The Winding Path

Personal development, personal growth, and of course self-improvement are all terms used to refer to the process of increasing complexity of one’s self. Throughout history, and still today, there has been much debate about what the self actually is (is it our body, is it our soul, is it everything we touch, everything we think of as our own?). What I’m referring to is simply the brain and body, and the mental functions commonly linked to them, including our memories, and our personality.

Complexity increases and development occurs when you engage in a challenging activity. The most development occurs when your skills complement the degree of difficulty. When I started to learn kung fu I had very few skills. I’d learnt karate a few years before, but I’d forgotten a lot of it and so was sorely out of practice (not to mention sore after practice). So kung fu was a challenge, but a good one, because it was just difficult enough for me to have to put in considerable effort to keep up, but not so hard that I failed at everything I was asked to do.

When the degree of challenge complements your degree of skill, you’re most capable of focusing your attention almost exclusively on the task. Mental energy is directed as opposed to chaotic. In that state you can ignore everything around you, concentrating solely on what you’re doing. In your brain more energy is channelled through the specific neural pathways related to the task, leading to reinforcement of those pathways and to the creation of new connections, resulting in increased complexity.

That complexity results from two processes, both of which are required for maximum growth. One is the process of differentiation, through which skills are increased distinct from each other, and distinct from the skills of other individuals. The other is integration, through which mental processes become more cohesive, and relationships with other people strengthen.

If your goal is growth, it doesn’t matter what your energy is directed towards. As long as your energy is invested in challenging activities and your skill level can meet the challenge, you will grow, even if that activity is something as simple as putting out the rubbish, or as complex as writing a large piece of software from scratch. However, how much energy you have, and whether or not you use it, does depend on what you use it for. If the task doesn’t interest or motivate you, the skills you have and the challenge the task presents don’t matter; you simply won’t want to do it.

So how do you focus your attention in this way, and make sure you have enough motivation to do it?

1. Choose activities which you really want to do.
   Simple, isn’t it? If you have to do something, but don’t truly want to, try to find a way to make it more interesting. If you don’t like cooking but have to since you live alone and can’t afford to eat out all the time, time yourself and set yourself a challenge to better your time each time you cook the same meal (but remember to be careful with your knives. I don’t want to be responsible for any injuries!)
2. Take up practices which improve your attention.
   Meditation such as Vipassana meditation is a good way to do this. Not only will it improve your attention, but it also has many health benefits. Yoga and martial arts are also very good options.
3. Learn to eliminate internal distractions.
   Many of us worry far too much about things we have no control over. Or even when we do have control we often worry instead of actually doing something about it. There are many ways to stop worrying, including CBT (or REBT), or NLP. Gotta love those acronyms.
4. Feed your mind.
   That’s not a metaphor. Literally feed your mind the nutrients it needs to operate at peak efficiency. And your body too of course, since the two work as one. The ideal diet is not one specifically designed to improve attention, but simply the most healthy, balanced diet you can find. There’s plenty of information out there, including conflicting information (meat is good. No, meat is bad. Dairy is good. No, dairy is bad. Some fats are good. No, all fats are bad), but here’s a good place to start.
5. Practice, practice and more practice.
   Place yourself in situations where there are distractions and train yourself to focus on a specific task while completely ignoring the distractions. Do this with many different tasks, under the influence of many different kinds of distractions. Note that I wouldn’t recommend overloading yourself right from the start; train yourself up on something that you enjoy a lot first before moving onto the tasks that you aren’t as motivated to do.

Ultimately the goals you choose are not as important as how you go about achieving them. Any goal can result in significant growth if you approach it with the intent to enjoy it, whatever that takes. Even a menial job like responding to customer’s technical support emails can be enjoyable if you make it challenging. In that scenario you could challenge yourself to see how short you could make your reply, while still including all necessary information. Or how quickly you could get through the day’s load without making any mistakes. Or how many times you could include a particular, non-technical word in each email (like ‘kitten’). And get your workmates involved too.

And that’s one of reasons for it all, right? Not only to grow as much as possible, but to enjoy doing it too!

Related entries:

• Changing Beliefs: Instantaneous or Gradual?
• Understand your emotions, find your passions, forget your goals.
• Meditation: High Quality Research Into Theraputic Benefits Needed
• The Science Behind Change: A Beginner’s Guide

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Awareness, Challenges, Learning, Meditation, Passing Sage, Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.