be definite.

Anita Houghton shares a formula

There is a belief that while you can learn some skills, such as how to use a computer or drive a car, there are some which you either have or you don’t have. You will often hear people express such sentiments about leadership, for example, and singing, drawing, and being organised.

Programmed for success

The same is often thought about doctors: some seem to have a knack for diagnosis, are extraordinarily adept at practical procedures, or have a natural bedside manner. It was these kinds of beliefs that prompted a group of Californian psychologists in the seventies to ponder the question, “Why do some therapists have consistently excellent results with patients, while others do not?”

They looked for the answer to this question by studying three of these excellent therapists: Milton Erickson, a psychiatrist and hypnotherapist; Fritz Perls, cofounder of Gestalt; and Virginia Satir, a family therapist. They examined the settings where the therapists worked with patients; they listened to what they said and how they said it; they observed the techniques they used; and they even documented what they wore and the chair they sat in. They then tested each factor individually to see if it was crucial to patient outcomes, and when they had distilled the factors that were essential for success, they named the resulting framework “neurolinguistic programming.”

See and do

They called the process “modelling,” and from there came the premise: “If somebody can do something, anybody can. You just need to know how.”

Now many would think at this point, oh come on, we can’t all be Wayne Rooney, Lesley Garrett, or Nelson Mandela. It’s perfectly true that some people have a natural talent for what they do, and in some cases there are physical attributes that are impossible to emulate. Nevertheless these people do what they do in a certain way, and if you can find out exactly how they do it, then you can go a long way towards achieving their success.

The interesting part of modelling is that although someone appears to be doing something with great ease, there is actually an important structure and process to what they do.

There is a story about the professional golfer Gary Player, who was going for a difficult putt in an important competition, and he managed to put the ball straight in the hole. “That was lucky,” said an onlooker. Player turned round and said, “Funny thing is, the more I practise, the luckier I get.”

How to model a skill

Choose a skill to model

Select a person who does this skill well

Ask the modelling questions [listed below]

Try out their strategies for yourself—which do you find are the most critical?

Ask further questions, and fine tune as necessary

Modelling questions to ask the person whose skills you admire

What do you believe is important about having this skill?

What mental state or mood are you in as you’re doing it, and how do you get that?

What do you hear or say to yourself?

What do you actually do? What specific behaviours are important?

What skills or capabilities do you need to do these things, and how did you learn them?

Is there anything else you can tell me?

Testing the strategy

What are your criteria for success?

How do you know if it is going well?

How do you know if it is going badly?

What do you do if it is going badly?

What works best for getting back on track?

Stages of learning a skill

There is a model which describes the process of learning a skill. It goes like this:

Stage 1—Unconscious incompetence

Stage 2—Conscious incompetence

Stage 3—Conscious competence

Stage 4—Unconscious competence

Easy as riding a bike

Take a skill like riding a bicycle, you can see that a child who happily rides their tricycle is probably unaware that they are unable to ride a two wheeler, never having tried it. This is unconscious incompetence—when you don’t have a skill but are unaware that you don’t have it.

Then the child tries out a two wheeler for the first time, and will usually have an unpleasant surprise. They find that they can’t even get their feet off the ground at first, then they do for a few moments, before overbalancing. At some stage they’re likely to fall off. This is the most painful of the stages—conscious incompetence. If the child has the right kind of parents, chances are that their support and encouragement will to keep them going until they reach the next stage—conscious competence. The child now knows how to ride a bike, but needs to concentrate carefully every moment. The minute they stop focusing, over they go.

Then finally, when they’ve been practising for quite a while, they find they can do it without thinking. No longer do they have to concentrate on setting off, keeping their balance, and turning corners. It all comes automatically—unconscious competence.

Brief and painless

Although some skills come more naturally than others, making the early stages brief and painless, the development of any skill will go through these stages.

The crucial part of learning any skill is “conscious incompetence” as this is when many people give up. Professionals who are used to doing what they do well— for example, doctors who have been consultants for a while—find this stage especially uncomfortable.

So how do you model a skill?

The purpose of modelling a skill is to get below the surface to the hidden strategies used by the people who do it best.

Choose a skill to model

The first task is to select a skill that you would like to have. Think about the skills that you bemoan not having. Listen to yourself as you say things like: I can’t do xxxx, I wish I could xxxx; look at xxxx, I wish I could do that. What skills you would like but assume you can’t? Select something specific, such as how to put in a central line, rather than how to be a good intensive care physician.

Select a person who does it well

Once you have chosen the skill, you need to find someone who does it really well. Ideally pick two, as modelling more than one person will make it easier to spot the crucial parts of the strategy, as opposed to the red herrings. Once you have chosen your first model, ask them if they would be prepared to answer some questions about their skill. Most people will be flattered.

Ask the modelling questions

A simple conversation with somebody about their ability or skill will often give surprising insights into how they do it. However, the trouble with asking “how do you do that?” is that people who are good at something are usually at the unconscious competence stage and therefore have little conscious awareness of how they do it. They may remember the conscious incompetence or conscious competence phase, but they may not. Using tried and tested modelling questions will reveal much more, and in addition will often give new and interesting insights to the person you are modelling.

To see how this might work, let’s take an example: going to an interview. Try thinking of the last time you went for an interview and ask yourself questions in box 2.

Confidence and outcomes

Typically, doctors who do well at interviews are confident in what they offer, believing that they have at least as much chance of getting the job as anyone else. Rather than focusing on the competition, they are more likely to focus on what they want to get across. They greet the interviewers, smile appropriately, speak clearly, and have prepared the answers to the most likely questions. They believe the outcome is largely down to them.

Those who have difficulty at an interview are likely to tell you that the interview is of crucial importance, and if they don’t get it, it will be a complete disaster. They believe they won’t get it. They believe that the interviewers are against them or out to trip them up. They believe that the other people going for the job are much better than they are, and that the outcome is out of their control. The result is that they seem, and are, extremely anxious, and they fail to do themselves justice.

Dig deep

When you ask your modelling questions, be alert for clues in your model’s tone, expression, and body language, and ask supplementary questions as necessary.

You’ll need to be patient and coaxing, as the person may have to dig deep to find their strategies. “It’s just intuition” they might say, or “I don’t know how I do it, I just do it naturally.” Don’t be deterred.

Once you have a person’s strategy for doing something, it is useful to see how they monitor or test their success. You can use their techniques yourself (box 3).

Try out their strategies

As you hear the answers to your questions you may like to compare them with your own strategies for this skill. Try each of their strategies in your mind and see if you can do them and what difference they make.

Fine tune as necessary

If you find you can’t use their strategies, you need to ask for more detail and fine-tune.

[Anita Houghton provides career and executive coaching services for doctors and other professionals. Anita Houghton, consultant and coach Working Lives Partnership (www.workinglives.co.uk)]

by Guru Rattana, Ph.D.

The Ram reminds us that every moment is new and that human life is about experimentation and discovery. It is through our experiences that we develop and mature. We are here on planet Earth to advance our soul growth. We are not here to find a static, comfortable situation. We are here to go for the gold and to answer the call of our soul. We are engaged in an on-going process to release our resistance and to transmute all forms of fear into courage and compassion.

As our self-awareness expands, we begin to hear our own inner voice. We realize that we have our own needs, preferences and desires. We also realize that only we can speak for ourselves.

As we learn to trust our inner voice, we can start making more supportive and loving choices for ourselves. The critical point is to listen to our soul voice and not to the voice of our inner critic, which takes its cues from external authorities. It is a very useful exercise to monitor our inner critic and investigate the source of this destructive self-judgment.

Claiming back our free will and establishing an honest relationship with ourselves requires that we investigate how and why we learned to listen and respond to the desires and demands of others above our own needs and guidance. We must become aware of our co-dependent emotional habits in order to change them. The self/relationship dance is an on-going process of self-discovery and empowerment. We reclaim our free will by getting to know, value, listen to and take care of ourselves.

The bottom line is that we have to be totally honest with ourselves. If we lie to ourselves, we are an open target to be manipulated and exploited by others. Both abusive and loving relationships are a dynamic that involve both partners. Our job is to create a relationship with ourselves that makes supportive relationships with others possible. Aries gives us the fire energy to develop inner strength, self love and self-confidence so that we can maintain our own identity in our interactions with others. When we have our own anchor, we can hold steady. When we listen to our own voice, we can follow it. When we define our own path, we find peace and joy within.

SELF-ASSESSMENT

The ability to assess our choices and their consequences is an essential requirement for reclaiming our free will. The problem for most of us is that at some level our self-evaluation process has been usurped by a destructive, overly-critical self-judge. The goal is not to condemn or prosecute ourselves. The goal is to honestly access our desires and figure out how to get them met. Self-evaluation should help us develop self-esteem, not reduce it. We should be empowered by our ability to figure out and evaluate what works for us and what doesn’t.

The trick of course is that we have to be authentic. We have to listen to the messages of our soul, which are communicated through our intuition, emotions and instincts. We also have to be willing to be accountable, i.e. we can’t blame anyone else for our choices or our actions and their consequences.

To make appropriate choices and to evaluate their efficacy, we have to be able to reach far enough inside ourselves to connect with our soul center that knows our original intent for incarnating this lifetime. The more we stick with our original commitment and the less we get distracted, the more our self-evaluation will result in a deep sense of satisfaction.

ARIES TOUCHSTONES

“It is not the life that matters. It is the courage you bring to it.” Yogi Bhajan.

The cornerstone of self-love is to KNOW AND BELIEVE IN YOUR OWN BEING!

MEDITATION ON THE SELF: ACCESS YOUR NEUTRAL CHANNEL

While the Sun is in Aries be with yourself in the following ways.

1. Focus your attention on your breath in your body and your energy in your body.

2. Listen for our own voice.

3. Monitor your inner critic and investigate the source of any destructive self-judgment.

4. Pay attention to your self-assessment process and shift it to constructive evaluation that makes you accountable for your actions and supports you in achieving your goals.

Cultivating your neutral mind is essential for this self-examination. The practice of any Kundalini yoga kriya or meditation shifts your inner space. The important thing is to take the time between exercises and after each set and meditation to be with yourself in this expanded awareness. There are many, many Kundalini yoga exercises and meditations that make it possible to quickly access our neutral mind. [It is both useful and empowering to be able to shift from a stressed to a more relaxed state of being. Life works so much better in neutral!!]All the exercises with the hands out to the sides balance the brain and bring it into a neutral state. Here is one such exercise:

ACCESS YOUR NEUTRAL CHANNEL

Bring your arms out to your sides, elbows straight, palms facing up. Tuck your chin so your spine is straight and your heart open. Also slightly press the shoulder blades down and in so you feel like you are opening your heart from the back. Hold this position with breath of fire for 2-3 minutes. To end, inhale deeply, press the palms out to the sides (fingers up), hold, pull in the navel and then exhale. Sit quietly, hand on the knees, look and listen inside your head. Be present inside your space inside your body. Do this exercise when you need to get into a neutral space. Afterwards notice how your mental state changes. Use this clear space to focus on yourself in the above 4 ways.

Each day conduct your life with the knowing that your soul walks with you and communicates with you every step of the way.

Here are some ways to investigate how we deceive ourselves

They were offered by Ovasoul on the Kundalini Yoga Yahoo list. “What is your lie? That you are unlovable? That you need to be perfect to be loved? That someone perfect will come into your life and make everything inside of you feel alright? That if you love hard enough and sacrifice enough that you will be worthy of love? That being a martyr and sacrificing oneself is an act of ultimate love and goodness?) It is our own desires that make people appear charismatic to us. For example, these abusive people would not appear emotionally attractive to people with a healthier sense of self love, and conversely a healthy loving gentle person will not appear dynamic, exciting, attractive and ‘charismatic’ to someone with a damaged sense of self worth.”