Chapter 15: A Better Way

Overview

In the world of corporate training from which I hail, ˜ ˜sustainment of learning is one of the profoundest of issues. So often people walk into a training session, learn new things, say, ˜ ˜Yes, yes, that was very interesting, and then never incorporate the new information or methodologies into their jobs. The problem stems from what I referred to in Chapter 14 as ˜ ˜forgetting conviction. People have an exciting moment or two, take on some degree of conviction that they will indeed use the new discovery, and then exit the session, forgetting all about it.

To help you sustain the increased awareness you have gained by reading this book, I would like to recommend some guidelines. Obviously the message of this book is that it is going to take some work on your part to leave your troublesome behaviors or responses behind as you grow and make changes in your life. The Transcendence Model and the distinction between the object-level and meta-level will be very helpful in this regard. But there are two practical steps you can take as you move forward:

1. The first step is to use pencil and paper in learning to uncover your operating strategy. This will help you isolate what is triggering your behavior. At the end of each workday for a week or two, record what was going on around you that day when you fell into the troublesome behavior. Watch for patterns. For example, did your buttons get pressed because someone disagreed with you? Did you hear certain news that engaged a worry or an attention-seeking program? See if you can label the trigger and the response.

   As you will recall from the discussion of your operating strategy in Chapter 11, in addition to labeling the trigger and response pattern, you can trace the judgments in your head that lead to the response. For example, if things in your office go awry and you find yourself jumping into defense mode, try to unravel the thoughts that led to the feelings. You might say, ˜ ˜Hmm, Mr. Jones found out that the document went out late. I began to think of how it wasn t my fault. I guess I was afraid he was going to blame me. That would mean I am less secure in my job. I am afraid of losing my job. I am afraid of my world falling apart. That s it. That hurts. As a result of that thinking, you may conclude that your operating strategy is to keep an eye out for whether you ll be blamed, and, if you judge that you might be, then, out of an experience of fear that your world will fall apart, to equip yourself with a defense.

2. This prepares you for the second step you can take to ensure sustainment. It could require several hours of your time, broken up into smaller chunks , dedicated to processing the feelings that drive and result from your operating strategy. It also calls for a certain amount of courage. It is understandable that you would want to veer away from the emotional work. Negative emotions, after all, are there to signal that something should be avoided. We are programmed to avoid those feelings. The chapter on emotions (Chapter 12) addressed how you can process them anyway.

Beyond these two practical steps, there are other things you can do that are not necessarily time consuming and that will improve the value you will get from this book. They pertain to:

• Full-Exposure Communication : how you can communicate with others free from unwanted meta- games

• Flow : how you can approach certain tasks so that you are as close to the truth you as you can get

• Meditation : how you can tap your insight through various meditative tools