Socratic Life

Starting with the knowledge that there are parts of us including mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, social and I am starting to see a place for financial. I have been thinking about the different ways that we can personally improve inside of each of these areas. Is it writing down goals and then hoping to reach them at the end of a time frame that you set for yourself? Is it to be a positive thinker and invite the energy of the universe into your life and hope that you improve? Is it any number of things?”

I would suggest that it takes a very organized an orderly and accountable approach in order to directly improve these areas of your life. The suggestions on the 17 principles of success from Napoleon Hill touch on how to self improve.

1 ) Definiteness of Purpose

2 ) Mastermind Alliance

3 ) Applied faith

4 ) Going the extra mile

5 ) Pleasing Personality

6 ) Personal Initiative

7 ) Positive Mental Attitude

8 ) Enthusiasm

9  ) Self Discipline

10 ) Accurate thinking

11 ) Controlled Attention

12 ) Team Work

13 ) Learning from Diversity and Defeat

14 ) Creative Vision

15 ) Maintenance of sound Health

16 ) Budgeting time and money

17 ) Cosmic Habit force

However they are still almost static. Just sitting there on a page they really don’t do anything for you. Actually nothing can do anything for you. That is unless you have a sincere desire in your heart to change. This brings us to the mighty change of heart that we see in the scriptures. I have found that a mighty change of heart rarely occurs overnight or immediately, but by my definition it is having the energy to choose the right even when you don’t feel like it or even in the face of the adversary. It is an upwards cycle of you doing the best you can even when you have made a mistake. In the LDS faith We promise to have faith, repentance, baptism , holy ghost, endure to the end, search, ponder, pray, have a change of heart, return and report.

It says it well in D+C 109:8 organize yourselves! Prepare every needful thing and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of god. In return we are promised the atonement, the plan of salvation, the scriptures, word of god, revelation, the comforter, being quickened by the spirit and even a renewal of our bodies. In D+C it says that there is a law “irrevocably” decreed that when we obtain any blessing it is by obedience to a law.

Now, what does all of that have to do with self improvement and napoleon hill? Well a few things stick out at me in some of those scriptures. Such as organize yourselves, have a house of learning, a house of order, Search, Ponder, Pray and having a change of heart.

To have a house learning can mean studying the things like we are discussing. Search can mean that while you are learning it can become difficult and you have to search for the answers. Ponder means to think about and self analyze or internalize what we are learning. Having a change of heart means to want to change. It means that you want to change more than you want to………….fill in the blank.

Now I left order and organization out last for a reason. These words are very similar. Let me explain however how they differ. You can be totally organized yet doing things in the wrong order and you may not succeed. In order to Self improve, we must organize ourselves and be more orderly. In order to organize myself usually I write down tasks in a planner and then execute them in the right order. This is very similar to what needs to be done through self improvement. We write down what we want to do. That sounds easy but we must do it in a very specific way.

Going back to the model of Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, Physical, Social and financial, We will write down 2 – 3 things that we want to improve on, but in a very specific way. This way is called APROPOS.

A=Aim. Where are you headed? Where do you want to be? Use Specific Behaviors and dates. How will you know if you have arrived at your destination?

P=Position audit. Where am I now? In relationship to where I want to be? A very clear analysis of my current situation.

R= Resources.What is needed in order for me to reach my aim? People? Money? Specific description.

O= Obstacles and Opportunities. As I start to close the gap of where I am to my goal what will lie in my way and what will be able to help me? How can I forsee roadblocks or tours? What are the consequences with not overcoming the consequences? What are the benefits of taking advantage of the opportunities?

P=Program What is the long term plan to close the gap? 3-5 years

O=Objectives These are the midterm tactics and are for the 1-3 year range

S=Steps What are the action steps needed from now through one year, that are clearly thepath that I shouldtaketo make my goal. This will spell outdates and is the who?, What? Where? Why? and How?

The final section of APROPOS includes a review section that you can record results, your thoughts and feelings. This surprisingly is called a Journal. When I mentioned the return and report, this is where that comes in. We review our action steps at the beginning of the day, week, and month writing down our progress.

As we look at the Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, Physical, Social and financial goals that we have, there is something that we must learn about reality. IT IS FAKE. Really, almost all day long you tell yourself stories that are based on assumptions and judgments. Rarely what we tell ourselves is real at all. You see, usually you let “reality” control your thoughts. You react to events that go on around you and you let yourself become a pawn. This is called the victim story.

Victim Thinking = Victim Behavior =Victim Reality = Victim Thinking = Victim Behavior = Victim Reality->

I mentioned a change of heart. This is where we can apply that. This victim thinking has got to stop in order to reach our goals and ultimately our potentials. This is where you can dramatically improve your lifestyle, your income, your happiness and your way of life.

Now, use your imaginations with me… You are now relieved of having to respond and act like you are expected to. You are now in the reality of “As If” This reality has been given to you by yourself. The reality of “As If” is your potential and is everything that you ever thought you could be or do. It is this reality that we are going to climb onto to make ourselves successful. It is here that we will succeed.

We are going to call this reality “CHAMPION REALITY”. I call it that because It is how champions think.

Champion Reality = Champion Thinking = Champion Behavior = Champion Reality = Champion Thinking = Champion Behavior

When you eliminate in your mind the lies that you tell yourself and replace it with Championship thinking you will quickly realize why this tool is so important.

Once you have learned the tools and have the desire you can now apply.

Let’s say that we are working on the social aspect and have decided that interpersonal communication is what we want to be working on. I say” I am a champion. I am a champion of all things. I am a champion at communication. I can communicate with anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances, because I am a champion.

Now the details are left to ourselves. What do we want to work on? How much self mastery are we willing to work for? These are the things that napoleon hill talks about. But after you read it and it touches you…. You must find away to do it.

What does it take to make a good communicator and why would we want to put so much effort into improving on something that seems so difficult?

As I was thinking about this question and really trying to answer it for my self, I wrote down all of the blocks or internal inhibitors that I use that we discovered in Interpersonal Communication Inhibitors and came to the conclusion that not only do I use a few of these blocks but use all of them at one time or another. Immediately after I posted the Interpersonal Communication Inhibitors article, someone that I am very close to actually emailed me and asked if I wrote it with them in mind. The point is that with all of the roles that we play in this life chances are that we touch on all of the internal inhibitors at some point or another. Some more than others, but all of them at one time or another.

I would challenge you to take the list of internal inhibitors and write down the ten roles that you play the most and leave some space under each that you can write down each of the inhibitors that you use under each role. It may surprise you how often you use them.

It isn’t that you should dwell on how often that you use these blocks in your communication or how detrimental they can be, but it is necessary to look at how often we use them to show what a huge improvement a little bit of work in our Interpersonal communication can bring. There are a few skills that we can be aware of that when applied to the interpersonal communication model will make a very large difference in the way that we communicate, our relationship to others and the positive influence that we have on those around us.

We can look at the example of the Circle of Influence to help us better illustrate this point. As we increase our power of positive influence, the circle of influence expands. Starting with our own self mastery and moving out to our spouses, children and families and then out to our churches, communities and the world. If we rely on anger and negative influence in our relationships within our circle they will no longer listen and push back as we try to communicate. If however, we learn the skills of positive influence and communicate with sincerity, compassion and service our relationships will get better and the people around us will open up to our positive influence. Not only will we have more people in our circle but we will have more power of positive influence with the people in it.

Effective communication involves achieving our goals in a way that maintains and develops trust in the relationship that it occurs. To increase our communication competence and increase our circle of positive influence we have to achieve a goal and generate trust.

Active Listening VS Expressing

What can we expect to learn that will increase our objective of enlarging our circle of positive influence and increase the positive power therein? What should we expect to learn about communication that will hone our skills and enable us to overcome some of the internal inhibitors that we use when we feel threatened while communicating?

We are going to want to take a look at some of the definitions that were listed in the interpersonal communication model and try to increase our understanding and competence of them.

Starting with the sender and receiver in the communication model, In order to have interpersonal communication we have to have people. During most communication sessions we are both a sender and a receiver. As we look specifically at these two roles we will want to break them apart from each other so that we can understand them individually. They will be broken down and labeled with the actions of Active Listening and Expressing.

Active Listening

There are 2 parts of active listening.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means to repeat back in your own words what someone has just said.  You may not need to include everything that they have said. You can keep a mental note of the bullet points that you think the other person is trying to communicate and then repeat them back when you think you have a good grasp on what they are saying. Let’s look at 5 things that paraphrasing does.

1 ) People really appreciate being listened to

2 ) Helps diminish anger and cools us down when we are flooding

3 ) Cuts down on miscommunication

4 ) Assists listeners in remembering what was discussed

5 ) When you paraphrase you will feel less like using the internal inhibitors

Clarifying

(Golden Nugget) Clarifying is perhaps one of the best ways to master communication. Because it is our objective to achieve a goal and generate trust, we must understand what the other person’s goal is. Clarifying is asking questions to gain a better understanding of their goal. If the picture isnt totally clear, you can clarify until it becomes so. Ask questions about background, circumstances, supportive details or anything else that you feel would assist you in understanding what they are trying to explain.

Expressing

Again, because it is our objective to achieve a goal and generate trust, we should keep this in mind when exercising our expression skills. There are 4 different parts of expression: you can express your observations, thoughts, feelings and needs. When used correctly, each of these parts can give us the capability to communicate exactly what we want to in a positive and trust generating manner.

Observations

Observations are what your senses tell you. They are the facts. Simply put we eliminate speculation, inferences, and conclusions. We are stating something that we have heard, seen, experienced or otherwise observed. An example of this can be: “We are late to the meeting.”

Thoughts

Thoughts are the judgments and conclusions that you have drawn from the observations. They are your attempt to describe the why and how of an event. You are using beliefs, opinions, theory and values to explain a conclusion. We should share our thoughts with respect and clarity with our minds eye focusing on reaching the goal and building trust. An example of this can be: “It seems like the managers have a lot of meetings, they are probably very busy.”

Feelings

How you feel is part of what makes you you. Shared feelings can often allow us to see more clearly what each person is trying to convey. When a person shares feelings this builds relationships and conveys trust. By allowing others to know what makes us happy, sad, frustrated or frightened, they can empathize and understand what we are trying to convey better. An example of this can be: “When I speak in front of people I get butterflies in my stomach and get really anxious.”

Needs

No one knows what your needs are other than you. No one can read your mind or guess what your needs are. In order to have close relationships it is necessary to express our needs. Needs are non-judgmental. These are statements about things that help or please you. An example of this can be: “I am so tired, I sure could use a hot bath”

Looking at these different parts of expression allows us to define what we are doing when communicating. When we are able to think things out in our minds and see from an active standpoint what tools we are using, we can better formulate and process better messages to send.

One of my favorite stories is about a detective named Sherlock Holmes. It is interesting to see the way he solves his mysteries. “Just using the facts” he can think under the most strenuous circumstances and can reason through and solve almost any problem. It is the same with us in our interpersonal communication model, as we learn to use the facts to reach the goal and build trust we become better communicators.