1) Identify 3 to 5 Learning Principles that govern success, excellence, expertise or genius in your field of interest
What do the people who learn quickly, rapidly, thoroughly, expertly, etc. know that gives them an edge?
What principles, concepts, understandings enrich and enhance their performances?
2) Express 1 of these Principles fully.
Write it out in full until you have a clear expression of it. Use the Language Precision model (the Meta-Model) to make it crystal clear.
Rewrite it until you can describe the principle with both clarity and
succinctness.
Rewrite again until the clear and succinct statement feels totally
compelling
to you.3) Step into the state of the principle.
As you read and feel the principle that you've clarified, make succinct and compelling, see, hear and feel it. Experience it fully in the context of your work. Identify one specific behavior that corresponds to this principle—that enables you to express the principle through that behavior. The behavior would fit and be congruent with the principle.
Repeat until you see-hear-feel 5 to 10 details that give flesh-and-blood to the principle.
4) Step into the details fully and as you experience them, go meta to the Principle.
From within your vivid imagery of the detailing, shift upward to the governing principle that drives and organizes this detail. Open your eyes and ears to experience your world from the meta-level of the detailing.
Repeat several times.
5) Future pace.
"LEARNING" AS M E T A - D E T A I L I N G
While most of us can get really turned on about some grand ideas, truths, and goals, life is mostly comprised of details.
So is "learning." You may absolutely love some particular area of study—and yet find it hard to get yourself to get down to the nitty gritty of reading a book, taking notes, outlining, writing a paper, typing it, proofing, preparing it for publication, etc.
So much of learning, school, college, graduate work, etc. involves very specific and sometimes "boring" tasks that you're rather not. These details may put you off. You may procrastinate about them and eventually get some negative emotional states and beliefs attached to them. Yet if you develop a bad attitude or relationship to details, you only undermine your own effectiveness as you contaminate everything you do with that negativity.
Going Meta to Detail:
Here, using
the meta-level outcome, passion, and perspective
can get you through the daily grind of the details.Refresh your vision... move up the levels of mind, access the highest states, and then step into them fully and completely as you then Mind-Muscle them back down the levels and stick them into your future. From there establish some basic detailing habits so that you can eventually turn over the details to the part of your mind that can carry out rote procedures without a lot of thought.
Many with the symptoms of ADD: impulsiveness, distractibility disorganization, forgetfulness, procrastination, etc., are actually
over-whelming
themselves. They simply have not learned how to break down a subject or task into smaller component pieces while retaining the general idea. They get lost in details or they overwhelm themselves with the global perspective."The most common intervention I use on the lack of organization is to teach them the skill of 'chunk down.' Because of the way their mind has worked in the past, they never thought it possible to take a general concept or idea and hold it steady in the mind while they broke it down into steps or parts.
Since the primary skill or organization is to take complex tasks and break them down into smaller tasks or steps and prioritize them, the students with ADD symptoms have never before learned this basic skills. Now that they know how to stabilize ideas in their minds, this skill is a natural next step to learn." (Blackerby, p. 183)
4) A C C E L E R A T I N G L E A R N I N G VIA A B I G "WHY"
Learning Excellence necessitates "Thought Ball Management." If we do not or cannot control and manage the
"thought balls" that are forever bouncing in and out of our consciousness, we won't be able to make good connections (linkages between things) or representationally track over to our Mental Theater. William James talked about consciousness operating as if a "stream." The stream of
attention
seems to sweep us one way and then another. The way to navigate this stream then is withintention.
We will therefore want to use the Intention—Attention Distinctionof "mind" in order to learn how to flow with the Awareness Stream and not let thought balls disrupt us.
We have a
two-layered nature
to our thoughts: We have intention and attention (Rollo May, 1969,Love &
Will).
Within every "thought" we have two strands of thought
We have our Attentions —the things immediately on our mind: Primary Level and we have our Intentions— the things in the back of our mind: Meta-Levels
In thinking we always have thoughts in the back of our mind about the thought we have in the front of our mind.
The
thinking
that involves thoughtsin the back of the mind
occur at a higher level than the thoughts in front of us.Attention is at the Primary Level; Intention occurs at the meta-levels. This structure of thought explains the layered thoughts behind or above our thoughts.
The Structuring of Thought:
1) At the Primary Level: every thought has an attentional content — a focus.
We
represent
something. We have something "on our mind." Our focal attention processes something.2) At the Meta-Levels, every thought has an intentional drive — a teleological outcome (Intentionality) A
motivation, a reason, an agenda, something that weintend.
This means that our thought-feeling states move forward by two dynamics (two psychic powers): intention and attention. Attention directs us to the PS Content; Intention directs us to the meta-level frame and desired outcome—or Positive Intention behind it. We have one stream of consciousness that has two dimensions within it. We experience the attention as
overt
and the intention ascovert.
The Domination of Attention or Intention:
When predominates? If attention dominates— then we experience mind as jumping here and there and following whatever stimuli grab it. If Intention dominates, then we order our attention and make it do service to our intentions.
And this is one secret for accelerated learning, namely, aligning with our attentions with our Intentions. Doing so
de-energizes the attentions.
To do this, we have to go higher and set a strong and powerfulintention
that will serve us well. We can thengive ourselves permission
to live in the new attention, to get out of our Comfort Zone, and to let the new intention become a higher levelattractor.
As we do this, we give it opportunity to become a self-organizingattractor in your mind-body system.