Sep 30
In my previous post I introduced some insight into the abilities we have and the flawed thinking that PhotoReading is something mystical that only a special few can learn.
In this post I want to show the stumbling blocks of our thinking and beliefs that can prevent us from learning the PhotoReading system.
There are a couple [...] [...more]
Posted: under Activation, Change, Persistence, Photoreading, frustration.
Tags: belief, comprehension, learning, Photoreading
In my previous post I introduced some insight into the abilities we have and the flawed thinking that PhotoReading is something mystical that only a special few can learn.
In this post I want to show the stumbling blocks of our thinking and beliefs that can prevent us from learning the PhotoReading system.
There are a couple of other stumbling main blocks that affect the belief of the learner. One is the stories and videos of expert PhotoReaders. The ones who flip the pages of the book or scroll the computer screen and then answer questions about the text. First it must be understood that they are experienced in PhotoReading. They would have been unsuccessful in the early days of learning to PhotoRead as any beginner now learning PhotoReading. They had build the non-conscious to conscious mind connection and trust by applying the full system and applying it often. Something the beginner has trouble believing they are capable of.
This creates a paradox. If you don’t believe you can do it and then test the system, you’re going to score as you believe. The way to do what the expert does, is use the system enough to own the system. This means shifting out of limiting reading and passive reading habits that you learned in elementary or primary school.
This brings us to the second stumbling block. The passive reading habit. The PhotoReading system is an active reading system. By active I mean you need to know what you want from what you are reading and be able to recognise when you’ve consciously grasped that. The techniques are straight forward and the activation step when applied quickly help the beginner to get through their reading material 3 to 5 times faster in a live seminar. However the deceptive simplicity of the activation step leave the beginner to believe they don’t need to work on this part of the system. They believe they aren’t getting the PhotoReading step right when they don’t see instant results at the beginning of activation.
Here again we run into a problem of habit. It’s habit that keep us in the passive reading approach. By applying the PhotoReading system a beginner can get their reading done three to 5 times faster. However because they measure themselves against the PhotoReading experts they hold the belief they cannot do it well enough. Their belief that it’s difficult keeps them stuck working with one book for 12 to 18 hours because they think the experts get through all their books in 3 to 20 minutes. They see 4 to 6 hours as a failure to apply the system. Their belief that they are failing because they don’t match the expert time becomes a barrier to learning. 
What you see and the success stories are exciting experiences however even experts spend more time with the books they really want to know. In fact the more books they have used the full system on the better their conscious - nonconscious mind connection that such demonstrations become possible.
I offer my own experience here to help the beginner.
I consider myself an expert PhotoReader and a book of about 350 pages that I really want to understand and expect to learn something important from would take me 30 to 120 minutes. It depends on my reading purpose. By the same token there are many books I only spend 5 to 15 minutes with to discover they have nothing of interest to me. These books I have put on my mental bookshelf. I can always come back to them if my circumstances change and it does become important.
If you can believe that you can read you have the necessary skills to become proficient at PhotoReading . You won’t be demonstrating the PhotoReading skills you might find on the web overnight. The only person you should be measuring your progress against is your own. If it takes you 18 hours to read a book and in the process of learning a system you could reduce that to 9 hours with the same or even better comprehension isn’t that progress?
Focus on believing it is possible for you to learn PhotoReading. Don’t compare yourself with others and give up. Aspire to progress to that level.
© Alex K Viefhaus Sept. 2009
Dec 12
What I've been up to lately, why I haven't been posting. [...more]
Posted: under Change, Personal development, Photoreading, Uncategorized.
Tags: Photoreading
Updating my blog. Imported some of the old post. May or may not import more. Mostly I hope that this blog will cover some of my musing and perhaps some life coaching tips and PhotoReading tips.
Some reason for my lengthly silence. I’m working on a book (with my mind writing a second one). I’m also planning a class on improving the way people use the internet for research. This I expect will be a 3 hour course and will help anyone get more out of their search results and time on the internet. I think if PhotoReaders aren’t using these techniques they aren’t taking advantage of PhotoReading skill which has to be a major improvement on the 25% loss of natural reading speed on the computer screen.
The easiest way to keep up with my post is to add my blog to your RSS feed.
Oct 14
One of the interesting things I learned from the PhotoReading 2007 Retreat and during one of the meetings with Paul Scheele, is the true value of confusion and the need to go with the flow.
It’s easy to become frustrated and angry when you think you don’t know what is going on. Yet I was fascinated [...] [...more]
Posted: under Change, Photoreading, Purpose, confusion, learning, learning curve, reading.
One of the interesting things I learned from the PhotoReading 2007 Retreat and during one of the meetings with Paul Scheele, is the true value of confusion and the need to go with the flow.
It’s easy to become frustrated and angry when you think you don’t know what is going on. Yet I was fascinated by it during the retreat. Since I have no doubt that PhotoReading works it became a fascinating exploration to see how others cope with the confusion.
One of the greatest problems we face when we are learning something new is our apprehension about doing it right. We can get so stuck on wanting to be sure we understood the instructions and what we are supposed to be doing that we stop ourselves from doing anything. And even when we are in a situation were we have no choice and must do our best we hold ourselves back and avoid giving too much. We hold on when we must let go.
Through some of the exercises we learned through play and yet even then it was difficult to let go and play for fear of doing it wrong. The purpose of the games were simply to help us change our state, release and laugh and challenge our brain and body to do something new or differently. Again holding onto our fear of not performing up to an unknown goal or outcome.
We didn’t know what the outcome of many of the exercises would be there was a lot of apprehension. Would we look the fool, would we get it wrong? It was a matter of just playing and seeing what happens when we just do it. There is never a wrong experience at the Learning Strategies Retreat. It’s all just a learning experience.
We think if we know what the outcome is going to be we can control the actions to do it right. Yet you cannot control your actions if you have never done it before and the fun is if you follow the directions as best you can, you will get some sort of results. You’ve got no experience to work with until you just do it. And it’s much easier to do if you let go and just be playful in your approach. With experience you can experiment and play at it again. And you will always get results. Results are neither good or bad. They are a foundation experience that you can work with. With results you start adjusting as you play and notice a shift in the outcome.
Play is how we learned as a child to do many things. It was the excitement of not knowing what the outcome would be that we just went ahead and did it.
The PhotoReading Retreat was an opportunity to enhance PhotoReading skill and it was also a great opportunity to learn about learning. Waking up your mind to shift your thinking.
Paul Scheele and other authors have taught me that when you’re feeling confused you need to let go, be in the experience and to wait and see what unfolds. It’s a bit like opening Christmas presents when you don’t know what’s inside. Paul deliberately didn’t tell his team leaders too much of what he was planning to do. So we too, had the opportunity to experience confusion.
It was amazing to become aware of how often people wanted to jump ahead and get out of the uncomfortable present moment were new learning experiences are taking place and new neural pathways are being formed. This anxiety to move on blocks our ability to recognise what we learned from the experience.
We think if we can understand the outcome of what the experience means we can understand the current challenge better. Yet the purpose of the current challenge is to build a bridge to the goal. The mind can understand logical explanations however experience is something deeper and more personal. That’s why just sitting in an audience listening to a speaker does little to change you.
Another thing I noticed at the Retreat was the learner thought it would help them understand had no relationship to the current problem. That is they were off in the wrong direction and didn’t know it. And for all the talking we couldn’t convince them to let go of that idea and just play. They were so focused on understanding something irrelevant and thought if they didn’t understand this they would not get it. Of course they wouldn’t get it. It’s like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
What we think we know interferes with learning to do so something different. If you want to check out this theory for yourself try this challenge
The solution is simple and one we used a lot at the Retreat. Let Go.
True success is not achieved through analysis. It is achieved by learning through experience. Being in the moment and to let go and be in that experience. Then after fully participating in that experience can you notice what happened, what you got, what you learned.
© AlexK Viefhaus
