I don’t usually put book reviews on this blog, but there’s always an exception to the rule.

I started reading Steve Pavlina’s blog a few years ago. It was one of the things that influenced my decision to start my own blogs. He provides a lot of good information on his site. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but I still enjoy reading it and respect what he does.

He’s recently released his first book, Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth. I started reading it with some trepidation, because I didn’t want to be disappointed by it. I was afraid it would be a regurgitation of the information he already has on his website. When I found out it wasn’t, I was pleasantly surprised.

Personal Development for Smart People is an insightful book that takes a deeper look at issues of personal development than most other personal development books. Pavlina starts the book by recounting his early life and how he changed his course from one of self-destruction to personal development. Then he introduces what he calls the fundamental principles of personal development–truth, love, power, oneness, authority, courage, and intelligence. The first part of the book explains what these principles mean. I enjoyed this part of the book the most.

The second part of the book was about how to apply these principles in habits, career, money, health, relationships, and spirituality. While this section of the book was enjoyable also and I’m sure would be useful to a lot of people, it got a little new age for me. The exercise in the career section where you’re suppose to write down what your purpose in life is over and over again until you cry was a bit much. Reading the section aloud to my husband did cause us a lot of enjoyment though. If you’re into that sort of thing, which many people are, you’ll find that section very helpful. I think that the second section of the book offers some valuable insight for people who are struggling in those areas and have lose their sense of self.

Overall, I recommend the book. I’ve read a few personal development books in my time and this is one of the best.

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