Self Development For Dummies

Dummies. All the books you ever read from windows for dummies to NLP for dummies have one thing in common. Simplicity. That”s awesome. There are two types of ways to apply information form the perspective of detail. Big picture, less detail and micro managed, loads of dot pointed detail. Very few people are able to create both, and yet everyone I know is able to respond to both, and there in lies the success of anything published for Dummies. Keep it simple but get the detail enough to get the message across.

So here goes……………. How can we keep the concept of self development simple enough for those who only need the big picture whilst satisfying those who would rather reams and reams of detail in order chew the fat so to speak. A mystery in itself.

Context versus Content. NLP is all about context. The best example I can give is this. The context of our lives is like a huge jar. The content of our lives is the STUFF in the jar. When we work with a client to change there world, we work with the unconscious.That’s the jar. Rather than taking out the contents of the jar one by one, sifting, sorting and going over all the events of one’s life (the why), we look at the jar itself. (the how). The changes we make are in the how, removing the jar itself causes the contents to spill. then we future pace what it is that someone really wants in their lives, creating a new jar and insert the content with future goals. That’s NLP for Dummies.

Self Development. One major challenge in the world of self development is the assumption that learning will provide ALL the answers needed to grow and reach our full potential. If that were the case then there would be less books written on the subject as everything we needed to know would be learnt by reading just a few of them and no one would have any need to buy any more.

Development of the self is in the action of applying the learning’s rather than absorbing the content.

“Development” means an event constituting a new stage in a changing situation.”I don’t think there have been any new developments since yesterday”. This means that something is changing, not remaining stagnant. Some think that this is a single event that will bring about a desired outcome, whilst many think it’s a life long commitment. The truth is that its both. A commitment to change, a pause between changes to apply the learning’s so as to ensure change has been practiced and has occurred, and then a re-evaluation of what’s next in the process.

Commitment and Motivation. Of course no change can occur and no development will begin without commitment to a journey and the RIGHT motivation to do so. The commitment occurs in the present moment but is punctuated with a need for motivation to an end goal which will occur in the future. The further into the future the end result, the greater the motivation must be.

The greatest problem we then face is in the looking back to compare what we HAVE , with what we want. A conflict of time as we are in the PAST AND the PRESENT at the same time. This is where our conscious mind and our unconscious become conflicted. They begin to fight one another giving rise to, you guessed it, THE EGO. Identity, beliefs and values are all the power tools of the ego. Short term gain is the realm of identity, keeping you in the “who you are” rather than the “who you will develop into.

Back to Context. You may have heard of the term GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. This is the reticular activity of the brain.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-your-brain-controls-your-attention.html

Keeping what you want in your present confused state is managing context. Focusing on what you want regardless of what your ego keeps directing you toward is the key. Remaining firm in your choice when part of you wavers for a short term gain will keep the context in shape. The content or detail will begin to evolve as long as the context is steady and firm