Scott H Young

This is the third article in the series entitled, “Patterns for Success”. In the past two entries I have discussed how understanding and utilizing an effective pattern for your own personal development and growth is crucial. In my own development the same, three-step pattern has continued to surface. The three steps are ideas, implementation and review. Ideas form the seeds of our own growth. Implementation takes these tiny seeds and turns them into mighty trees.

Patterns for Success

Intro
Ideas
Implementation
Review

As I have hammered in on you in the past two articles, it is your ability to implement your ideas, not the quality of the ideas themselves, that will ultimately determine the growth and improvement you experience. A great idea isn’t worth anything unless you can put it into action. Understanding the principles of how to implement ideas, along with some noticeable constraints the implementation process has can allow you to act upon those ideas with maximum effectiveness.

The first idea you must understand if you want to be successful at implementing ideas is that your capacity for implementation is far, far less than most people imagine. Successfully implementing ideas is a very time and energy consuming process and it is impossible to act upon more than just a few ideas at any one time. This is why careful selection of ideas is important. Since you can only successfully implement a handful of the thousands of ideas you have at your disposal, you can’t choose hastily.

Focus

There are two resources which you must tap, primarily, in order to implement ideas. These are focus and discipline. Focus is the resource of directing your conscious thoughts towards an idea and actions. Discipline is the resource you have for being able to move through pain or discomfort. Most people readily understand that discipline is often required in the pursuit of an idea, but frequently neglect the importance of focus. Focus is a precious resource and it is far easier to squander than discipline.

Whenever you are implementing a new idea, be it a habit, a goal or a skill you need to focus on the actions that create it. Focus is the primary resource you use in directing your actions. I have learned this lesson the hard way. I failed quite a few of my habit conditioning efforts simply because I didn’t place enough focus in their realization. Even if an idea isn’t painful and doesn’t require any discipline, all ideas require some level of focus. Seeing as focus is the major limiting factor in the quantity of ideas you can implement, it is very important to understand how it is used.

Unlike money, energy or time, squandering focus doesn’t give any feedback. We all know what it is like to feel tired, busy or poor, but diverted focus won’t give you an emotional connection. Diverted focus only makes itself apparent when suddenly the idea we are trying to implement slips through our fingers or we forget about a goal we had set. Because diverted focus never produces any noticeable, negative response until it is too late, we must be careful in its usage.

The properties of focus are why I would suggest limiting your personal development implementation to less then you feel is possible. Spending your focus on just a few ideas rather than on many will ensure that a few good ideas become reality rather than dozens of ideas that fizzle out. It may seem bizarre to try and focus on doing less than you feel is possible, but this technique has allowed me to lock in place a lot of personal growth fairly rapidly. Instead of taking two steps forward and one step back, all of my energy is put in one direction while minimizing setbacks.

Be Thorough

Just as focusing on fewer ideas can mean a better quality of implementation, being thorough in the implementation of an idea ensures a greater chance that your ideas will last. In our rapid pace world most people don’t feel they have time to thoroughly explore one idea before moving to the next. Instead of full understanding they just want the gist of it. Instead of a solution they want a quick fix. Instead of hard work they just want to use fast and easy scheme.

If we are going to continue with our botany analogy for personal development, if your ideas are seeds, then implementation is actually growing the tree. Most people don’t want to wait for the tree to grow, so they rush to plant a new seed soon after the first one has barely sprouted. Unfortunately a strong wind can easily uproot the young sapling and completely reset the progress. By thoroughly tending to the tree until it has strong enough roots to support itself, the idea can take hold and last.

Being thorough means not to pursue any idea with a half volition. Pursue every idea you encounter with all your resources. Don’t just stop tending and focusing on the idea because you feel it is successfully implemented. Overkill your implementation a little. When I am conditioning a new habit I often feel like the habit is pretty well installed when I still have some more time. At this time I must call upon my patience to continue to focus on the habit for a little longer to ensure it takes hold.

When you read a book from an experienced author, such as Tony Robbins or Brian Tracy, it can almost be overwhelming to try and absorb even a fraction of the ideas they throw at you. As a result you may like some of the ideas they present but instead of focusing on just one or two for at least a month you try and focus on several just in the next day. Months go by and you haven’t implemented any noticeable changes.

Be focused and thorough with your implementation. Once you establish an idea into your behavior consistently for a long time it no longer requires any effort or discipline to run. Habits when implemented thoroughly last far longer. Goals when pursued thoroughly can accomplish far more. Practice when trained regularly lead to mastery. Don’t let your personal development efforts be squandered because you were unable to focus.

Isn’t this process of personal development very slow? No, it’s just the opposite. In the short term it may seem like focusing specifically on just one idea for at least a month would be counterproductive and incredibly slow, but in the long term these small trees grow into a forest. Because each tree gets firmly rooted before you plant another one, you have very few setbacks. If you pursued just one new habit a month, you could change twelve in a year. This means you could have a year where you quit smoking, adopted a new diet, began waking up early each morning, gave up television, started exercising regularly, began reading a book per week, trained in speed reading, began listening to audio programs daily, started drinking twelve glasses of water a day, began journaling your life, spent more time strengthening your relationships and began starting your day with morning runs. Most people wouldn’t do that much personal development in a decade or two, never mind a year. Thoroughly pursuing and focusing on ideas can produce amazing results.

Growth Increases Focus Capacity

Another factor that is important in your implementation is simply that the amount you have already grown greatly strengthens your capacity for focus and discipline. The more ideas you have implemented the greater your ability to implement new ideas. I believe that the reason this acceleration of growth occurs for two major reasons. The first is simply that as you develop better skills in general areas of growth (e.g. discipline, courage, goal-setting, etc.) you become more proficient at specific areas of growth. Changing habits for me has become fairly easy for me simply because I am so used to the process. The second reason is because as you really start enjoying the experience of personal development you will be willing to push through a bit of initial difficulty because you know that the growth you experience will be worthwhile.

The key to using focus is simply to recognize its impact. If you’ve tried implementing some ideas with fairly mediocre results, try focusing on just one or two of them. Deciding exactly how to split your focus is a competition between efficiency and effectiveness. Until you feel really comfortable with your pattern for personal development I would aim for effectiveness over efficiency.

Tools for Implementation

By now you understand that implementing ideas is a relatively slow process compared with generating them. Now I am going to discuss different methods and tools for improving your ability to implement ideas. Basic tools such as goal-setting, habit conditioning and directed practice can greatly lower the cost of implementing ideas as they come to you. Keep in mind that these implementation strategies are ideas in themselves. The nice thing about implementing implementation tools (wrap your head around that one) is that they can usually be practiced in conjunction with other ideas. Practicing goal setting can also be done by setting goals for another idea. Practicing 30-Day Trials is done by trying to change other habits.

Here are some of the primary tools I use for implementing new ideas:

Goals Setting

Goals setting has to be one of the most important tools for implementing ideas. The basis behind goal setting is focus. As I previously mentioned, pursuing ideas requires you to be selective, make decisions and utilize focus. Focus is the primary attribute of any goal setting program. Goal setting is basically a simple procedure to isolate what areas you are going to focus on in advance so it is easier to streamline ideas.

If I set a goal to lose a certain amount of weight, then this allows me to cut off a huge amount of ideas that have nothing to do with health or losing weight. Goals make the process of selecting which ideas to pursue far easier. Think of a goal setting like a magnifying glass. It focuses the resources you already have and uses them in a directed manner. For more information on goal setting, read this.

Trials Periods

There are many methods for conditioning your habits, but one of my personal favorites is the 30 Day Trial. The 30 Day Trial allows you to be thorough in the implementation of a new habit. Just as goal setting harnesses your focus, 30 Day Trials force you to be thorough. The 30 Day Trial is just a nice name for the tool, but the theory behind it can be used for more than just habits. If you feel that you need at least ninety days to implement an idea, make a 90 Day Trial.

Trial periods force you to be more thorough then you might otherwise be. With goal setting to harness your focus, trial periods force you to make sure that the tree you planted has firmly rooted before moving on. Habits tend to take 30 Days, but if your idea is more complicated you may need more time. Some really intensive habits may take less time, but I find 30 Days is a pretty good number to work with.

Conscious Practice

If goals create focus and trial periods ensure thoroughness, conscious practice streamlines the process of mastery. Conscious practice involves working on an idea over and over again until it becomes second nature to you. The four basic steps for conscious practice are:

1. Determine the exact skill you need to master.
2. Practice it constantly, over and over and over again.
3. Get feedback immediately after each practice
4. Set tiny goals and make minor adjustments to optimize constantly.

I briefly outlined the methods for conscious practice in my article Back To Basics. The best environment I’ve ever seen that utilizes conscious practice is Toastmasters. At Toastmasters you are there for a specific purpose, to improve your speaking ability (step one). You have many opportunities to speak in many different formats (step two). After you give any speech you are given feedback from an evaluator within minutes (step three). Finally each speaking project has very specific goals for improvement such as gestures, word usage or visual aids to optimize your progress (step four).

Conscious practice can be applied to any idea that requires skills to build. For example, if you wanted to become a faster reader, you could buy a book on speed reading. Speed reading is a perfect example of a skill that requires practice. You would first identify the specific skills of speed reading such as hand movements, comprehension and retention. Then you could practice for an hour every day consistently for a month or two. You could do regular testing to see what your reading speed and comprehension rate is. Finally you could set little goals to improve either your comprehension, retention or other skills. By utilizing the four steps of conscious practice you can greatly increase your rate of improvement then you could by just trying it haphazardly.

How Much Should You Do?

I think if you’ve read up to this point you might be wondering exactly how many of your ideas should try to implement at a time? I’ve discussed why many people fail to make progress is because they don’t focus on just a few ideas and they aren’t thorough in their implementation. My answer to the above question would really depend on how many personal development ideas you have already implemented. If you haven’t implemented many ideas successfully for the long-term then I would suggest giving just one idea virtually all your resources for a considerable while. Once you have implemented quite a few ideas permanently, you have a far better idea of your own capacity.

If you are new to personal development, or you simply haven’t been able to permanently affect the ideas you’ve been reading about, I suggest going extremely focused and thorough with one idea at a time. Set a goal for the idea you want to establish. Run a 30 Day Trial around that idea and utilize conscious practice to improve your skills. Only once you have really experience what it is like to permanently install a habit should you move to a new one. Even if there are many areas of your life that need work, successfully implementing just one idea can give you the foundation for all future progress.

If you are a long time or proficient personal development warrior then use your own judgement for your capacity. I have done a few double trials, two 30 Day Trials occurring simultaneously, usually two habits that have closely related areas or themes. Before I found doing two trials at once was too difficult to focus on and they were unsuccessful. I’m slowly raising the degree of ideas I am implementing in my own life.

Implementation is the essence of personal development. The ideas you have form the seeds and implementation grows them into mighty trees. By understanding the importance of focus and thoroughness in your own personal development efforts you won’t squander your precious resources by pursuing too many ideas at once. Implementation strategies in the form of goal setting, trial periods and conscious practice can allow you to act on your ideas more rapidly. Implement ideas to really form your pattern for success.

In the next article, review, I will talk about the final step in my pattern of success. Review is, perhaps, one of the most neglected steps in successful personal development. Although implementation can grow the trees, review really solidifies them in place. There are many practices for review and each of them allows you to add more stability and permanence to the ideas you already have found successful in your pattern for success.
Patterns for Success

Intro
Ideas
Implementation
Review

This is the second article in the series entitled, “Patterns for Success.” In the previous entry I wrote about how recognizing and utilizing a pattern for all of your personal growth accomplishments will greatly influence your results. For virtually all of my experiences in personal growth I have noticed a consistent pattern that emerges. This pattern focuses on the same three steps: ideas, implementation and review. Ideas give you the seeds for potential growth and improvement. Implementation nourishes these seeds until they become actual growth in your life. Finally review tends to your results so lessons only need to be learned once and improving your skill at selecting ideas and allowing implementation that works.

Patterns for Success

Intro
Ideas
Implementation
Review

Ideas form the first step in the pattern of self-improvement. Ideas give you more options and choices from which you can pursue. Having an insatiable appetite for new ideas can give you a huge volume of information that can be utilized. Ideas for improvement can be found in many different ways, from reading to modeling to introspection. Being selective with the ideas you move forward into the next step, implementation, allows you to ensure that only the ideas that have the greatest opportunity to expand and improve are used.

Successful collection and selection of ideas first must come with the strong desire to learn, and an incredible curiosity. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but human beings need it if they don’t want to stay trapped in a prison of their current circumstances. Without an incredible drive and enthusiasm for new ideas, they cannot come to you. Similarly, a curious mind that is willing to head off on a tangent when presented with a new idea is necessary to broaden the range of ideas you receive.

Increasing your own curiosity and drive for ideas is not just a matter of genetics or environment. You can increase your curiosity by associating incredibly fun, enjoyment and pleasure to learning and finding new ideas. The best way to do this is to reward yourself whenever you make progress in your personal development or gain new ideas. I know that my own drive for personal development and growth really happened after I had started to experience it. The feeling of victory over my obstacles, the sense of control and mastery over the direction of my own life and the excitement that comes when a new idea, like goal-setting, 30-Day Trials or NLP significantly improves my life.

I think if you are reading this blog then you too have a keen enthusiasm and passion for gaining new insights, ideas and information. That passion and enthusiasm to really squeeze the very most out of your life is the reason I’m blogging here today and I suspect it is the reason you are reading these words. Let’s now explore how we can really cultivate more ideas towards our own improvement.

Cultivating Ideas

There are many methods of cultivating ideas for your own improvement. My personal strategy for information gathering is to be highly sensitive to new information and focus on a broad perspective. Areas of growth and opportunities for improvement generally lie just slightly below the surface and can generally be uncovered by just being sensitive to their presence. So generally I let my intuition guide me in deciding what to learn about and research. Most of the books I have read came from a quick thought rather than a logical process of selecting what to read.

Keep in mind that idea gathering is not the same as learning. Although learning has a fairly broad definition, I am using it in a narrow context. By learning I mean either mastery of a skill or a full understanding of a concept. This point is crucial. Just because I tell you about speed reading or goal setting doesn’t mean you can replicate those skills. Similarly a full understanding of goal-setting or any other skill can only come from direct experience with it. Human beings learn best through direct experience. Mastery and understanding are the result of conscious practice in the implementation phase.

There are many methods for cultivating ideas, I’ll try to sum up a few of the primary methods I use.

• Reading - Reading has to be one of the best ways to pursue new ideas. Most of our communication is still written, so reading is an excellent method for gaining new ideas. Don’t just read online articles and blogs. Although there is some very genuine and quality information over the net, I find that with such a low entry barrier for publication you have to sift through a lot of junk to find it. Buy some books, better yet, go to your library and start reading for free. If you find it hard to read a lot of material, try a speed reading course to improve the amount of written material you can consume. I have written about the value of writing before, here.
• Audio Programs - Audio programs are another excellent way to gain ideas for your own personal development. The real advantage to audio programs is that you get to listen to the authors words and emphasis. This makes absorbing the essence of the ideas far easier then when you must interpret that emphasis from the word usage. Audio programs are also far easier to listen to when doing other mundane tasks. Adding audio programs to your day generally doesn’t use up any more time. I wrote about audio programs here.
• Model Others - Look at other people who are successful in an area where you would like to grow. By looking at examples of success you can gain ideas about the possibilities for your own growth. Study the person who has traits you admire. How do they think and behave? What traits and skills do they have that you could build? Modeling other people allows you to learn from the benefits of their mistakes and can save more time than trial and error approaches.
• Introspection - Look into yourself. What areas do you feel you have room to grow in. What ideas do you already have for solving those problems. Often ideas for self improvement already exist in our subconscious mind for us to unearth. Simply take out a pad of paper and a pen and dissect your life and view its components. When you encounter an area that you think may deserve some attention and has the potential for growth, begin brainstorming ways you can improve. I wrote about writing to solve personal problems here.
• Broaden Your Perspective - I like to classify personal growth into two major flavors, vertical and lateral. Vertical growth is the push-hard, reach-for-the-stars improvement. Goals, self-discipline and delayed gratification are the hallmarks of this kind of growth. Lateral growth, on the other hand, involves broadening your perspective. Trying new foods, traveling the world and even falling in love would fall under this area of growth. Lateral growth has the amazing ability to give you a huge flow of ideas, references and thoughts you can reuse. Taking time to broaden your perspective from an initial idea can spawn dozens of ideas in its place.
• Test Your Limits - Pursuing vertical growth to your current maximum can also create an outburst of ideas that can be used for future growth. Unfortunately, most people have never pushed themselves to their limits before. As a result, their capacity never gets stretched. Regularly stretching your abilities to their uppermost limits can be an incredible source of ideas for where to go next. Feeling the edge of your limits doesn’t so much as generate new ideas as it makes you believe that the old, impossible ideas are now possible.

If you’ve been primarily focusing on vertical growth, investing more time to implement a few lateral growth ideas can create massive benefits for your own development. Similarly, if you haven’t really had to push yourself in awhile, pursuing a challenging goal and testing your limits can breathe new possibility into the ideas you already possess.

There are many methods of gaining new ideas and I’ve only mentioned a quick summary. The key is to broaden your perspective and try many different methods of gaining ideas. By utilizing various mediums for idea gathering you can have the most diverse group of ideas. A diverse group of ideas forms the strongest base to select from.

Be Selective

The energy and time required to implement an idea is far more than the cost of gaining that idea itself. If you are like me then you have many times more ideas then those that can be implemented. Learning to be selective about what ideas you choose to implement can allow you to have maximum effectiveness and efficiency in your own growth.

How do you select which ideas to pursue? This all comes down to decisions. You must decide what ideas have the greatest potential to improve your life and utilize those. Making this decision can be done through asking a few simple questions:

1) What will likely be the return on my investment? If you are horribly overweight and in very poor physical condition, investing in the ideas for improving your health will likely have far greater returns then trying to increase your income by 5%. I classify return on investment by determining how pursuing this idea will enable me for future growth. Some ideas have a domino effect by improving your ability to grow in other areas simultaneously. Those ideas are the most valuable.

2) How close is this idea to the edge of my comfort zone? This is a big question to ask. The greatest growth, both lateral and vertical, comes from pursuing ideas that live on the fringe of your comfort zone. These ideas are ripe for massive expansion. If you like pursuing spiritual growth but struggle with your health, health related ideas are far more valuable for your overall growth. Similarly, if you are afraid to speak in public or are incredibly shy, joining Toastmasters would be a very beneficial area of growth to pursue. Even if you think that an idea has a greater return, if it is too far within your comfort zone it has limited growth potential.

3) What is my level of interest and enthusiasm towards this idea? The success of your ideas depends on your motivation to pursue and achieve them. If you aren’t genuinely enthusiastic about the results of an idea, you will not be able to successfully implement it. I hesitate to add this question because I think some people may use it as an excuse to avoid areas where they need to grow but are hesitant or fearful about pursuing them. Enthusiasm in this context doesn’t have to be an overjoyed feeling of glee, in this situation enthusiasm and passion can represent something deeper and more meaningful. Perhaps you are a little worried or hesitant about going out and making new friends or meeting new people. But at the same time you can be very interested and passionate about the possibilities that this could provide. Don’t get yourself passionate about the idea, but rather about the growth it can provide.

Don’t Hesitate

Although this may seem like a complete contradiction to my last piece of advice, it isn’t. You need to be selective about what areas of your growth to pursue, but don’t hesitate in implementing the best idea you have at the time. Every day you aren’t implementing ideas is a day without growth. Don’t wait around for the perfect idea to hit you, just implement the best idea you have at the time.

When you’ve just finished implementing an idea you should already have a good idea of what idea to pursue next. When I am doing 30 Day Trials (just one of many implementation methods, more on that later…) I start narrowing down the choices for my next trial at around Day 20 and by the final day I should be ready to choose what I am going to do next. Similarly, you should be keeping a list of ideas and prioritizing that list so that when you have the capacity to pursue more of them you don’t have to search out new ideas, they are already there.

For the past year I have been in pretty much non-stop 30 Day Trials for various habits. Even if I can’t find a glorious personal development idea to experiment with, I still do something. Your goal is to use your best ideas not to wait for perfect ones. I know this seems pretty basic, but so many people are flooded with ideas that they don’t really take the time to select just one or two and start implementing them.

Distinguish Between Ideas and Implementation

I can’t stress this point enough. Getting ideas is not the same as implementing them. In the classic business book, In Search of Excellence, one of the eight key characteristics of excellent companies is called ‘a bias for action’. Basically, a bias for action means spending less time strategizing and more time actually experimenting and doing. Real growth doesn’t come from reading a book, it comes from experience. True understanding and mastery only come when you can look back at an idea from the face of your own trials.

I listen to a lot of audio programs and read a lot of books. At times the author will present an idea to me that I will agree with and understand, however, I don’t truly appreciate the power of the idea. Later after my experiences have taught me a lesson, when I begin to articulate that lesson I realize that the author had said the lesson in pretty much the same words when I listened to it months earlier. Most of the ideas I have really benefitted from seemed fairly obvious or innocuous at the time. It was only later, when I had an “Aha!” moment and thought to myself, “So that was what he/she was talking about…”

Just like the poor companies mentioned throughout In Search of Excellence, most people have a bias for planning or observing, not action. Implementation may not be as sexy or fun as reading about great personal development ideas, but it is far more effective. Oddly enough, though, a bias for action doesn’t usually decrease the amount you read and cultivate for ideas. Usually a strong focus on implementing ideas primes you for seeking out ideas even more. I’m not worried that by telling you to focus on action rather than reading that you will abandon this blog. I know that if you really start to focus on idea implementation it will increase your desire and power for choosing ideas to pursue.

Ideas are the seeds of all personal development. Whether you get an idea internally, or you discover it from research and study, these ideas hold great potential for your own growth and improvement. By reading, listening, modeling, expanding, stretching and reflecting you can cultivate huge stores of ideas for your own improvement. By operating from a selective but hasty perspective you can quickly implement the very best of your ideas. Cultivate and select the best ideas to really get the most out of your life!

In the next article, Implementation, I will discuss how we can take these hand-picked ideas and turn them into reality. There are many techniques for implementing ideas more effectively, and by practicing these methods you can increase your capacity for idea implementation. By changing our perspective on the implementation process we can also ensure that each idea gets successfully locked into our lives, forming a stable foundation for all future growth.

Patterns for Success

Intro
Ideas
Implementation
Review