Progress Steps- α-Model for learning and change_BSCUgoji

Progress Steps: α-Model for
learning and change®
Discover the seven (A’s) - concepts you need for
progress in your personal and professional life
Benjamin S C Ugoji

Contents
Introduction 3
1. Attention 6
2. Awareness 15
3. Adopt 24
4. Adapt 27
5. Action 31
6. Achieve 35
7. Adjust 43
9. Conclusions 49
© 2009 Benjamin S C Ugoji Progress Steps: α-Model for learning and change
http://progresspath-masteryeducation.weebly.com
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About the author 51
Introduction
“Do not be afraid of going slowly, but only be afraid of standing still”
Chinese Proverb
What does making progress mean to you? People have different
yardsticks to measure progress. However, to make progress is not to
assume the status quo in every area of your life. With this point of
view, making progress is a change process. According to Genesis, God
created us to increase, multiply, replenish and subdue the earth. This
suggests a position of power, authority, and dominion. Indeed, it
suggests that we are to thrive and make progress towards realising
our God given potential.
How will this be possible?
Deep down in the heart of every individual is the desire to be able to
achieve one thing or another. Go to the street and ask about the
passer by what they want to achieve in life. You will be surprised by
the wide variety and range of interest and choice as to what people
want to do.
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The question is; why are they not doing it?
From my own life experience, I have the habit of telling people my
dreams or ideas. However, when it is not done it becomes mere waste
to time. I have come to understand that not been able to make a
decision about those ideas and dreams is one of the reason people do
not make progress. Again, they do not know how to translate the
dream or idea into reality. This is probably because they don’t have
the skills or wisdom to move from where they are to where they want
to be. They need to be flexible in their thinking – see the big picture as
well as the detail. Here, the skill of chunking our thinking is very
important as well as being able to translate idea into action.
This work will aim to point you in the direction of been able to know
and then do. This is the beginning of influence and power.
Making progress is all about being in control and achieving your
dreams and goals in life. It’s about developing the attributes,
attitudes, skills, knowledge and experience required to achieve your
potential. It’s an on going journey, not smooth nonetheless but with
determination and right attitude will result in surmounting every
challenge.
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Action is what makes people to turn around and listen. Metaphorically
speaking, to make progress is to take action in those areas of your life
that matters to you. You need to realise that for you to be successful,
you are the one to improve your results, and therefore you need to
plan ahead. Start with a goal in the future to aim for and devise a
plan of action by systematically thinking backwards to the present time
and working out what resources, skills, abilities, tools, and techniques
you need to achieve your aim.
Nevertheless, before you can do that, you need to pay…
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1 Attention
“Change comes primarily from the things we pay attention to.”
Leading neuroscientist, Dr. Michael Merzenich
Call it attention, focus, think, concentration; and what have you?
Attention is a very important attribute that enables you to be
conscious of your immediate environment or circumstance.
This simple old nursery rhyme describes it aptly:
Stop! Look! Listen!
Before you cross the street,
Use your eyes, use your ears and then use your feet.
The lesson from the above poem is not different from that in the
journey of life. We do not pay attention to our environment and
therefore most of the good things of life elude us. We do not pay
attention to how we think, the choices we make, our feelings and our
behaviours. These have a lot of impact on what we receive from life.
Most of the time we say that life is not fair, even when we are not fair
in the way, we have used our gifts, talents and opportunities that all
surround us.
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For you to pay attention to any given situation, you need to pay
attention, with all your senses about how that situation is influencing
your well-being. The parts of your faculty responsible for this are your
senses picking messages from your immediate environment and
sending it to your brain to make sense to them. This activity happens
every time and you are not free from such barrage of information. The
brain in turn could get your attention by sending the message back to
your senses via the mind for you to take action.
However, we do not heed to all of these messages, we sometimes pay
attention to the ones we think or feel are important. Alternatively, in
most cases we do not care to consider them. This behaviour has
impact on how we perceive, organise and action on information.
In this section, we will look at how to control our thought and feelings.
This is because they have impact on our behaviours – “what we do or
did not do.” Simply put: habit
In his book “Thinking for a Change” by John C Maxwell p.12-13, the
following was written about habit:
“I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or heaviest
burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am
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completely at your command. Half of the things you do might just as
well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and
correctly. I am easily managed- you must merely be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you what something done and after a few
lessons I will do it automatically.
I am the servant of all great men; and alas, of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I
have made failures. I am not a machine, though I work with all the
precisions of a machine plus the intelligence of a man. You can run me
for profit or run me for ruin – it makes no difference to me. Take me,
train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be
easy with me and I will destroy you.
Who am I? I am habit!”
Habits are wonderful according to D. Trinidad Hunt, author of
“Learning to Learn,” because they help us to engage in higher-order
thinking. Through the conscious acquisition of healthy habits, we are
able to free the potent power of our attention to concentrate on
higher-order thought, plans, and challenges. As we creatively expand
our Comfort Zone, with each new and healthy habit that we add, we
free more and more of our attention and energy for other things.
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Stephen Covey in his book – “The 7 habit of highly effective people”
defined habit as the intersection of knowledge (What to, why to), skill
(how to), and desire (want to).
In the words of Vinci Lombardi, Football league Coach, “Winning is a
habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”
Attention on how you think?
One of the characteristics of living things is sensitivity. We are
sensitive to our environment. We need a stimulus to provoke our
senses so that our brain can interpret these messages to our benefit.
Our efficiency and effectiveness in tapping from these natural resource
– our brain determines how we navigate in this difficult but challenging
journey of life. Paul’s letter to the Philippians church gives us
encouragement on how to think (Philippians 4:8).
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Source: Herrmann International - www.hbdi.com
The above diagram is the Whole Brian Model (Hermann International).
You can empower yourself by becoming more flexible in the way you
use different parts of the brain. Understanding the way you prefer to
use your brain- your thinking style is useful information when you are
setting goals, knowing other peoples thinking style and building
rapport with others.
Attention on your emotion
Your emotions can rule your life or help create your present or future
reality. It is a learned process and since you have a mind, you can
change your emotions to those that will work for you. Pay attention to
those positive emotions that will affect your life for good. Remember
God has given you a spirit of power, love and sound mind. It is a
choice you make daily. In her book ‘Self- motivation’, p.296, Frances
Coombes mentioned that, all the big decisions we make in life such as
whom to marry, where we live, what we want from life, are made with
our emotions.
Attention on your behaviour
What you do or did not do could sum up your behaviour. You need to
watch the patterns in your behaviour. Watch out whether they are in
alignment with your set objectives and priorities. This is important
because your ability to achieve your goals in life depend on this. You
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can choose to cultivate those behaviours that will enable you to impact
your life for good.
Attention to the company that you keep
The company you keep can move you up or down the ladder of life.
Develop the habit of staying in the company of people that will
provoke your basic assumptions to life. Know that you can develop by
consciously learning from your own experience and by observing and
analysing other people’s behaviour.
Attention to what you read
You have to continue to learn by reading things written by other
people in your areas of interest and take advantage of the relevant
information to educate yourself. The need continue to invest in your
education through this platform, should not be overemphasised. You
can adopt too many channels with the lots of free vital information in
this information age.
Attention to time
What does time mean to you? It’s our common currency, but why is it
that some of us can maximise it and add value to it and others can’t.
It is the way we value our time. What value you give to your time in
terms of what, how, why, and when and where – sums up the value
you attaché to it. Time is money and money is time, therefore, we
need to make sure how best to leverage our time to get the best out
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of it. In other word we need to prioritise our time by doing those tasks
that lead us to our goals – short, medium and long term as the case
may be.
Benefits of Attention
How can a mum single out the cry of her child in the mist of other
children? Why is it that when you decide to make a choice to buy a
particular car you begin to see that car in every corner? The answer
could be traced to the Reticular Activating System (RAS).
In our brain a bundle of nerve fibres about the size of your small
finger located at the base of the brain stem called the Reticular
Activating System (RAS) helps us to focus on specific task. The
purpose of the RAS is to filter incoming sensory information to avoid
sensory overload. The RAS had two main functions:
1. It controls the level of volume of incoming information; and
2. It directs our attention by tuning in to what we deem important
and turning out what we are not interested in at the moment.
Attention is the gateway to many things including learning, according
to Professor Ian Robertson in his book, ‘Stay sharp with the mind
doctor- practical strategies to boost your brain power.’
We are supposed to learn from new experiences such as travel or
relationships, but we learn nothing from these things unless we
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attend to them. Remember, learning is about your brain being
physiologically sculptured by experience. It is about the brain cells
forming new connections because of the stimulation they receive from
the outside world. We know that these physical changes largely
happen in response to the things we pay attention to. What you focus
on expands and where attention goes energy flows and results shows.
The philosopher Bertrand Russell has this to say:
“To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to
difficult achievement.”
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Action exercises
What does paying attention mean to you? Looking at the diagram from
the Whole brain which section of the brain A to D is responsible to
this?
How can you develop other aspects of the thinking self’s highlighted in
the diagram?
Why do you need to develop the aspects of thinking that you are not
proficient in?
Imagine what you can become if you make each of these thinking
self’s such that they become a second nature?
How is this possible?
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Using the principle of attention or focus list the things you want to
change in different areas of your life
It is awareness that puts you in a position of being a master player
instead of a pawn on a chessboard.
- Enoch Tan
According to Enoch Tan in his classic –“Matrix of Mind Reality”;
The purest definition of knowledge is awareness; awareness of
anything and everything. Awareness is power, the more you have it,
the more power you have over every area of life. Perception is the key
to solving all our problems. Understanding the problem dissolves the
problem.
Awareness is power because awareness gives you choice. Choice is an
illusion created by those in control for those who are not. To be in
control, you must know. You must know how things work and
2 Awareness
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understand what is going on. You need awareness to make conscious
choices.
Awareness is the first step, the second step is change. You should
understand what you intend to change and the reasons behind it.
Knowledge brings awareness therefore knowledge is power. All of life
is a learning experience for you to become all you can be.
Becoming aware is like sudden realisation of an experience. It could
result from new way old information to a very dormant experience,
therefore enabling us to see the situation in a new way. It is as if the
penny just dropped.
It does affect our whole being and helps us to see a situation in a new
light. More than anything our heart is touched and we are wiling to
make movements by way of taking action in a new direction.
Sometimes the reason for us to become aware might stem from our
paying attention with all our senses in our environment. However, it
could come from a deliberate move to challenge our assumptions or
the way we do things. Remember that the results we get could stem
from our thinking, feeling or the action we take during the course of an
event.
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It is possible to suggest the becoming aware is an outcome of paying
attention to an event in your environment. It requires our willingness
to lay ourselves bare in terms of coming to terms with the bind spots
in our path due to the way we think. The way we think affect our
precepts in terms of the way, we view our world. There are due to our
mindset, which are mental map formed in the synapses of our brain
that affect the way we see things. They can either limit or empower us
in the way we do things. We need to understand this concept or we
remain rigid instead of flexible in the way we do things. This is
because we need to be aware that because the brain can change its
neural networks through changed thinking we can also change as
individual. This knowledge is the beginning of the principle in the
change process in the hard-wired brain which id to our own advantage.
To become aware of the changes you need to make to improve
yourself in any area of your life is the basis for empowerment.
Two types of knowledge
The two most important kinds of knowledge are secret knowledge and
governing knowledge. One gives you awareness, the other gives you
power.
Secret Knowledge is knowing how things work and understanding
what’s going on. The reason why it is secret is because it is not
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normally known. It is so powerful that only those with insight and
perception can appreciate its value. Only conscious people can see
reality for what it really is. When you have this knowledge, you can
use it first to govern yourself, and then use it to govern everything
else. This is called using secret knowledge as governing knowledge.
Governing knowledge is knowledge that runs your being. It is the
governing statements of your mind that determine what you do, how
you do it and why you do it. It is the operating dynamics that controls
your thoughts, your emotions and your behaviors. What governs your
mind, governs your reality. By governing yourself, you can govern the
world. When you can control yourself, you can control others. You can
only control what is without by controlling what is within. All control is
self control. To be in control, you must know. All knowledge is self
knowledge.
Are you aware about your life’s purpose?
Career is goal oriented, but vacation focuses on the purpose of your
life
- David McNally
There are two things that I want to mention here – your career and
vacation. Do you know the difference between them?
The word vocation is from the Latin word vocare which means to call.
Your vocation calls you to contribute your talents to work you love and
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believe in. Do you know your talents? How can you use it to make a
difference and affect lives in your chosen career?
In his book “Even Eagles Need a Push”, p.27, David McNally suggested
that career success is almost guaranteed to those who apply their gifts
and talents to the work they are passionate about. Choosing to focus
our talents towards what we truly love and believe in brings forth the
creativity, energy and commitment required to a successful career.
Your career goals are much more readily achieved when you are
working on your purpose. There is a difference between vocation and
career, and therefore purpose and goals.
Purpose according to Frances Coombes comes from self-knowledge.
Self-knowledge enables you to understand how you think in relation to
the world. It is the key to discovering your identity and the types of
things you are drawn to. It comes from not just being aware of what is
happening around you and the wider world; it comes from exploring
your own inner space. Simply put it is your orientation in the scheme
of things. If you are asked who are you? What will your answer be?
Such question looks trial but it is very revealing. On answering this
question some people could go along telling their name or their status.
But that is not you. As a man thinketh so he is. Hence your thought is
your identity. It involves those things that you are passionate about
that give you great value in life. Passion is an indicator of what you
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value; it is what draws you, holds your attention, and keeps you
thinking late at night. It is the one thing you would do if you have all
the money and resources that you need - what would you be drawn to
then? What would you do for nothing that would add meaning to other
people’s life?
Develop skills to improve your level of awareness
Be aware of the invincible – beliefs, values and identity
Learning to understand the way we think will help us to understand
ourselves and enable us to relate with others and therefore build
rapport with them. Logical level of change is a model devised by
Robert Dilts a Neuro Linguistic programming Expert, based on the
‘neurological levels’ proposed by anthropologist Gregory Bateson.
Figure 2.1 Logical levels of thinking
Identit
y
Beliefs and values
Capabilities
Behaviour
Environment
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Logical levels of thinking can help you to solve problem, uncover
hidden information and gather extra insights about a situation from
different viewpoints and build up a ‘big picture view’ view of events.
Therefore it is a tool to analyse, apply, synthesise and evaluate the
way we think.
Environment: Where? And When?
Where and when does this situation occur? Is it a palace, at work, at
home, with colleagues? What is the setting and context when the
problem arises?
Behaviour: What is happening?
What is being done, by whom, to whom? Equally what is not being
done depicts inactivity. Behaviour is what you actually do
Capability: How is this being done?
Capability is about how someone does something, or how confident
they feel to do it. Having capability is what makes people feel
confident and in control of situations. Lack of confidence towards a
particular task may be due to lack of capability on part of the
performer.
Beliefs and values: Why?
These attributes motivates us to take action. Our beliefs and values
are personal to us, and what we believe is or is not possible to us.
Identity: Who?
Who do you think you are/ This is your identity, who thinks you are. All
your actions derive from your sense of who you are.
Become aware of your pattern of behaviour
Are you aware of the pattern of behaviour you exhibit due to your
thinking style? Has it become a habit that you can visibly see the
results of this way of thinking? If you become more aware of the type
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of thinker you are – you can develop you thinking style by adapting
one that can leverage your performance. Say for example, that you
are a procedure or option thinker; or a detail or big picture thinker –
either way they will affect the way you pursue and achieve you goal.
The best thing is to have the best of both worlds – become a more
flexible thinker so that you can position yourself better to achieve your
goals.
Become more fluent for in strategies for reasoning, decision making and
questioning
There are a lot of models out there on how you can develop you
reasoning, decision making and questioning skill so as to become more
effective in the choice that you make. The whole idea is that the more
effective options you have in terms of these strategies the better you
are equipped to face the challenges you face as a result of limited
thinking.
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Action exercises
1. Appraise your thinking awareness
Look closely to the whole brain theory in Figure 2:1,
Are you aware of the way you perform in terms of your thinking self’s
–rational, safekeeping, feeling and experimental.
If not why do you, think it is necessary to develop these thinking
styles since lack of them could limit your performance in terms of the
way you view your world.
Are you aware about the way you think?
2 Discover your purpose
Do you know your purpose, belief, value and destiny in life? These are
the drivers of your behaviour. Work out these attributes for your life.
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Remember the key to a successful life is knowing who you are (your
calling) and what you’re supposed to do (your destiny). Another key is
having the spiritual and emotional fuel to get there.
3. How can you align your passion with your priorities so as to achieve
your goal in life?
3 Adopt
The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate
the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits
that can break him - and hasten to adopt those practices that will
become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires."
- Jean Paul Getty
In the section on being aware, I mentioned that awareness is the
beginning of the change process. Having identified the areas you need
to change you have to adopt ideas, concepts, principles and
suggestion that you think will be relevant to your situation. It could be
mean a new way in which you apply your senses in an old environment
or the way you maintain your bodily states. For example, the way you
choose to behave in the face of provocation. It is a new experience
and hence a balancing act. You need to understand the reason for the
choice you made. Either way your desire is to improve the result you
get from an experience. There are completely new areas you can
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explore in this realm. You might want to adopt a new skill, aptitude,
knowledge and experience. Whatever thing you chose to adopt you
needs to evaluate the outcome you want and reason you have chosen
to go through this path.
Adopting a new idea is a learning process that requires you to move
out of your comfort zone. As a result, you may need to seek the help
of people who have done what you are desire to do and find out how
to move forward in your chosen path. You don’t necessarily need to
take every idea on board; you need to adopt those ideas that would
move you forward. It’s about being flexible and having more options.
An organism in an environment could adopt a new environment but in
order to survive or thrive in the new environment, it must adapt.
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Action exercises
1. What changes do you to adopt in your way of thinking that would
impact your personal life?
2. What do you need to do to adopt this lifestyle?
3. How are you going to use it in your present circumstance to
improve your life – your overall performance?
4. What type of resources – financial, human and capabilities (skill) do
you need to make it possible?
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4 Adapt
‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable
man adapts the world to him. Therefore, all progress depends on
unreasonable men.’
-George Bernard Shaw
The above quotation from the writer and philosopher George Bernard
Shaw is apt. Two things are working together here different types of
people – the reasonable and the unreasonable man, and the way they
relate to their environment. The key idea here is the way they pattern
themselves, based on their way of thinking to their environment- the
world.
From the biological standpoint, to adapt refers to the ability of an
organism to survive or thrive in its habitat. This habitat may not be
natural to it originally, but for it to adapt it has to condition to the
challenges posed by the external environment. It is a learning process
as well as a rewarding and profitable experience, since the organism
would have more options in its ability to survive. However for the
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organism to survive it has to successfully regulate the changes posed
in the internal environment as it seeks to face the challenges faced in
the external environment. Why am I saying this? At the time of writing
this Britain as the whole world is passing through an economic
difficulty which has resulted in lack of credit for businesses as well as
individuals. In the midst of this dilemma most companies and
individual are making breakthrough in their different businesses
despite the economic gloom. How did they do that? Basically, they had
to adapt to the present circumstance and develop and learn new ways
of doing things.
Piaget in his theory of learning suggested that adaptation is the
essential ingredient of learning: ‘Intelligence is adaptation. Living
organisms adapt their behaviour according to the environment, as
intelligent animals adapt their mental processes according to
experience. According to Piaget we can adapt in two ways: assimilation
and accommodation.
Assimilation: This is the process of fitting our experiences to our
existing concepts. ‘Intelligence is assimilation to the extent that it
incorporates all data of experience within its framework.’ This mainly
the ability to use our knowledge in a new experience for example,
learning to count with apple and being able to count with banana.
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Accommodation: Accommodation is a correcting process by which we
either restrict or broaden our concepts. This is the ability to apply our
knowledge in diverse situations so as to consolidate our experience.
Accommodation sets up an imbalance between our existing concepts
and our new experiences.
Assimilation can be called ‘comfortable adaptation’ and accommodation
‘uncomfortable adaptation.’
Learn to model new behaviours
To adapt is to model a new pattern of behaviour and make it your
own. Therefore, you require attention, focus and imagination.
You need to scan your environment to find what works and focus your
energies as well as you imagination to enable it happen. The
behaviour to model is limitless; indeed any new skills that will impact
your bottom line.
Learn the habit of goal setting
Research shows that about 5% of the population are in the habit of
writing down their goals towards achieving them.
Ideas-how living things adapt. They have been found to lead
successful live in those aspect of their lives that mater most to them.
You can learn this skill and adapt them as a strategy to getting things
done. It will improve you confidence as well as your self esteem.
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Action exercises
1 Are you familiar with the way you think? How can you adapt your
thinking style to have more options and become a flexible thinker?
2 Are these things you want to accomplish that you have find difficult?
Look around you to see those who have accomplished such fit. Ask
them how they did it. How can you adapt your behaviour to
accomplish it?
3 Read about goal setting and develop strategies to apply it to
different areas of you live that you need to make progress.
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5 Action
“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thought into
action is the most difficult thing in the world”
-Johann Wolfgang Goethe (German Poet)
Action is a power word. What do I mean by that? It is characterised by
movement; change in direction, say A to B. In his book “The Secrets
of the Millionaire Mind”, p, 167, T. Harv Eker observed that:
“Action is the “bridge” between the inner world and outer
world”
Why do we find it difficult to take action? It is possible that we have
not resolved to take stock of the benefit of the action, not decided, or
that we do not have the means to make such leap of faith. It demands
every path of our being – physical, mental, financial, and social. It also
demands that we move from a domain that we are comfortable with to
one that we are not (our comfort zone). Taking action is a journey, a
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learning process, a change in our perspective and movement to a new
horizon. Let take for example the life of Abraham, when God told him
of the land he was going to give to him, he took action and left his
fathers house and kindred. He took action. If he had not taken action
but just ruminated and reminiscent the idea, it would be unfruitful.
Faith is an essential ingredient in taking action.
Faith is the substance things hoped for and the evidence of things not
seen.
Hebrews 11:1
From the above definition, there are three ingredients to faith:
 Substance of things
 Hope
 Evidence
From the foregoing the basis for taking action is that it’s clear in your
mind’s eye that what you desire or want is tangible; though you do not
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have it yet you have hope that that you have it though you are
welcoming it from afar.
Probably people do not take action because they are not imaginative
enough to see the birth of what they want in the light of these
attributes of faith. Hence, there is no expectancy or motivation and
therefore they do not act.
We do not take action most of the times because we are afraid. You
may say no but if not fear what? Literally, instead of making a
movement you are standing at a place. You do not have faith in
bringing your idea to fruition may be you do not have the means. Have
you sat down to count the cost? Moreover, possibly find our why action
cannot be taken.
Some of the other reasons why people do not take action are doubt,
worry, inconvenience, discomfort, not being in the mood. Whatever
the reason you give, they prevent you from making a decision so to
realise your dream. Procrastination or not taking a decision affects all
of us. They sabotage our progress and hence hinder our performance.
Whatever the action you want to take, you need a plan. Call it a
representational system or map to direct you to your goal. When is the
right time to take action? The best time is NOW. Use the past to
inform your present, live in the present and because you cannot
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predict the future take action by creating the plans you desire for the
future in the present.
The following has been suggested by Frances Coombes in her book
Self-motivation p. 47 as six habits that lead to success.
• Start with the end in mind
• Use your eye and senses
• If what you are doing is not working try something else
• Build and maintain rapport with yourself and other
• Operate from a state of excellence
• Take action
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Action exercises
1. Do you know how you make decisions? Remember that decision
making is a skill. How would you improve your decision making skills?
2. Are you a procrastinator? Most of us are. Why do we procrastinate?
Find ways to stop this malaise in your life by becoming more proactive.
3. What are some of the things you been proposing to do that you’ve
not done? Take action now and get them done.
4. Challenge yourself learn to do a new thing.
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6 Achieve
“Achieving results, getting things done, making things happen. That is
what management is all about.”
Michael Armstrong
The ability to take action and to achieve and therefore become
successful is two different things. This is because you can take action
but due to poor strategy and logistics in your execution skills, you
might not be able to achieve what you have set out to do. Being an
achiever is behaviour, it is different from your personality. You need to
master the skills of achievers or put simply their mindset as they do
what they do and know best. I have tried to learn from the Scripture
the principles on which the ability to achieve hinges.
Look at what God told Joshua in the Book of Joshua 1: 8
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“This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but though
shall meditate therein daily. That thou mayest observe to do according
to all that is written therein. Then should thou make their way
prosperous and thou shall have good success.”
Observation of the above scripture indicates that being able to achieve
requires:
Direction – Is a direction and demands care on your path. From this
point of view, it suggests that it is a journey not a destination.
Path – There is a path to anything you have to achieve; what I need
to learn and do.
Work – You have to work at it daily
Focus – You must concentrate on the outcome
Experience – You should experience the rigours and demands of the
route to a successful outcome. It is a lifestyle. You have to live the
experience and let it change you – the mental and physical demands.
Experiment – You have to live it and risk all to attain it; however,
armed with the knowledge, skills and motivation to achieve it.
You need to have a plan and you should be able to work your
plan!
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On the other front from the Management standpoint, there is
information on the attributes of achievers. How can I become an
achiever?
In his book “How to become a better manager” Michael Armstrong had
this to say about how to become an achiever.
“You have to develop skills and capacities by a process of
understanding, observation, analysis and learning.”
He suggested four actions you should take.
1. You need to understand what makes achievers tick- the personality
characteristics that they display
2. Observe what achievers do – how they operate, what techniques
they use.
3. You need to analyse your own behaviour (behaviour, not
personality), compare it with that of high achievers, and think how to
improve your effectiveness.
4. Learn as much as you can about the management techniques
available. For example, management techniques like planning,
organising, delegation, communicating, motivating and controlling can
be learnt.
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Tool to achieving your goal - Goal Achievement Framework (GAF)
The GAF was used by Enda Larkin in his book: “Ready to lead? Prepare
to think and act as a successful leader.” Pp.114. is described and
explained in this section.
This framework is very efficient and effective in enabling you to
achieve your goal. It is efficient because it involves some approach to
planning such as using a diary which you adhere to daily. The aim of
using such tools is that it provides structure to your dairy and allows
you to prioritise activities on an ongoing basis. Being efficient is only
part of the equation, since you can be efficient without ever achieving
your goals. For example, you could be a much organised person at
work but that doesn’t mean you are leading in the right direction, it
just means you get through the workload at hand efficiently.
To be really effective, you need to:
First define your goal clearly.
Then you must work back from them by identifying the range of
activities and tasks that will move you towards the goals.
These activities and tasks must be scheduled using your planning
tools.
You must review your progress regularly.
This ability to combine efficiency and effectiveness will turn you into an
achiever in the long run.
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The GAF
This is made up of seven steps and they are explained in this section.
Step 1: Define your goal
Here you begin by defining your goals as clearly as possible. Be as
specific as you can and make notes about the results you want. In
other words, paint mental picture of your goal. Be as imaginative as
you can and use your senses to visualise the outcome you want.
Step 2: Identify the key activities that would be required to achieve
this goal.
Don’t worry at this stage about when these will be done – just think of
the broad activities that must happen to make this goal a reality.
Brainstorming is a good tool to use here. You could also use free
writing.
Step 3: Break these activities into more specific tasks.
Break these broader activities into more specific tasks that need to be
carried out within that activity
.Step 4: Think also about the sequencing of these activities.
Do certain tasks need to be carried out before the others? Put the
tasks into logical sequence. This will help in deciding the deadline etc.
Step 5: Develop timelines for each task.
For each of the tasks that you define timelines for when you would like
to implement them with a clear finish date. Depending on your goal in
question timelines might be quite specific or could be structured on a
short, medium or long term basis.
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Step 6: Use a scheduling tool to keep you on track.
Use your scheduling tool to plan these tasks, including start and finish
dates as appropriate.
Step 7: Monitor your progress at regular intervals.
Monitor progress at frequent interval so that any drift can be identified
early.
The benefits of the GAF
It combines efficiency and effectiveness. You become effective, as you
start thinking about your goals and are consciously moving towards
them. You become more efficient, because you define the key
activities and tasks you need to happen to reach your goal and then
enter them into a planning system to ensure they happen
Remember, in the words of Drucker – to mange for results. Adopt the
most efficient way of getting there but never forget that it is the end
that counts not the means. Ninety-five percent of achieving anything is
to know what you want and pay the prize to get it.
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Action exercises
1. What is it that you want to achieve in your life?
2. What is your motivation for doing this?
3. Think about how you are going to achieve it?
4. Who will help you to achieve it and what resources in terms of
financial and skill set do need?
5. Where and when will you accomplish the tasks and activities?
6. What is the nature of the result (s) that you expect? For example,
how will you know that you’ve reached your destination?
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Use the GAF to further organise your determination to achieve this goal.
7 Adjust
New circumstances always require new skills and tools…The alternative
are suffering and death.
Keith J Cunningham
The above quotation from Keith Cunningham an entrepreneur is apt
for this section of this write up. It is his final statement on his
commentary on the story of Mann Gulch in the “Your Property
Network”- a magazine for active property investors. This has its theme
for survival in today’s turbulent economy but it has implication in
terms of lessons to draw from it in our daily life.
It was a story of how thirteen of sixteen smoke jumpers (fire fighters
who parachute into the backcountry to fight fire in Montana) died
battling a relatively small blaze in 1949 in Mann Gulch. Why did these
men die in this circumstance? A book “Young Men and Fire” written by
Norman Maclean entitled revealed all.
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Maclean observed some startling fact: Mann Gulch is surrounded by
steep canyons wall with the northern slope at a 75% incline. When the
wind turned on the smoke jumpers, they were in a race with fire up
those steep walls. The grasses in the environment did not help the
situation either because they were tall. Hence, the fire started to
spread much faster than expected.
The author discovered that the thirteen men who died were ill
equipped in because of what they were carrying to face this new
situation. They had heavy poleaxes, saws, shovels, as well as very
heavy backpacks – while attempting to out run the fire up those steep
walls. In fact the terrain (the environment), the circumstance (the fire)
and their attire (the heavy tools) strapped round their back were all
against them.
Their inability to drop their heavy tools and packs ultimately prevented
them from outrunning the fire. They did not think out of the box. They
died in the prevailing circumstance.
The three survivors of the blaze were forced to think outside the box
and use alternative methods of escaping the fire. They figured out that
they were no longer fighting the fire instead trying to escape from it;
they realized they had to drop all their useless equipment.
One of the survivors, used an unconventional technique different from
what they were taught called, ‘escape fire’, but when he suggested to
44

his peers they refused. The idea was that he took a match and lit a
ring around him so that the fire would “jump” over him. The technique
saved his life. The people that died were due to their inability to drop
the tools and equipment that were not working and seek methods to
help them escape.
Being able to survive, thrive and make progress will ultimately demand
on our not being at ease on what we have attained. We need to
challenge every assumption that may face us in terms on where we
are. Sometimes we may need to throw away completely any thing that
is not working to our advantage - that is, leading us away from our
destiny.
We need to make adjustments on day-to-day basis in every area of
our life. We need to search these options out since no body will do it
for us. For example, on a personal level, each person is different and
the level of challenges we face in our daily struggles is different.
Hence, we need to continuously search for options that will position us
towards attaining our goal in life. Put simply we need to adjust to
options that will enable us to live balanced life while at the same time
focused to the realization of our dreams.
Search for pattern in your behaviours that are limiting and adjust positively
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Extraordinary people are those who are resourceful enough to spin
every obstacle into an opportunity. John D. Rockefeller once said, “I
always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.” Anyone can
learn to turn obstacles into opportunities. It’s done by managing your
response to any situation: 1) in your mind 2) with your language and
3) through your actions. Watch the seed of your thought, mind your
language let it be purposeful to build up and take positive step towards
reaching your goal
Feedback as tool for scanning and receiving information on your
performance
Physical, chemical and biological systems are fitted with devices that
compensates for fluctuations in the internal and external
environments. These devices will normally adjust to measure the
correct output based on the input mechanisms and the processes
being monitored. A thermostat will normally adjust to create readouts
in line with the process in place. Chemical reaction could be monitored
by applying indicators which changes colour based on the end products
of the reactions. In the biological systems enzymatic reactions will be
controlled due to positive or negative feedback which results in
correction of levels of particular reactants or products.
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In this light it is good to appraise your performance to get positive or
negative feedback as the case may be. The feedback if carefully used
in the next exercise will improve the outcome of the performance.
Learn to ask questions to challenge every assumption
Never assume a status quo, be critical of your thinking, feelings, action
and results you get. Always check your behaviour to identify any blind
spot as a result of your options, perspectives and norms. Apply
yourselves to finding ways to fill the gap to where you are to where
you want to
47

Action exercises
1. What did I set out to do?
2. Did I get it done?
3. If I did, why and how did I succeed?
4. If not, why not?
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5. What can I do differently next time?
8 Conclusions
A conclusion is the place where you get tired of thinking
Edward DeBono
All that have shared in this book are the result of self-introspections
which are episodic due to series of events in the bid to discover the
meaning of success. These thoughts were also gleaned from of ideas
expressed by other authors in the field of personal development.
These are ideas on how to make progress but just like anything that
has to do with thinking and learning and vice versa; your experience
would depend on the positive action you take to practice these ideas to
see if there are true. You can start from anywhere towards realising
your goal or making that important change in your life. For example, if
you don’t pay attention to any area of your life you won’t be aware or
knowledgeable about that aspect of your life. But when you become
aware you can begin to adopt the stance to change and seek to adapt
49

so as to make the change possible. You then have to take action and
the result will be the achievement of your dream, goal or desired
outcome. You need to make adjustments, learn from the experience so
as to become more informed.
On the whole it impinges on empowering yourself through changed
thinking, controlling feelings to support the behaviour you desire and
taking action that moves you nearer to the outcome you want.
However, the choices you make should be based on sound principles
that work, new ways of thinking that produce results as well as
processes that sustain the desired outcome. At the end you become a
new person because what you have produced have changes you. You
have not just impacted yourself through changed thinking but you
have created a service or product of value as the case may be. You
have left your comfort zone and have not left people or events to
dictate what happens in your life. You have taken advantage of the
choice and freedom you have in a very positive way by being
responsible for the outcome you desire.
Enjoy the success but remember it is a journey not a destination. What
is your next challenge and who is on the journey with you?
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About the author
Benjamin is an avid reader, long life learner in the field of personal development
as well as a writer. He writes in the Hubpages.com and you can read his articles
at:
http://lemmyc.hubpages.com/
He is the Founder of Progress Path – Mastery Education a learning organisation
dedicated to enabling people, grow and contribute to the society through
teaching specialist knowledge.
You can find the website through this link:
He has his background in science and education and has motivated himself to
acquire special knowledge in the fields of management, psychology as well as
sales and marketing. His passion is to enable people realise their potential and
this is the motivation for putting this work together.
He was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar and British Council Study Fellow; and
an alumnus of University of Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan University both in the
United Kingdom. He has a Certificate in Personal Coaching from the Coaching
Academy, UK.
Ben is a born again Christian and worships at Bridge Street Pentecostal Church
in Leeds; where he lives; and is happily married with three children.
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You can access other resources by Ben in the www. Scribd.com – a digital library
through this link:
http://www.scribd.com/ben_ugoji
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