AlexK’s Blog
Jun 19
I learned how to PhotoRead but I suck at activation
Lets check your activation technique and discuss some of the experiences you might have had.
Begin your activation by revisiting step one of the system. This is probably more important than most people realise and often overlooked. Check in with your purpose regularly make sure you are [...] [...more]
Posted: under Activation, PhotoRead, Photoreading, Purpose, comprehension, confusion, expectation, frustration, motivation.
I learned how to PhotoRead but I suck at activation
Lets check your activation technique and discuss some of the experiences you might have had.
Begin your activation by revisiting step one of the system. This is probably more important than most people realise and often overlooked. Check in with your purpose regularly make sure you are on track. Then select one of your questions and review your trigger word list. From there you want to select the first question you want answered.
Remembering that the book was written by a human who wanted to pass on information imagine that you are entering into a conversation with that author. You are about to ask them a question. As look for the answers to your questions you will also find other questions coming to mind. If your question hasn’t been answered write the new question down.
As you find answers you may want to mind map them. Its very easy to dismiss the results of your first activations. You may feel like you’re not really getting anything and get ready to quit for the old fashioned way of reading. Before you do that lets consider this.
When you begin reading you just read. You hope information build as you follow word for word what the author has written. In 10 minutes you may have finished the first chapter. How much do you really know? Is that even important information in relation to your purpose or studying?
The purpose of activation is to build trust in your body mind connection. How often have you set out to learn something only to realise you already knew most of what is being taught? An interesting experience my students often have. “I discovered something else I want to know more about and my original question turned out not important.
It saddens me when beginners negate this experience. I think its brilliant and yet they think no, no its not right. I should be able to form the perfect question in the first place. In my mind it was the perfect question. It got them started and lead them to the next question that they wanted answered even more. Isn’t the next question always more important than the one that was before it? Its brilliant it got the ball rolling. You started a conversation with the author. The more you do use the PhotoReading system the better you get at it naturally and you learn to recognise you already know the answers.
It’s the same when they say to me. I did badly. I ran out of questions but felt I was missing something so I rapid read to check and sure enough that I found that very important piece of information that I missed. I am no good at activation.
What? No good at activation?
What you did was activation. It was listening to that feeling, thinking, knowing, small voice within that told you, you were missing something. It didn’t help you form a question and yet guided you to rapid read to find the answer. That’s how you activate, you follow your gut and strengthen your body mind connection. That something “wasn’t right” is a powerful activation signal that your body mind has given you and you write it off?
My suggestion is make note of it and mentally tell yourself that in future you expect to pull that information during your activation layers. Your body and mind has done everything right. It might have taken longer this time and will always take longer if you write off this very special communication you just had from your body and mind.
If you want to perfect your PhotoReading skills take every experience as just that an experience. Its neither good nor bad. An experience is something to build on. The better you leave behind the judgment and negative self talk the sooner you will be able to recognise yourself as a proficient PhotoReader. See my post on Noticing even small gains.
© Alex K Viefhaus
Apr 16
Did you know that to succeed at anything you need to have a purpose?
One thing when people come to PhotoReading they often have the goal of reading even more. Great as that is it doesn’t provide a purpose for learning PhotoReading.
When one sets out to learn PhotoReading they often have the magical image of themselves [...] [...more]
Posted: under Goals, Purpose.
Did you know that to succeed at anything you need to have a purpose?
One thing when people come to PhotoReading they often have the goal of reading even more. Great as that is it doesn’t provide a purpose for learning PhotoReading.
When one sets out to learn PhotoReading they often have the magical image of themselves zooming through book, being great scholars, getting straight A , top of the class, on the ball, best employee and similar images. The problem is those images don’t sustain the motivation. They do create impatience, frustration, self criticism and self doubt. Because the minds first reaction is, ’if you could do that, why haven’t you done it already?’
The image is a goal not a purpose.
But why is a purpose important?
The way the mind works. You now have expectations that instantly you’re going to “know exactly what to do” and you’ll be a PhotoReading “master” by the end of the day. And when it doesn’t work ’exactly’ as you pictured it the master of negative self talk (the conscious mind) steps in and negates everything and throws the baby out with the bathwater (cliché I know). You stay on the merry-go-round until someone or something helps you clarify what you want, what your purpose is and that helps you step off on the right platform.
What is purpose really?
In brief, it’s an explanation of why you are doing something. I’m doing this so that I can XZY. It explains your motivation. If you lack motivation you need to find a purpose for action.
Lets look at purpose another way
Lets use a map. You are here. ( a big dot next to an arrow) Your destination (goal) is the X that marks the spot. Before you can reach that X you must collect certain items along the way. You look at a map and considering the many options and variable decide on a path that suits your need and allows you to obtain what you need at your destination. The path you chose serves a purpose. And if you had to explain it to anyone you would say, “I am taking this path so that I can collect that.” There may be more items to collect along the way to your destination (goal). So your journey may have many paths but each path has a purpose.
Purpose for PhotoReading.
I’m reading this book so that I can ….. which is part of my journey to my ultimate goal.
Purpose helps you to define what you want and the next step is to let go and just do it and see what happens.
Just try it and see and if it doesn’t work check what was your purpose. Do you need to refine that? Was it a purpose or just a fancy statement?
Purpose is the essence of motivation. If you don’t know where you’re going how will you know when you get there? And if you don’t know where you are going why even bother starting?
© Alex K Viefhaus
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
Dec 28
A Balanced life will consider all 6 areas of our lives most people only have one area in their life where they have a mission.
How do you find balance? Goal setting. You need not focus on every area of your life everyday for that balance but periodically you need to check how you are doing [...] [...more]
Posted: under Goals, Purpose, expectation.
A Balanced life will consider all 6 areas of our lives most people only have one area in their life where they have a mission.
How do you find balance? Goal setting. You need not focus on every area of your life everyday for that balance but periodically you need to check how you are doing in other areas. The best ways to do that is write your annual goals.
New Years Eve or New Years Day we often make resolutions. Resolutions seem like a good idea yet we fail to keep them. Our diets go out the window by week two and our exercise program barely started when the routine broke because it isn’t a routine yet. Our goal to increase our income by taking a course of study doesn’t work because there is no guarantee that once you have that paper your income will increase. There is more you have to do once you’ve gained the pass in the course. The hunt for a new job with a better pay will start tomorrow because today the workload is too heavy and you’re too stressed right now. Tomorrow never comes.
There is an underlying flaw with our resolution. It’s summed up in two words.
No Purpose.
The important purpose. It becomes a reason for for taking action . Purpose is the motivator that keeps you going once you start Purpose is what it takes to make changes in your life. When we have a purpose we have a mission in life. It doesn’t matter if it’s personal, in ways spiritual, relationship, wealth, success or career. It’s the engine that drives our mission.
Your resolution isn’t a mission in your life. The purpose is weak. To look good, lose weight, be healthier, earn more money are not your real mission.
If you’re serious about having a balanced life set goals that have a purpose. A real purpose comes from within the heart. It takes a few moments to go inside and reflect on what achieving your goal means to you. Looking good, being healthier having more money are superficial until we know WHY. Why is it important to you to look good. Why is it important to be healthier? Why is it important to you to have more money? Why is studying for your career important to you? Why are your spiritual goals important to you? Why do you want to change or begin a new relationship?
When you look at writing your goals for this year Look deeply for the, “Why”.
Once you know why. You have your mission. Then you only need to Decide what your first step is. Believe you can do it and Start. Reflect, Decide, Believe, Start on your goals for the coming year.
If goal setting isn’t your strong point and you don’t know how to go inside to discover your mission for next year there is a course I can recommend.
© Alex Viefhaus December 2006
Nov 08
Whether you use PhotoReading or not here is a tip that will help you get your reading done faster and with better comprehension. It can even help build your curiosity and make the subject much more interesting.
Start at the back of the book. Spoiler? Not always. For some novels maybe. This is especially important for [...] [...more]
Posted: under Purpose, comprehension, learning, motivation, reading.
Whether you use PhotoReading or not here is a tip that will help you get your reading done faster and with better comprehension. It can even help build your curiosity and make the subject much more interesting.
Start at the back of the book. Spoiler? Not always. For some novels maybe. This is especially important for textbooks and books that have a glossary.
If you’re dealing with complex text or have to study something that may have several words you don’t know the meaning of, read the glossary first. Or put it this way. If the book has a glossary start there. Kick-start your understanding by getting on the same wavelength as the author. They may not be using the precise dictionary meaning.
Here may discover new words or words that excite you and get your curiosity going. Since they give you hints what the text covers and is a concise way of finding out what the book is about. It can even improve your mind probing question. Most of all it will help clarify what authors mean when they use that particular word. It will give you something to look forward to, like where did the author us that word. In what context and how does it build on what you already know. It’s the shortcut for learning something new. If you have a daily goal of learning 3 new things a day, then look at the glossary of a book.
The end of a book is a great place to start even if it hasn’t got a glossary.
It seems like an unusual place to start yet that’s the place the author placed everything that provides background information to help you understand what the text is about. It provides extra information that may even be all the information you need from that author. Also reading the last chapter, the glossary and even the end notes first, will help build the conscious comprehension and understanding faster
For novels, many people will avoid reading the last chapter of a novel to avoid spoiling the story, that’s fine. Yet if you’re not getting it. If it’s not making sense or boring you and you have to read it. Go ahead and read the last chapter now. It’s an ideal approach for a book you simply cannot get into. You can then decide if you want to read it to know how the hero got to that point or you can safely dump it if it was just too predicable. This is especially helpful to those who do read any book from beginning to end. When you think about it. It’s a waste of precious time. Time you could be using on more interesting books even. If you’re spending 12 hours reading a novel do you want to be boring? Read the final chapter and if that doesn’t spark your curiosity then dump the book.
Now if the book is essential reading and you cannot get into it. You must read the final chapter. Then ask yourself questions like how did the hero wind up here. What problems have been solved. Where did this take place.
To read for understanding you need to build your curiosity. So check out the back of the book first. And if you have already started and are struggling. Read the back pages now. Whether you are activating or just traditionally reading. It will boost your understanding of what the text is about.
© Alex Viefhaus
Lets check your activation technique and discuss some of the experiences you might have had.
