Greetings!
Welcome to this edition of the Voyages of Discovery Newsletter, the newsletter that is all about you and your voyages of discovery of your genius. If you missed our previous newsletters, get them here from our archives.
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What is your dominant intelligence?
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 How does it benefit you to know this? An Opportunity lost!
Most of us go through life without once realizing what abundance has been bestowed upon us by being born in this world and on this earth. That is an awesome opportunity ...........................lost!
No, that is not a flippant comment. If that has made you sit up, well may it be so because you are indeed missing something quite phenomenal. And it resides in you. You do not have to go anywhere looking for it.
Dominant Intelligence
What do we mean by our dominant intelligence?
Human beings come into this world armed with not one but seven intelligences (later to be increased to eight), so said Harvard University Professor, Dr. Howard Gardner. In his path breaking research followed by the book Frames of Mind, he came up with the Theory of Multiple Intelligences;that a human being is born with seven intelligences. This theory has generally come to be accepted as the norm for assessing human intelligence and potential.
Multiple Intelligences
What are these seven intelligences?- Linguistic-the sensitivity to spoken and written language
- Logical-the capacity to analyze problems logically
- Musical-the skill to perform and compose musical patterns
- Bodily, Kinesthetic-the skill to use one's whole body or parts to solve problems
- Spatial-the skill to recognize & use wide spaces,confined areas
- Interpersonal-the capacity to understand intentions, motivations and desires of people
- Intrapersonal-the capacity to understand one's feelings, fears and motivations
Gardner claimed that the seven intelligences rarely operate independently.
More important however than the seven intelligences that you have been blessed with is the understanding of your dominant intelligence(s).
Studies have found that while an average person possesses all seven intelligences he or she will have three or four that are stronger than the others.
Dominant intelligence is the phrase used to mark your strongest ability. It is one or more of your preferred methods of learning and assimilation. This is important because they indicate how you think.
You may find that your dominant intelligence is interpersonal - the capacity to understand intentions, motivations and desires of people. Maybe you are excellent with people, you could be a motivational speaker, team coach and so forth. You may also have an ability to master languages - the linguistic intelligence.
It has been found that generally you will have more than one dominant intelligence.
Try this
Think back to your childhood days (the most accurate indicator of any kind of skills or talents you possess) - what were you very good at? It could be sketching, painting (spatial intelligence), singing, playing a musical instrument, composing songs (musical intelligence) and so forth. Write down what your dominant intelligence is based on these observations.
It will require some quiet time to yourself in reflection for this very critical exercise of identifying your dominant intelligence(a).
Benefits
You must now be asking what the point is for all this effort? How does it benefit you to know your dominant intelligence? Well, the benefit is that you will identify in yourself certain skills, talents or gifts you never believed you had. This is one of the stellar moments in the voyage of discovery of your self.
Perhaps you thought you could never sing but discovered that you are actually very gifted in it. How will you ever know if you never gave it a chance? Think back to your friends or family members praising you for something you did very well. These are all indications of your dominant intelligence.
As Pablo Picasso said: "every child is born an artist, the problem is to remain one once you grow up"
Dominant intelligences are also important in discovering how you are wired to learn.
Do you a visual (sight), auditory (hearing) or kinesthetic (touch or feel) approach to learning. Learning is central to any kind of acquiring of knowledge or skills and knowing your dominant intelligence makes it that much easier.
The final benefit of understanding your dominant intelligence is the indication of the kind of occupation you are engaged in. You should be engaged in a occupation that harnesses your dominant intelligence.
However, studies have shown that this not the case with most of us. We are thrust into occupations for reasons which have nothing to do with our dominant intelligences. Mundane reasons like financial security, parental or peer pressure, family circumstances, lack of guidance and so forth. This is why I said in the beginning of this article that it is a huge opportunity lost.
Let me leave you with this question?
Would you not want to discover within this lifetime what it is that you are wired to excel at?
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| Embrace the life changing power of Habits |
If your dreams create goals, your habits deliver the goals!
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit - so said Aristotle.
Dreams versus Achievements
The whole world is obsessed with dreams - what a human being dreams, what a human being achieves of his dreams and so forth. Unfortunately, nobody talks as much about HOW that dream comes to fruition. What kind of frustrations, obstacles you have to overcome, what kind of pain you have to undergo, what kind of sacrifices you have to make. For instance, we talk about the Dream Dynamic and the Achievement Mechanism, however, nobody pays heed to the most critical element - habits - the virtual Dream Delivery System.
You may have created powerfully visualized dreams within you and set goals for yourself but the chances are that achievement of the dreams is going to hinge a lot on how your dreams and goals will be delivered - by your habits.
Habits make the man, so goes the saying. Say, for instance, your dream is to lose 25 pounds of weight in the next six months. This is no mean task and it is a powerful dream to shoot for. But nothing is going to happen towards that dream and goal without systematically taking action steps to exercise, cut down on junk food, eat meals on time, get enough sleep and so forth.
Moreover, all this is not going to help you achieve your dream if you do not take action on a regular basis - in other words if you do not make a habit out of them.
Nurturing Habits
Nurturing habits towards achievement of a dream is not an easy thing to do. It requires tremendous doses of self belief, an iron will and discipline to stay the course. However, it is not impossible.
So, what is the secret to habit formation?
Well, to begin with, you must have a strong enough reason or motivation for nurturing a dream.
For instance, why do you want to lose 25 pounds of weight in six months?
Is it because of your own self image? You would like to be trim, fit and healthy. Or you have a specific reason like prepare to run a marathon? Maybe, qualify for the Olympics?
Say, you happen to set your dream during the winter season. What is that overpowering motivation that is going to drag you out of bed at 6 AM to go for your exercise or practice with the temperatures hugging the zeros. Will your will power win over the cozy, comfort of your warm quilt? Is that strong enough to say you have to do it. And not just one day but day after day. Only when you repeat this schedule enough number of times will it qualify as a habit. This is easier said than done.
Research has shown that it takes at least 21 days of continuously doing something for it make an impression on your sub-conscious mind and become a habit. This simply means that you have to do it enough number of times for it to register as a habit. Along the way will come the usual obstacles, distractions and challenges. Getting past all that and persisting is key to habit formation.
Habits deliver your dreams.
If your reason is powerful enough, the motivation to getting into the habit action will be that much easier.
This is also the reason why our bad habits are hard to dislodge. Once we settle into that comfort zone of a bad habit, it will take as much if not more effort to get rid of it. You only need to take a sample of your New Year Resolutions to discover the force and impetus of a habit. Or look at addictions whether they are towards, alcohol, smoking and so forth to realize that these are bad habits which have become frozen in the mind and removing them will require an all out effort.
Let us distill all this wisdom into a set of simple steps
5 Steps to forming an effective (good) habit
- Find a really powerful motivation for your habit
- Tell yourself you can do it and believe that whole heartedly (very key)
- Take action to START the Habit immediately
- If you have doubts about your habit, remind yourself about your principal reason for acquiring it
- Celebrate your first action and use that as a fulcrum to push on
Let me leave with you a challenge for yourself.
List down your 5 most persistent good as well as bad habits as of date. Use the motivation for the good habits that you have formed to get rid of the bad ones. In fact, resolve to replace every single bad habit with a good one over a time period.
Go on do it! After all, if you dare to dream, you deserve to achieve them as well and your habits will ensure that.
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| Next Issue (see you in August 2012) |
 | | The road to your passion |
Did you know you have a in-built system for automatically seeking your goals and achieving them? It is known as your Reticular Activation System. It is uncannily accurate. Read why and how.
You need to be out of the box first to think outside it? Are you?
and many more......
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