Boost Your Personal Development Systematically

Personal development must be one of the most commonly used phrases in management literature and at workplaces. Yet, the lack of practical and proven methods is glaring. The pundits are abundant.

A few ideas, such as follow your passion, have been promoted by so many respected and successful people that they have become truisms. But, these ideas serve better as soundbites than advice. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, exemplifies how problematic the “follow your passion” idea is with American idol. Likely, the winners will promote the idea of following your passion, which sounds great. But, the losers, many of which were laughed at, were also passionate (maybe less so, after being publicly humiliated). Perhaps, their passion got in the way of boring deliberate practice, but that story doesn't fit the stereotype so its not reported.

The problem with such advice as to follow your passion is that it debilitates people that lack passion and may mislead people that are passionate. In my experience, people become passionate when they find ways to add value and experience a positive social dynamic. Commonly, people that are passionate about something lose that passion when they work under a dysfunctional manager. Then, they start considering what other passion they should pursue instead of figuring how to create an enjoyable social dynamic in which they can learn how to add value.

So, let’s analyze personal development systematically. What needs to happen for us to become better? Enhancing our brain so that it produces a more desirable behavior given the situation is one part of the process. The other, is to enhance the tools that our brain has at its disposal, such as our body, gadgets and access to information. Of these two parts, the first is the most complex and misunderstood so I’ll focus on that.

Now, let’s consider which relevant basic facts about the brain we believe to be true.

• The brain is a signal processing system. Input from our senses is processed. Output that determines our behavior is produced.
• The brain system is non-deterministic, in that the output it produces is dependent on its own state. For example, fear might deactivate the part of the brain that is responsible for logical thinking. Also, the ideas and memories that are most active in the brain momentarily are more likely to impact the output than those that are inactive.
• The system is structured as a directed graph. Hundreds of millions of neurons serve as nodes. The neurons are connected with up to 10,000 other neurons.
• The system evolves through creation and destruction of neurons and connections between neurons as well as changes in the signal processing strength and speed of the connections.
• The brain can be enhanced throughout life. Even the physical size of specific parts of the brain can grow and shrink throughout life dependent on how actively they are used.
• Sets of ideas are compiled into chunks through repeated activation. This is why we have to think actively about hundreds of details the first time we get into the driver’s seat of a car, but only a few when we become experienced drivers.
• The capacity of the brain is more determined by how it has been used than by genetic factors.
• Transferring knowledge from one domain to another is notoriously difficult. Typically, people will not utilize their skills in new kinds of situations unless they have consciously figured out that the skills apply in the new situation.

Now, let’s see if we can use these facts to come up with effective personal development methods. Basically, we have arrived at the question of how to make the desired updates to the neural network in our brain.

First, we notice that the common way of giving feedback is problematic. Typically, feedback consists of evaluations of what we did well and what we could have done better. Commonly, the feedback targets the receiver’s personality traits and lacks a thorough explanation of why and when this is good or bad. The emotions that arise in such conversations often limits the willingness to dig deeper to gain a solid understanding. Sounds familiar?

How can the brain make use of feedback given in this way? First, if emotions run strong, the brain’s ability to process the provided information logically is inhibited. Second, we will disengage from the learning process if we don’t agree with the feedback or we don’t see how it will help us. Third, general statements on what was done well or poorly can hardly be used by the brain to output more advanced behavior—only to inhibit or doing more of the same. Finally, since the feedback concerns the past we don’t prime our neural network to act on the output the next time.

Here is a feedback method that provides the input that will enable the brain to output a more advanced behavior the next time.

1. Describe what happened in detail. Stick to the facts—leave out all the evaluations. Beware of the subtle evaluations, such as “I did this again.”
2. Identify the causalities that can be derived from the description. Again, stick to the facts—don’t inflame the reasoning with evaluations.
3. Determine how you want to behave next time you encounter a similar situation. Engage your brain in the learning process by visualizing yourself acting in the updated way next time.

By sticking to the facts, we raise the quality of the discussion, reasoning and learning. By sticking to causal reasoning based on specific facts we provide the brain what it needs to produce a more advanced response. By visualizing how we will act in the future, we prime the brain to activate our learnings the next time we get into a similar situation. Thus, we have fixed the fundamental problems with the traditional feedback model.

I have tested this method a few months on hundreds of people. It works and people love it! They benefit from it immediately even though it takes a while to stop getting stuck on evaluations. This feedback method is already creating millions of dollars worth of value in sales process improvements.

Our programs have produced waves of enthusiasm through the organizations that we work with. And, there are ripple effects, since the mentors that have participated in our programs say that the quality of their mentoring sessions have gone up tremendously after learning our methods.

If you find this interesting, go to our website linderacademy.com and request a demo. We will provide you with more details and example walk-troughs so you can get started and try this on your own. We will boost your personal development systematically!

In conclusion, you can boost your personal development if you apply methods that are in tune with how the brain works. Beware of the commonly touted recommendations — especially those that sound appealing. We want to and we will help you!