Wednesday 3 April 2013

How Core Beliefs Become Learning Behaviors


Enriched learning is all about the effective absorption and integration of new material. The more you know about the concepts, the more you will find out things unknown to your parents, to teachers, and even to neuroscientists just a decade ago. For instance, ninety-five percent of your behavior reflects patterns and habits mostly acquired when you were very young. Because our educators and caregivers didn't know any better, most of us grew up with ineffective study habits. Countless hours have been wasted in classrooms and in home study, and have often yielded frustration, self-limiting beliefs, and low self-esteem. However, there's no need to take it anymore! No matter what your age, you can learn successfully and with delight. Freud popularized the concept of the subconscious (or what is sometimes also called the unconscious or the non-conscious). Although your conscious mind plays an important role, learning has much more to do with non-conscious processing than with conscious thought. Remember that, as you learn how to nourish and develop it, your mind's chief responsibility is your protection; in fact, your survival. Let me use an analogy to explain the power of the subconscious mind. If your feet are flat on the floor, the area under your feet corresponds to the processing ability of your conscious mind. The floor area in the room not covered by your feet represents the power of your subconscious mind. Your conscious mind operates at around 126 bits per second, and your subconscious mind is 10,000 times faster. Clearly, the power is really in the subconscious. As a therapist, I have found that most issues that adults present to me originate in their first seven years of life. This imprint phase of social development is at a time when the conscious mind is not yet fully developed, before growth of a vital filter to assess incoming information's validity, the so-called Critical Faculty. Well aware of this, advertisers use the term Critical Faculty Bypass when weighing the effectiveness of advertisements. If the advertising message gets through to the emotional subconscious mind, then the likelihood of purchase increases. What does this have to do with learning? Quite a lot. Read on. If life-long patterns are set in the first seven years of life, then it's important for parents, older siblings, coaches, teachers, and any other influencers to be extremely careful with their language, both verbal and non-verbal. If a parent says, "You're just like your father. You'll never amount to anything" or "It's a good thing you're cute, because you're not very smart". The messages go directly, in the absence of a strong Critical Faculty, to the subconscious where accepted as valid, they begin to form patterns and beliefs. Subsequent fractured self-esteem and self-doubt results. Elephant trainers use an interesting control technique. When an elephant is still very young, the trainer attaches one end of a strong chain to one of the elephant's legs, and the other end to a stake. This allows the animal the freedom of a very defined circle, and, harnessed day after day, the elephant learns that this circle is its only territory. As the years go by, the chain is progressively exchanged for thinner and thinner ropes. The trainer knows that the elephant could walk away at any time, but the elephant doesn't catch on, and so remains within the defined circle. Important questions for you from this are: What's your circle? What are your self-limiting beliefs? Bestselling author and international speaker, Brian E. Walsh retired from a 30-year management career to further his earlier interest in NLP and hypnotherapy. He returned to formal study, and within four years had achieved his PhD. Dr. Walsh regularly conducts workshops and teleclasses on enriched learning. He is a master practitioner of NLP, an acupuncture detoxification specialist, an EFT practitioner, and a clinical hypnotherapist. His eZine, "Personal Enrichment Digest" has subscribers around the world. His most recent release is a 90-minute DVD of his presentation, "Enriched Learning". He has also co-authored with John Gray and Jack Canfield in the self-help book, "101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life: Volume 2." His website is http://www.WalshSeminars.com

2 comments:

  1. Hi Sharon,

    I really appreciate you sharing this excellent post with me. You couldn't have delivered it at better time. I love it when you said, "Although your conscious mind plays an important role, learning has much more to do with non-conscious processing than with conscious thought."

    Thanks for this. Keep up the excellent work!

    Many Blessings,

    Stacie Walker
    Woman in Leadership

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  2. Hi Stacie,
    Thats terrific, I am glad you got so much out of the article, I have studied personal development for many years and often wondered in the beginning "why" I was holding back! And yes it was my (Old Conditioning) holding me back, telling me to be seen and not heard, etc, etc, This too has been a great article for me, so always stop and look at why your doing or feeling the way you are and work with the conscious thought to change it if its not what you really want. Well done.. stay in touch

    Cheers
    Sharon

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