How to develop the Power of Belief

Cover of The Magic of Thinking Big

I have recently started reading the book The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. It is a classic in its own right. The power of belief is something I wanted to cover briefly as I feel it is really important. I want to make a few statement first before going into the how.

This is not just psycho-babble. Don't over-react and think that this is pie-in-the-sky psychology rubbish or simple motivational speaking stuff.
As Christians, God has given us freedom to imagine big things and to go for it - I don't believe we should be held back by a small view of God and what He can accomplish through us.
Thinking big isn't wishful thinking, it activates our brains and puts them to work to solve the big things we want them to "create".

On pages 20 and 21 of the book, there are three guides to developing the power of belief. I'm going to go through these now. Sometimes I will quote directly, sometimes I will paraphrase. I will also add my own commentary as we go along.

(Photo credit: Moyan_Brenn)

Think success, don't think failure

This is a simple case of substituting one form of thinking for another form of thinking. When you find yourself going down a rabbit warren of negative thoughts, haul yourself out by the scruff of the neck and begin to replace those negative thoughts with positive thoughts. It's no good simply saying to yourself "I will stop thinking negatively", you have to actually replace the bad with something good. Schwartz says "Let the master thought 'I will succeed' dominate your thinking process'. When you think negative thoughts, you actually train your brain to begin constructing negative conditions that will ultimately lead to failure.

Remind yourself regularly that you better than you think you are.

You aren't superman or superwoman. And to be successful you don't need to have a superintellect "Nor is there anything mystical about success. And success isn't based on luck." Don't sell yourself short. Always realize that God has given you the strength to accomplish that which you apply yourself to. This point does not say that the strength only comes from you. I believe the strength comes from God working in you. But, by the same token, God is unwilling to help those who are unwilling to do something themselves!

(Photo credit: kern.justin)

Believe big

If you think and expect little of yourself, then you are going to achieve little. But, if you think and expect big things of yourself, your success will be commensurate with those. "Big ideas and big plans are often easier - certainly nor more difficult - than small ideas and plans." I would like to quote Ralph J. Cordiner, chairman of the board of the General Electric Company, who said this whilst speaking at a leadership conference some years ago :

"We need from every man [and woman] who aspires to leadership - for himself and his company - a determination to undertake a personal program of self-development. Nobody is going to order a man to develop.... Whether a man lags behind or moves ahead in his specialty is a matter of his own personal application. This is something which takes time, work and sacrifice. Nobody can do it for you."

In whatever area you find yourself, if you truly want to succeed - whatever that success looks like - you need to apply yourself. You need to develop the power of belief through a personal program of hard work.

Infrastructure and Arrangement Done – Now What?

Image by Aaron Parecki at http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronpk/

I'm so glad you asked that question. If I didn't lose you after the last two posts, then well done! I must admit that they were fairly heavy going! Today is a bit more straight-forward in concept, fairly labor-intensive to carry out, but definitely well worth the effort. I wanted to reiterate that what we have been doing in the last two posts has not been rote learning. It has been to do with you making sense of the information in your subjects.Today we are going to draw up a Topical Index, and Compare it to your infrastructure, the textbooks' Contents pages, and the Subject Indices of the textbooks, and Cross-reference these.

Topical Index

As you are reading through your textbooks and deciding how to arrange the information, I want you to note down in a separate place the major topics that are mentioned. This word is difficult to define, so let's use as an example a brief excerpt by way of illustration taken from a Wikipedia article on the Neuron :

Image via CrunchBase
Although neurons are very diverse and there are exceptions to nearly every rule, it is convenient to begin with a schematic description of the structure and function of a "typical" neuron. A typical neuron is divided into three parts: the soma or cell body, dendrites, and axon. The soma is usually compact; the axon and dendrites are filaments that extrude from it. Dendrites typically branch profusely, getting thinner with each branching, and extending their farthest branches a few hundred micrometres from the soma. The axon leaves the soma at a swelling called the axon hillock, and can extend for great distances, giving rise to hundreds of branches. Unlike dendrites, an axon usually maintains the same diameter as it extends."

As an exercise, before continuing, try and see which are the major topics covered in this excerpt. Before you dive in though, let's set some ground-rules :

They are not an Index of every word besides "and, a, but, the".
They are not only the title of a chapter.
They are not only the title of a major section in a chapter.
They are common themes that permeate the chapter and/or book to a greater or lesser extent - in larger subject textbooks such as "Biology 101", Topics will be confined mainly to "Parts" or groupings of chapters of the textbook instead of the whole book.
Always put the textbook name and page number down next to the topic

So, what were your topics? Let me give you mine : Neuron Anatomy. Any other topics would have been too many. The point is to be able to connect major ideas with each other throughout your textbooks. In Bible Study we call that Cross-Referencing. So, in a sense, you are building a Cross-referencing system for your textbook. By the time you have finished your skim-reading, arranging and Topic listing, you should have a list of perhaps 30 topics for a small textbook and upwards of 80 for a large textbook. This leads us to ...

Comparison

Now you take your topics list and compare it to :

Your own infrastructure/skeleton
The Index pages of the textbook/s
The Topical Index pages of the textbook/s if there are any

After you've done this, another bit of labor-intensive time begins. If the excerpt above had been from an Anatomy textbook, what you would then do is find any other similar paragraphs elsewhere and read it and compare the two. I would look for Neuron physiology paragraphs as well and cross-reference them and relate them to the anatomy because the two of are obviously related. This would help me in my third year medicine because when I came to my neurology Pathology, I would need to know where to find information on normal neurology anatomy and physiology before embarking on studying the pathology of that section. Now with a well-developed cross-referenced system I would have gold-mine at my finger-tips!

Screen clipping from Logos Bible Software showing the detail of the cross-referencing system of the New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

The screen-clipping above is from my Logos Bible Software program. In the left section is the passage from John chapter 3 verse 16 and following. In the right column is the related part from a book called the New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. This book is, in essence, an extremely detailed cross-referencing system of the whole Bible, and you can see how detailed the cross-referencing system is, by all the different symbols etc.

I’m Unstuck, but I’m Now Lost in the Forest

Having looked in the last postat trying to get unstuck during the study of a subject, we saw how Goofy eventually got unstuck from the trombone. But what we didn't discuss was how he ended up after getting unstuck. He flew through the air and ended up inside a bush far from the Mickey Mouse Club House.

Art Babbit is credited with creating Goofy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What I would like to look at in this post is what you do after you have gained some degree of understanding from your reading of your textbook and notes. The whole purpose of the previous post was understanding. What I would like to do now is extend that further. In a sense, this post is going to enable you to deepen that initial level that hopefully you were able attain.

Classify and Arrange what you have Read and Understood

Remember, at this stage, you are not doing any "studying". You aren't necessarily directly applying any of the chunking principles that we have discussed before. However, this aspect of classifying and arranging the information that you have understood is absolutely crucial to help you before you actually begin the task of memorizing, and applying the information to problem-based and equation- or solution-based examinations.

Textbook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. Put infrastructure and textbooks side-by-side. As I noted previously, often your lecture notes will be your infrastructure. The lecturers will give you a very good idea as to what type of skeleton they like their subject they want their subject to have; and how to apply that to each lecture. However, not every lecturer is of the same quality. Now that you have gained some degree of understanding, put your lecture "skeleton" next to your textbook/textbooks. This is the crucial question : does the lecture-note skeleton measure up to your understanding of your textbook/s reading?If not, see the next point.

Pile of textbooks, reading glasses, and a calculator. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

2. Begin to create your own infrastructure. Yes! You are allowed to do this! One of the driving forces of Schooled for Life is that the Student is the one drives the learning, not the lecturer! You are in control of how to arrange the information to suite how you understand and remember that information! But, don't misunderstand me here. I am not saying you are allowed to change the facts themselves. I cannot suddenly barge into my lecturer's office and say "The earth is the centre of the universe." Well, I suppose I could, but I wouldn't exactly get very far within the academic community, would I? No. What I am saying is that the way the infrastructure is arranged and given to you can be changed any way you want it to be changed.

Skeletons (Photo credit: Jollyboy)

3. Create your own "textbook". We live in the digital age. Scanning sections in textbooks can take seconds. Arranging them can take seconds. What I mean by "Create your own textbook" is that you can now add the relevant information onto the infrastructure that you have now created. If you are short on time, you could simply draw a large skeleton and write page reference numbers with the relevant textbook under each branch or limb of the skeleton. If you have more time, you can literally create your own textbook by digitally using your own infrastructure as a type of Contents Page, and scan the relevant pages from the textbooks and paste them into the pages in a word processor on your computer. Then, either print it out, or use it on your computer as your own textbook. Be sure to reference all the scans. You could also make a large textbook on a wall in your room. Draw the skeleton, and Prestik the scanned sections from the textbooks under each relevant limb of the infrastructure. In the next post, I am going to begin a more detailed look at chunking, and will follow that with a cross-referencing system that will blow your mind!

Help! I'm stuck! (schooledforlife.com)
Free textbooks (gasstationwithoutpumps.wordpress.com)
Follett and Inkling partner to give more digital textbook access (teleread.com)
Future U: The stubborn persistence of textbooks (arstechnica.com)
Lectures 101 (schooledforlife.com)
Cool Tool | Bookboon Makes e-Textbooks Free (edtechdigest.wordpress.com)
Lectures 102 : What not to do (schooledforlife.com)
Just Do It (theresurgence.com)

Help! I’m stuck!

Art Babbit is credited with creating Goofy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My little boys are going through a phase of loving to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on DSTV. We've got the whole all the songs memorized by now! One of the episodes that we have recorded on our PVR decoder has a segment where Goofy gets stuck inside Donald Duck's huge Trombone, and they have try and remove him from it. Eventually they do, obviously.

trombone 025 (Photo credit: Angela Hawkins)

But, I know that students can get to a point in their studies where they feel like their bums are stuck inside a trombone and they can't get any further! I received an email from a student just the other day asking me about this very topic. I want to issue a disclaimer before I continue this post - every subject is different. Biochenistry (the subject this student emailed me about) is a very tricky area to deal with and has it's own set of problems. And each subject has its own set of issues. I cannot go into details for each subject so this post is going to be full of generalizations. But I will obviously be helping that student individually. If any of you have specific problems, please feel free to post below or to email me at dave@schooledforlife.com or dave1314@gmail.com.

1. Start with your lecture notes. If you have followed my suggestions about taking good lecture notes, then you will probably have a good

071 J_01a Page Two from H. P. Lovecraft 18-Nov-1932 Letter to E. Hoffmann Price 9 X 7.6 From the 10-May-1981 Envelope to William Hart (Photo credit: California Cthulhu (Will Hart))

infrastructure with which to begin working with your subject.

2. Read your textbook for understanding. Take the textbook that is prescribed reading for your course and read the relevant section for understanding, not necessarily for memorizing. Read the section with highlighters, pencils and a notebook at hand for you to jot down any questions you have. Remember, you are reading to understand, so memorizing you are going to leave for a later stage. This particular step is fit for a whole series of topics all on its own, and perhaps we can delve into that in the near future.

3. Read other textbooks. Here, find books that simplify the information. A medical example would be Human Anatomy For Dummies. These books will often break down the information into understandable chunks and explain it in such a way that you can immediately grasp and begin to apply.

4. Seek out knowledgeable students.Take note of those in your class who seem to be pretty clued up on what is going on in the course you are struggling with. If you have a good relationship with them, approach them and ask them if they wouldn't mind explaining some of the key concepts to you, and perhaps showing you how they approach studying the subject. You don't need to even find a student on your own class, you could find one who is a year or two ahead of you who you know did well in that particular subject. Again, offer to buy them a cup of coffee, spend time with them and absorb information like a sponge.

Students of Saint Mary's Hall (Photo credit: Robert of Fairfax)

5. Speak to your lecturer. Some lecturers are simply on another planet and cannot be reached by any conventional means. In this case, see point number 3! However, fairly frequently, lecturers are quite willing to spend time helping you if they can see you are struggling with their subject. Make an initial appointment, prepare what you are going to ask them, bring all your books and notes along, and then grill them!

Lectures 102 : What not to do(schooledforlife.com)
Mini-Lectures(twowritingteachers.wordpress.com)
Prepare for Finals without the all night study sessions(glendalecommunitycollege.wordpress.com)
What my 11 year old's Stanford course taught me about online education(gametheorist.blogspot.com)
Why Do Students Seek Help with Their Essays?(jamesharl.wordpress.com)

The Single Most Important Study Fact You Will Ever Learn

Complete neuron cell diagram. Neurons (also known as neurones and nerve cells) are electrically excitable cells in the nervous system that process and transmit information. In vertebrate animals, neurons are the core components of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is, perhaps, the single most important fact you will ever have to know about studying. When you read it you will probably go, "Huh?", but it really is revolutionary. Here it is :

The more ways you learn a fact, the better your chances are at remembering it."

Let me back-track a little bit. I do apologize a little bit if this gets a little technical. In her brilliant book Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning Judy Willis explains that while we may stop growing neurons in our brain, we don't stop growing dendrites. Now, dendrites are outgrowths from neurons that grow as new things are learned. The more we learn, the more dendrites our brain grows.

Line art drawing of a Neuron 1. Dendrites 2. Cell Body 3. Nucleus 4. Axon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If we are learning a particular fact, it has been shown that the more ways we learn that fact, the more dendrites are created to enable us to remember that fact. So, let us take a rudimentary example of a language student learning a new word. Let's say you are learning Greek. First, you prime the process by writing the word out. Then you hear yourself say it a few times, and you hear a few different classmates say it a few times, and you hear your lecturer say it a few times. And you hear the word being used in an mp3 file that your lecturer plays for your - perhaps a reading of a Greek New Testament verse that contains that word. Then, later that day, while you are sitting around the lunch table, each of you and your friends practice saying the word in a sentence again. So, you have written it, heard it, and read it repeatedly. This results in more successful long-term memory storage and retrieval than just memorizing the definition of the word. If the word happens to be an object, then practice handling the object whilst talking about it. Maybe create a crazy story about the object as well and tell your friends about it. I promise you that you will all remember it easily! So, remember : The more ways you learn a fact, the better your chances are at remembering it!

Our Most Important Memories Live in Just a Few Neurons [Science](gizmodo.com)
The Power of the Individual Neuron.(metacognizant.wordpress.com)
How to Learn New Job Skills While You are Working(socyberty.com)

http://www.cambridgeopencollege.co.uk/

Turn the tables on yourself

thinking (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Those of you who know me know that I am a Christian. I have recently been having a lively and healthy discussion with my pastor, Clint Archer about the role of secular psychology as opposed to Biblical counseling. I asked him what his misgivings were with secular psychology in one paragraph (how's that for an unfair challenge!). He did an amazing job of summarizing his position and putting it across clearly and Biblically. You can read his post here. You can also read my responses below his post. You can tell by my responses that I was being quite self-righteous and little bit condescending. So, I decided to do a little exercise that I want to discuss with you today. I turned the tables on myself. I turned the question around and asked myself the exact same question. I spent more than a few days thinking about it, and do you want to know something very interesting? My answer was almost the same as his! My wording would have been slightly different, but essentially, my position and his position were almost the same, and my self-righteous posturing crumbled like a house of cards!

house of cards by karilan at http://www.flickr.com/photos/67869542@N07/

It was a very humbling experience, but an absolutely essential one. So, I want to discuss four reasons turning the tables on yourself is essential in the academic world.

Man thinking on a train journey. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1. It forces you to examine your own assumptions. We all go into a discussion with our own presumptions and assumptions. We can be so blinded by our own presumptions that we are unable to listen to what the other person is saying. [As an aside : In the early years of college or university, your lecturers don't really expect you to think for yourselves. They expect you to accept what they tell you as a basis for your later years where you will be expected to think for yourselves more and more. My feeling, though, is that you should start developing this skill right from the start, because it is completely reasonable for you to begin to challenge your lecturers on what they teach.] By turning the question on yourself, you suddenly realize how biased your own question was in the first place. You realize that your question was asked because you were looking for an excuse to argue your own position.

This is a "thought bubble". It is an illustration depicting thought. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

2. It deepens your thinking ability.By flipping the direction of the question, you have to change the direction of your thoughts all of a sudden, and it forces your brain to expand its ability to think deeply about the matter at hand. While you were doing the asking, your brain had all the neural pathways literally lined up with your own way of thinking. But when you change that and put the question to yourself, you disrupt those pathways alarmingly! Now, your brain has to go into overdrive to start connecting new neural pathways as at ponders the question in a different light.

3. It makes you humble. This will be the most difficult part. No-one likes to be wrong, or to be humbled. Especially when they are passionate about a specific topic. But it is the best thing that can happen to you. A humble person is a teachable person. Show me an arrogant person and I will show you someone who is not teachable. At Medical School, those students who came across as being too cocky or arrogant made very few friends, especially during their practical exams! 4. It ultimately builds bridges.Especially where there was the initial risk that bridges might have been in jeopardy. By turning that question around towards myself, I was able to see that Clint and I are practically seeing eye to eye on an extremely important issue. If I had not done that, I could have risked misunderstanding him, and perhaps long-term could have risked affecting our friendship to a certain degree. Humility leads you to a point of finding common ground, which leads to understanding, which leads to building bridges instead of burning them.