Mastery- be an expert on You
Over the last 3 weeks I’ve broken down the PROM model in my blogs.
Mastery is about becoming an expert and honing your skills in that field. The field is You. By previously engaging with purpose, responsibility and optimism you’ve begun to become an expert on yourself. This does sound strange because you’ve known yourself for how ever many years you’ve been on this earth, but perhaps this is the first time you’ve asked yourself some of the questions that we’ve engaged with over the last few weeks.
The champion on the PROM model, Wale Oladipo, suggests that self-discipline is the key to becoming a self-expert. It’s about overcoming the procrastination we all encounter in life by being able to take actions even on days when we feel unable to or less motivated to do so. In building positive habits that move you further towards your goal, over a minimum of 6 weeks you’ll be habit forming and running parallel will be bad habits becoming extinguished.
- What do you need to do to reach your goal?
- What regular behaviours will be of benefit?
- How can you build them into your routine?
I’ve expressed before that inaction breeds misery- the thought of accomplishing goals can seem like they are going to take forever particularly if you have to learn a new skill set, study or re-train. In these cases, simply starting research into your chosen area can help boost motivation; we can’t rely on motivation alone as a tool, but we can form habits to keep us moving in the right direction. If you are able to research once a week for 6 weeks it will become second nature to set that time aside; the more we refine our goal and understand what it will take to reach it, then the clearer our path and the ambiguity of the unknown starts to disappear. By knowing more, you start to remove the fear.
When we think about change it is human nature that doubts will creep in. Negative thinking helps us weigh up the risks of what we are about to embark upon in order to stay safe. Modern day threats still activate age-old innate response systems within us but these systems haven’t adapted to suit things such as being made redundant, moving on from grief, being demoted in a role or fitting in at school etc. All these are still relatively new threats to humans and our ancestors didn’t experience these when they were out hunting for food, yet we have their response systems to deal with these threats. Whilst negative thoughts are natural, they can also be unhelpful if they enable us to stay put even when we are experiencing distress in the examples I mentioned just now.
Positive thinking and self-belief can combat negative thoughts- I understand only too well that trying to be positive when you think the world is against you feels insurmountable, but as with everything I talk about, it takes practice, discipline and a strong will because you are fighting against yourself, to change yourself and that is no easy feat, but it is achievable. Doing the same things over and over when they aren’t of benefit will keep you trapped; we become comfortable operating within the realms of what we know we can handle. If we don’t push ourselves and strive for our goals then you can expect to remain comfortably unhappy, and we get tired of doing things that don’t make us happy.
Ways to stay engaged:
- Reflective thinking; ensure you spend a few minutes a day wondering about what made you happy, sad, frustrated and motivated today and why that was so.
- Did today involve any of your hobbies or passions? If not, when can you fit those into your week?
- What did you do that made a difference today? To both yourself and others?
- What did you do that took you a step toward your goal today?
- What obstacles can you start to tackle that help you with your goal?
- Did you make time for yourself today?
- Practice saying No to things that you don’t want to do or that take you away from your goal.
Involving yourself in this level of thinking will increase positive thoughts and help you combat the negative ones. These questions also help you become better acquainted with yourself, allowing you to become an expert on yourself which in turn will drive you towards changing your life.
Add Comment