So how does one stop intellectualizing?good question 
First, you should ask yourself if that is what you want at this point in your life. At 17, it may be more advantageous to be a Tony Robbins than a Buddha. Most people wait till at least college and to as long as their mid-life crisis or retirement. Even in China, ritualistic Confucianism comes before spontaneous Taoism. I told a chinese student here I was studying tai chi. She laughed at me and said tai chi was for old people! fancy that!!
You could say that there are TWO main modes of being for the discrimating liver.
Super-Tony Robbins Consciousness or Sub-Buddha Consciousness
Force or Non-Action
Self-Mastery or Enlightenment
Reason or Intuition
West or East
Being or Doing
Imagine Tony Robbins meditating like the Buddha.
Imagine the Buddha static contracting 2000 pounds on the leg press like Tony.
One could debate whether or not they are mutually exclusive. But that's not important. Which one are you predominantly after?
Are you more of a beta-gamma man? or an alpha-theta man? This seemingly innocuous question is one of the most important questions you may ever ask yourself. It irked me for years. Both sides were constantly tugging at me, hissing in my ear, "cooooome baaaack... you'rrre onnne of ussssssss."
Here is a hunch I have...perhaps a long-shot:
it seems like may be using self-improvement as a form of distraction. That's interesting. Self-improvement is designed to put distraction second and action first. Can it be that reading and discussing self-improvement literature has taken the place of such a thing as television in your life? Do you view self-improvement as recreation? Perhaps it is currently serving the role of 'distraction' as television, partying, computer games, or current events does for others?
