid detail. Let your mind and imagination wander. Notice how it feels, what it is like.
Turn this into a regular routine. Hold ongoing concentration on your Mission.
2. Awareness Meditation
Vipassana Meditation: Abide in awareness.
In this, we go from '1' to '0'. We go from focusing on an object to simply abiding in nothingness. This Meditation is merely being the witness, observing what is happening without judgment or getting pulled by your imagination.
Come back to being present. Stay in the 'empty mind.'
3. Contemplation
Now, we combine the two. During contemplation, you will do a deep dive into your Mission. Picture it vividly, experience it, ask questions, and oscillate between '1' and '0'.
Next, consider what you need to know. What are the most essential questions?
Ask the first question and go into your awareness, empty mind.
Let an empty mind dip into the zone between being awake and dreaming. Let yourself go into the drowsy, daydream-like state and let your imagination wander and explore your question.
Are you getting any insights into your question? What does it feel like?
Now actively use your imagination.
Do the question and answer fit in your imagination? Often this requires oscillating back and forth between asking questions, going into no mind, letting your imagination wander, then actively working with the insights until it clicks.
Remember, you can only expect something to work for you in the world if you get it to work in your imagination.
Action
Once you get clarity from the exercises above, write down your insights. Use this journal to create your Plan and take action!
If you have difficulty taking action, focus the above Practice on taking action. For example, if your Goal is to exercise, but you can't get yourself to do it, start by imagining yourself exercising.
Realization & Manifestation
Where ever attention flows, the energy goes. The more you oscillate between concentrating your attention on your focus and then relaxing your awareness into nothingness, the more you will discover about yourself and what you need to do.
Getting good at this Daily Practice will take time. Learning to use your imagination and asking the right questions are essential skills.
If you do this Daily Practice every day for 6 months, you'll see significant differences in your attitude, performance, and the quality of your life.
Final Thoughts
Embarking on the journey to Self Mastery can be exhilarating, yet it can also bring feelings of danger and responsibility.
It may require you to be independent and build inner strength rather than relying on external support.
The path to self-mastery is difficult, as it involves leaving behind the familiar and stepping into the unknown.
Even though the known may not be ideal, it is comforting, and humans have a natural need for safety, making it hard to leave.
It is essential to accept the need for stability while also challenging yourself to improve and evolve.
Be mindful of your need for safety while also courageously exploring new unknowns. Embrace the process and make small daily changes to improve yourself.
Become the Hero.
Join us Hero's Journey Course
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