Archive for October, 2008
What Stops You From Becoming A Genius
Posted by: | CommentsThere are people who just seem to have so much talent, skill or knowledge – we call them geniuses. We automatically think ourselves different from them, just as “ordinary people.”
The truth, though, is that we all can be geniuses. You can be a genius. But there are some things that can stop you from achieving your full potential as a genius. Learn to identify and recognize these:
1) Stress / Negative mind programming. This is common and probably the worst factor. If you are stressed-out, afraid, or are simply bogged down by negativity, you won’t learn as much. Picture the teacher who uses fear to teach and discipline students – many students may have problems learning. Or the student who is so worried he might not get it. Well, he really won’t get it.
Some stress, though, is already so ingrained in students. Students who believe they are stupid – maybe because of what their parents and/or teachers said will have the most difficulties learning.
In contrast, look at students who see learning as play, as fun. Learning almost seems effortless when you observe them. Indeed, some schools already allow free play and other activities to stimulate students’ creativity.
2) Focusing too much on short-term, rather than long-term memory. Have you ever crammed for a test and still got a high score? You may feel happy after you got the test results, but how much did you remember of what you learned after a week? A month?
You learn by repetition and by focusing on your long-term memory. If you are just concerned about your test results, you are not really learning.
3) Different learning modalities. There are different modalities – some people are more visual, some more auditory, some more kinesthetic, and so on. A person with a visual learning modality, for example, may have more difficulties learning through instructional audios. If you know what your learning modality is, you will be aware of what learning method works best for you.
The Numerous Benefits of Mind Mapping
Posted by: | CommentsIf you have not heard of the term mind mapping yet, now is a good time to learn about it. You will certainly be missing out on a lot of things if you are still using the old
‘listing’ technique or taking down notes when studying, mapping out a plan or drafting an outline for a project at school or at work.
Not only does mind mapping eliminate the need for tedious lists, but it also works the same way that the human brain works, so coming up with a mind map or concept map is a breeze for anybody who wants to try it out.
So how does mind mapping work? This technique involves the illustration of ideas on paper. Think of it as literally drawing a ‘map’ of what you are actually thinking.
First, what you need to do is write in the center of the paper a word which represents the main theme or central idea. From that one word, you can think of other words associated with this central idea which can be connected to the main word with the use of branches. A branch from the main theme could have a sub-branch which is another word associated with the keyword, and so on – let the process evolve from there.
Once the entire paper is filled out with your ideas, the entire illustration will merge into a whole, which you can easily remember, picture in your mind and understand.
Now that you have a basic idea of what mind mapping is, take a look at the numerous benefits of mind mapping:
• You can save a lot of time and effort when using the mind mapping technique, instead of the traditional ‘listing’ method.
If you are fond of using itemized lists when taking down notes from a lecture, or even planning a vacation trip – imagine the amount of time and effort that you will save if you will use mind mapping instead. With mind mapping, you can eliminate the unnecessary details and just concentrate on what is important to you.
• Mind maps are easier to understand and remember.
This is especially applicable for students who are studying for an exam. Use mind mapping during a lecture, and you will find that the illustration will help you remember facts better, rather than relying on the traditional notes. This is because it will be easier for you to imagine an illustration rather than memorize a bunch of lists about the topic discussed.
With mind mapping, you can use your brain to its utmost potential and enjoy the advantages of having a better time at planning, organizing your thoughts, remembering facts and analyzing data – skills that you can apply both at work and in your home life.
Mind Mapping Essentials
Posted by: | CommentsWhen you are given a project in school or at work, do you immediately make a step-by-step list of the tasks that you should perform in order to complete the project? Or, do you do everything that you can randomly and just try to organize and put together the project in the end, when you gathered have enough material?
If you have chosen the first option, then you may not be making the most of your mind’s potential. Making a linear, step-by-step list of the things that you need to do in order to accomplish a goal is much like how a computer’s ‘brain’ works.
On the other hand, if you have chosen the second option, then you have a wider array of choices when it comes to the paths that you can take to achieve your goal, since this is basically how mind mapping works.
Mind mapping is a concept or technique wherein your thinking process will be externally reflected in the form of an illustration or diagram. This was developed by Tony Buzan, who, in his web site www.imindmap.com, encourages people to “unleash the remaining 99% of their brain” through mind mapping.
This concept essentially follows the natural way that the human brain works. For example, when you think of or visualize the color red, your brain instinctively associates the word ‘red’ with apple, blood, cherries, a scarlet shirt that you may have worn at one time – anything that is associated with the color is what comes to your mind instead of just the word itself. So, from just one root word, your brain will immediately associate it with other words to broaden the scope of the topic.
This natural working of the brain, when illustrated on paper, is mind mapping. You can start by writing in the center of a piece of paper one word, representing one idea. From there – through the process of association – you can come up with several branches which all connect to your central idea.
The relationship between the main idea and all the branches that will stem out from the central theme is how the end process will look like. With mind mapping, you can organize your thoughts more coherently, new ideas will be better expressed and developed, you can retain information faster because of the fact that visual illustrations that you mapped out yourself is easier to remember than any list – all these and more are the benefits of mind mapping.
Aside from these benefits, there are hundreds of instances at work and in your home life where you can make use of the process of mind mapping to maximize your brain’s potential and save you a lot of time and effort when planning.
Tips to Motivate and Inspire People
Posted by: | CommentsGreg is a CEO of a small company in Pennsylvania. This man started the company somewhere in college and has developed it into an enterprise that is exporting goods to other countries.
One day, a former classmate from Penn State decided to call and ask the man to become the speaker of a small seminar on entrepreneurship back at the old campus.
Feeling honored about being given the opportunity, Greg sat down and started thinking about what to say to these people. The message should be clear and concise. “I will share my experience,” he thought. This will make the audience understand that his journey to the top was tough and there were a lot of setbacks.
Giving a motivational or inspirational message to people is like selling a product. The audience has to be convinced that if Greg was able to succeed, so can other people.
To make sure that Greg will be able to give a truly inspiration talk, he should make an outline. This should start with an introduction of the entrepreneur as a student who later on built a company. The main body should describe the details, such as the successes and the failures that became his lessons in life.
The end of the talk should focus on the things that are being anticipated and hoped for in the future. This will make people believe that having a business isn’t easy since one has to be always on the competitive edge.
The audience will really appreciate it if there’s an open forum after the talk. These people can ask certain questions which need more explanation. This can provide solutions to those having a hard time with an existing business.
After his speech, Greg will be able to know if his talk was effective if the audience will be given an evaluation sheet to be filled on the way out. This will give people like Greg a gauge on how effective the session was.
If people found it boring, then Greg should probably change a few things so that next time, the audience will feel inspired afterwards. Should the participants love it, this is a different story.
Greg has found a niche that can be used again to also motivate and inspire more people to work hard and be successful in life.
There are many ways for a person to spread the good word to others who need a little push. He can advertise the services to companies and other organizations that would like to get the help he can provide.
The individual can also write a book and then have this published. There are a lot of CEOs’ that have done this and the lessons learned are also applied and studied in business schools across the country.
Some people may not even have to write a book. The individual can also write the success story in a website which people can look for by making sure this is one of the popular ones that will pop out in one of the search engines.
Greg’s evaluation for the talk was very good. The friend who worked in campus asked if this could be done again. Greg didn’t know he has this talent inside. The lessons he learned can be shared to other people. This will inspire and motivate others who are probably thinking of giving up on their journey to success.
Break Out of Depressing Thoughts through Cognitive Therapy
Posted by: | CommentsThoughts are very powerful. People have been known to withstand pain through sheer thought. People have achieved what they have always wanted through the power of the mind. And people also bring themselves into emotional cesspits because of thoughts.
Depression starts with pervasive thoughts of inadequacy and self-blame, among other things. A lot of the time, depression is triggered by a devastating event or an ill-thought-out decision that had disastrous results. Depressed people wallow in their self-pity and self-blame, slowly losing their will to live, slowly descending into a world where even the air is colored gray.
But there is a way out. Cognitive Therapy, which is used by psychotherapists and psychiatrists to treat depression, is a highly effective method that has brought people “back from the dead,” so to speak. It is very effective; but it’s actually a simple process you can do on your own.
What happens in Cognitive Therapy is that the patient is made to talk about a certain issue, especially the trigger of his/her depression, or the stress he/she is currently undergoing. When the patient blames him/herself or makes sweeping generalizations to prove what a miserable wretch he/she really is, the therapist disputes that and corrects the patient by asking questions to prove the negative thought and to encourage rational thinking.
You can do this on yourself too. Say you think, “I’m the fattest girl on earth”. Catch yourself with reality. Ask yourself: what is your weight? What is the weight of an officially obese person? If you do qualify for obesity, remind yourself: even 400-pounders have gone down to normal weight. So can you. If you need proof to tell yourself that it’s really true, you can research on success stories.
And this method applies across topics and across disciplines too. If you think you can never get that raise, ask yourself: “Never?” Then research, stack the cards, and arm yourself with truth. Dispute the veracity of your thoughts through cold, hard facts. If the facts agree with you, don’t despair. You have other options. The world has never run out of choices. You can get what you want, just keep a rational, open, and optimistic mind.
Cognitive Therapy and its principles has been a big help to so many people. I know it will help you, too. Just read more to show yourself how.
Revisiting the Past to Heal the Present: Psychodynamic Therapy
Posted by: | CommentsNo one on this earth is devoid of inner conflicts. True, there are a lucky few who have escaped having parents who screwed them up, but they still have inner conflicts nonetheless. It is a common notion in sociology, history, and even in modern psychobabble that the past affects the present. But is it really just psychobabble? Does Psychodynamic Therapy really work? Would it work on you?
Psychodynamic Therapy was developed as a modified version of Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was developed by the oft-mentioned and highly notorious Sigmund Freud. You may have heard of him when people refer to sex drives, but his theories were more than that.
Psychoanalysis is the process where the therapist lets you talk and talk and talk, while he probes and tries to understand you and tries to let you understand for yourself how the events in the past shape your inner climate in the present. The only difference with Psychodynamic Therapy from Psychoanalysis is that Psychodynamic Therapy does not involve a heavy emphasis on dream analysis and symbolism.
Yes it’s true that the past experiences influence your current attitudes. You may have a pattern of tuning out your wife when she nags because she reminds you of your mother when she does that. Or you may be overly affectionate with your sons because your father never hugged you when you were young.
When we were in our teens, we experienced a lot of conflicts because of the changes inside us. It became worse for us when our parents would offend us in their attempt to discipline us. This hurt, this pain, sometimes get locked in the deepest corners of our mind in a process called repression. This is what Psychodynamic Therapy seeks to recover and eventually make you understand, with the ultimate goal of freeing you from toxic emotions and unhealthy patterns.
Psychodynamic Therapy does not stop the moment you understand yourself. That is only the start. The goal of the process is to use this understanding to bring yourself to a place of healing. Understanding is step one. Accepting that these happened is step two. Processing your feelings, reconciling yourself to these events and making steps to change your patterns form the rest of the equation.
Psychodynamic Therapy may not be recommended for everyone by the therapists, but I believe that taking the concepts within the theories behind it and applying it for self-healing can be an enriching experience. To be able to metamorphose into a better person, you must know and understand yourself. Psychodynamic Therapy can show you how.
