Mind-Manual

Stop! Don’t Read This Now!

One of the key problems I’ve noticed in people who’re into personal development is trying to run before they can walk. That is to say: they try to tackle issues or deal with things which they aren’t nearly ready for. Here’s an example:

A little while ago, Steve Pavlina wrote a short series of articles on Polarization into Lightworking or Darkworking, and soon after, the forums were abuzz with questions about which way to polarize by people who had not even clarified what their life values are. Or perhaps they simply did not choose critical thinking or thinking for themselves as a value, instead preferring to let other people tell them how to make their decisions. As could be expected, the amount of times those terms are used has dropped drastically as more time has passed since the article was first published.

I believe that there is a sort of natural progression in personal development. Essentially, you walk before you can run.

Unfortunately, by its very nature, the internet is not setup as a series of steps so that you can tell what’s walking and what’s running. If you go back and look at Steve Pavlina‘s archives, you’ll find articles for every level of personal developer in every area. From the beginner to the advanced; from spirituality to better time management, but not necessarily organized as such. I certainly believe his article on courage and series on self-discipline is especially foundational for the other areas of personal development. So, if you’ve you been reading his site for a while, I would strongly recommend going back to read those articles and ask yourself how you’re doing on courage and self-discipline. If you’re new to the site, you might get some tips on improving those by reading those articles.

This means two things for the PDer:

1. Have a focus and find ways to encourage that focus. Focus on developing goals and remind yourself of them a lot. It’s easy to go off track from your goals. I have a short list of current short-term(monthly) goals that I read right after I get up to keep them in the forefront of my mind.

2. It might be best to ignore stuff from other levels or areas of personal development, as you choose to focus on reading stuff that’s about your chosen area for a short time period (say 30-90 days). Chosen spirituality as a focus for the next ninety days? Start meditating and reading about meditation, instead of jumping into the stuff about chakras and how to open the seventh one now. Ignore the articles on time management and productivity; you can catch up on them later. You can pick time management and personal effectiveness next month. I highly recommend switching these things up so one area doesn’t get boring.

Patience is still a virtue, even if you’re talking about being part of god.

Main Points:

• Patience is a virtue.
• Manage your own journey in personal development with goals and triage. Remind yourself of your goals often however you need to.
• Walk before you can run.
• Enjoy life!

 Thanks to Mark of The Winding Path for his help making this entry better.

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4 Stages of How You Learn!

A very powerful model for measuring your stages of learning is the Four Stages of Competence model. Strictly speaking, this model is used to understand the stages of learning a skill, but I find it generally applicable to all sorts of learning, especially learning new mental models.

1. Unconscious Incompetence: You don’t know that you don’t know. Say you’re a child and you don’t know that you don’t how to ride a bike. The thought of riding a bike hasn’t even entered your mind.

2. Conscious Incompetence: You know that you don’t know. You might have figured out that you want to ride a bike but you don’t quite know how to go about doing it.

3. Conscious Competence: You can do it but you have to have conscious attention on it. You can ride a bike, but it requires all your concentration to make sure you are balanced, pedaling at the right speed, making sure the handle bars are straight, and so forth.

4. Unconscious Competence: You’re so good that it’s entirely automatic. How many of you need to focus on riding a bike now? You just do it. Unfortunately, if someone asked you to help with riding a bike, you couldn’t put it into words. This is one of the reasons if you want to learn something from someone else, not only does the other person have to be good at what you want to learn about–they have to be a good explainer, too. This is one of the reasons there are teachers who just can’t understand how you can’t understand what they’re trying to teach you.

How would you apply this model to learning how to drive? It’ll help you integrate this model into your mind if you do.

Resources:

Wikipedia: Four Stages of Competence

Businessballs: conscious competence learning model

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