By Matthew Scott K
Today's state budgets are reeling in their expenditures as they are challenged with balancing their budgets. With state revenue shortfalls and less and less money coming from the federal government, states are making cuts into important programs-such as public education.
Even before these cuts began being made (cuts that are continually being made) our schools were falling short in several areas. America's education system provided great training that was crucial for the country's leadership through the Industrial Revolution and continues to do so even into the Technology Revolution-which we sit in currently. However, America's education is missing something huge.
While public education provides great skills to our youth, they are all outside skills. They are training skills to accomplish tasks with proficiency and these tasks are outside of the individual. These tasks are what everyone can see which make them really measurable and feedback immediate.
What education is missing (and this is a huge skill set to miss!) are the internal skills-the skills of being-that students will learn by watching their parents, teachers, the media, etc. The skills of being, at a minimum, include self-awareness, goal setting, thought patterns, self-discipline and evaluation.
Without attention being paid to these five areas in the skills of being, a very talented individual who attains academic success will falter in the real world. They will crumble in front of "obstacles" and not be able to build the relationships with others that can help them achieve what the world needs them to achieve-their immense potential. Here is how these "skills of being" break down and what you can do to help promote them in your students and children.
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is simply the ability to observe oneself in action and thought. We must first become aware of how we do what we do and why before we can make any decisions or evaluations on how our way of being is helping us or hindering us.
Personality tests can offer insights into how we do what we do and how we interact with other people. Speaking with people and asking for honest feedback also delivers important information.
The reason this is crucial in today's world is because we must first become aware of ourselves before we can learn to understand other people. It does boil down to relationships when the world economy is competitive and skills alone do not compete. Who can build the best relationship with customers, employers and employees? These are the people who will prosper-and always have.
Self-awareness allows us to learn and innovate the way of our being in order to promote the greatest qualities and to learn from the experiences we have had in life.
Goal Setting
I assume you know about the power of S.M.A.R.T. goals. This is the ability to make goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. SMART goals offer us goals that can be evaluated in a time frame that is manageable for our brain's focus.
What people oftentimes skip over when making goals is, first, to really make them and draw the line in the sand, and second, to have a plan of action in the chance that they are not achieved.
People who make goals are accustomed to creating their personal challenges. Goals offer us the ability to control what we want to focus on and this is extremely important if we are doing important work. Goals drive our focus. Without goals, we may allow ourselves to be distracted and distraction causes chaos in life. We will experience increased stress and anxiety.
When goals are made, but not attained, what is the appropriate way to react? Do we rationalize, blame something outside us, internalize blame and beat ourselves up, or do we re-calibrate? Observing this reaction can lead us into more self-awareness and it allows us to decide what is working or not working for us.
Every person who achieves a high level of success has set goals. They establish them and make them "non-negotiable" and, should they not achieve them, they re-calibrate in a way that increases their learning. Buckminster Fuller, successful inventor and best know for creating the geodesic dome, stated "A mistake is not a sin unless it is not admitted. The goal is not to avoid the mistakes, it's to avoid the sins." I would paraphrase this and say that not meeting a goal is not a sin unless there is no accountability or learning from not making the goal.
Thought Patterns
Thought Patterns refer to the way we talk to ourselves. It is the constant chatter that is playing through our minds moment by moment every day. All too often, we develop a thought pattern that is non-supportive to our growth and success. This pattern comes from the environment we grow up in and without awareness, we allow this pattern to continue, long after the environment itself has changed.
Certain archetypes can guide our thought patterns, and the four that sabotage our lives are those of drama, child, victim, and prostitute.
Briefly, drama creates fireworks that distract us from the reality we are creating; the child always needs help and their hand held; the victim is constantly blaming and reacting to a loss of control; and the prostitute is making commitments and never following through with them.
Thoughts create our emotions and our emotions create our results. An increased awareness in the way we think to ourselves offers us an opportunity to alter how we think. This alone can guide a person through success in life.
Self-Discipline
I believe discipline is a myth. It is a word that sounds great, and I hear constantly that certain kids need more discipline or that some adults need more discipline to achieve this or that. Not true.
Self-discipline comes down to two important things. The first is in what we value. For example, if I value fun, I may not be disciplined in my homework and studies. I state "may not" because the second important aspect of discipline is in how we define our values.
Please list out your top five values right now. And right next to your values, create a column and list your definitions for each value. In other words, what must happen for you to feel your value has been attained?
Using the above to create an example, if I had a top value of "fun" and my rule for this was I could not take anything seriously-would this hinder my financial success or limit it? Now, I may find opportunities to travel on a very limited budget, explore the deserts, and other experiences. However, when it came time to raise a family or hold a job, this value and rule combination would hinder me from being able to do so.
If I kept the value of "fun" and changed up my definition for this to: "I need to laugh with another person every day," I would then allow myself to take life seriously, and I would be almost guaranteed to achieve this everyday-thus feeling fulfillment.
The way we create our rules for what we value allows us to feel fulfillment, or not.
We create our values and we create our rules. Our behavior is guided by the rules we create for our values. Both values and rules can change as long as we have awareness and established goals.
Evaluation
Schools do offer evaluation of tests and comparative evaluation to other classmates in the school. Competitive sports offer the same insights. Unfortunately, these evaluations are limited to the external performance and they take the personal experience out of the evaluation process.
Evaluation is a tool to increase awareness. There are two windows that go into full awareness.
If these are my windows the first window represents what you see and I do not see. This can include some of the feedback being received in the schools right now. A teacher may see how I performed and I do not have the same perspective to evaluate my work. And this window can offer more insights into how we may be thinking and feeling. Our body language may give off messages that we do not readily see and the words we use may tell a message we have not heard just yet. This makes a great case for having mentors and coaches. They can share with us what we are unable to see-we are too close.
The second window is what I see and you do not see. This is my mask. If I choose to keep this close to me, it never gets into the light and can hinder success any time. By choosing to talk and share, I open the mask to other people and can increase my awareness-again an opportunity to assess whether I am limiting myself or not.
Summary
In summary, schools are teaching well on specific skills. However, the world is changing rather quickly, more so than ever with our connectivity and technology. The "skills of being" are increasingly important in a world where relationships make the difference in all affairs and our education must include the skills of being and not assume they are being learned at home or through media presentations. Indeed, they are not being taught with intention in many institutions. The institutions that include public and even many private education offerings never address the "skills of being" with intention. Instead, these skills are passed along through the passing of conditioned responses and not through teaching.
Matthew Scott K is a father, husband, entrepreneur, author, speaker, and coach, who is based out of Gunnison, Colorado. He is heavily invested in mentoring and the education of today's youth while focusing on working with men to develop strong fathers and community leaders.
Matthew currently coaches men in a boxing class he calls Fight 4 Your Life and through Ollin Academy. Mature masculinity incorporates the abilities of the four archetypes; King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. Through Matthew's writing and coaching he is developing the archetypes within each man to help heal and grow individuals to their fullest potential.
Readers can learn more about Matthew's lessons by visiting http://www.RulzoftheRoad.com.
Rulz of the Road is a collective resource for young adults to learn from experiences that are true-to-life. This is a growing community and you can submit questions, lessons, and learn at this site.
Today's state budgets are reeling in their expenditures as they are challenged with balancing their budgets. With state revenue shortfalls and less and less money coming from the federal government, states are making cuts into important programs-such as public education.
Even before these cuts began being made (cuts that are continually being made) our schools were falling short in several areas. America's education system provided great training that was crucial for the country's leadership through the Industrial Revolution and continues to do so even into the Technology Revolution-which we sit in currently. However, America's education is missing something huge.
While public education provides great skills to our youth, they are all outside skills. They are training skills to accomplish tasks with proficiency and these tasks are outside of the individual. These tasks are what everyone can see which make them really measurable and feedback immediate.
What education is missing (and this is a huge skill set to miss!) are the internal skills-the skills of being-that students will learn by watching their parents, teachers, the media, etc. The skills of being, at a minimum, include self-awareness, goal setting, thought patterns, self-discipline and evaluation.
Without attention being paid to these five areas in the skills of being, a very talented individual who attains academic success will falter in the real world. They will crumble in front of "obstacles" and not be able to build the relationships with others that can help them achieve what the world needs them to achieve-their immense potential. Here is how these "skills of being" break down and what you can do to help promote them in your students and children.
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is simply the ability to observe oneself in action and thought. We must first become aware of how we do what we do and why before we can make any decisions or evaluations on how our way of being is helping us or hindering us.
Personality tests can offer insights into how we do what we do and how we interact with other people. Speaking with people and asking for honest feedback also delivers important information.
The reason this is crucial in today's world is because we must first become aware of ourselves before we can learn to understand other people. It does boil down to relationships when the world economy is competitive and skills alone do not compete. Who can build the best relationship with customers, employers and employees? These are the people who will prosper-and always have.
Self-awareness allows us to learn and innovate the way of our being in order to promote the greatest qualities and to learn from the experiences we have had in life.
Goal Setting
I assume you know about the power of S.M.A.R.T. goals. This is the ability to make goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. SMART goals offer us goals that can be evaluated in a time frame that is manageable for our brain's focus.
What people oftentimes skip over when making goals is, first, to really make them and draw the line in the sand, and second, to have a plan of action in the chance that they are not achieved.
People who make goals are accustomed to creating their personal challenges. Goals offer us the ability to control what we want to focus on and this is extremely important if we are doing important work. Goals drive our focus. Without goals, we may allow ourselves to be distracted and distraction causes chaos in life. We will experience increased stress and anxiety.
When goals are made, but not attained, what is the appropriate way to react? Do we rationalize, blame something outside us, internalize blame and beat ourselves up, or do we re-calibrate? Observing this reaction can lead us into more self-awareness and it allows us to decide what is working or not working for us.
Every person who achieves a high level of success has set goals. They establish them and make them "non-negotiable" and, should they not achieve them, they re-calibrate in a way that increases their learning. Buckminster Fuller, successful inventor and best know for creating the geodesic dome, stated "A mistake is not a sin unless it is not admitted. The goal is not to avoid the mistakes, it's to avoid the sins." I would paraphrase this and say that not meeting a goal is not a sin unless there is no accountability or learning from not making the goal.
Thought Patterns
Thought Patterns refer to the way we talk to ourselves. It is the constant chatter that is playing through our minds moment by moment every day. All too often, we develop a thought pattern that is non-supportive to our growth and success. This pattern comes from the environment we grow up in and without awareness, we allow this pattern to continue, long after the environment itself has changed.
Certain archetypes can guide our thought patterns, and the four that sabotage our lives are those of drama, child, victim, and prostitute.
Briefly, drama creates fireworks that distract us from the reality we are creating; the child always needs help and their hand held; the victim is constantly blaming and reacting to a loss of control; and the prostitute is making commitments and never following through with them.
Thoughts create our emotions and our emotions create our results. An increased awareness in the way we think to ourselves offers us an opportunity to alter how we think. This alone can guide a person through success in life.
Self-Discipline
I believe discipline is a myth. It is a word that sounds great, and I hear constantly that certain kids need more discipline or that some adults need more discipline to achieve this or that. Not true.
Self-discipline comes down to two important things. The first is in what we value. For example, if I value fun, I may not be disciplined in my homework and studies. I state "may not" because the second important aspect of discipline is in how we define our values.
Please list out your top five values right now. And right next to your values, create a column and list your definitions for each value. In other words, what must happen for you to feel your value has been attained?
Using the above to create an example, if I had a top value of "fun" and my rule for this was I could not take anything seriously-would this hinder my financial success or limit it? Now, I may find opportunities to travel on a very limited budget, explore the deserts, and other experiences. However, when it came time to raise a family or hold a job, this value and rule combination would hinder me from being able to do so.
If I kept the value of "fun" and changed up my definition for this to: "I need to laugh with another person every day," I would then allow myself to take life seriously, and I would be almost guaranteed to achieve this everyday-thus feeling fulfillment.
The way we create our rules for what we value allows us to feel fulfillment, or not.
We create our values and we create our rules. Our behavior is guided by the rules we create for our values. Both values and rules can change as long as we have awareness and established goals.
Evaluation
Schools do offer evaluation of tests and comparative evaluation to other classmates in the school. Competitive sports offer the same insights. Unfortunately, these evaluations are limited to the external performance and they take the personal experience out of the evaluation process.
Evaluation is a tool to increase awareness. There are two windows that go into full awareness.
If these are my windows the first window represents what you see and I do not see. This can include some of the feedback being received in the schools right now. A teacher may see how I performed and I do not have the same perspective to evaluate my work. And this window can offer more insights into how we may be thinking and feeling. Our body language may give off messages that we do not readily see and the words we use may tell a message we have not heard just yet. This makes a great case for having mentors and coaches. They can share with us what we are unable to see-we are too close.
The second window is what I see and you do not see. This is my mask. If I choose to keep this close to me, it never gets into the light and can hinder success any time. By choosing to talk and share, I open the mask to other people and can increase my awareness-again an opportunity to assess whether I am limiting myself or not.
Summary
In summary, schools are teaching well on specific skills. However, the world is changing rather quickly, more so than ever with our connectivity and technology. The "skills of being" are increasingly important in a world where relationships make the difference in all affairs and our education must include the skills of being and not assume they are being learned at home or through media presentations. Indeed, they are not being taught with intention in many institutions. The institutions that include public and even many private education offerings never address the "skills of being" with intention. Instead, these skills are passed along through the passing of conditioned responses and not through teaching.
Matthew Scott K is a father, husband, entrepreneur, author, speaker, and coach, who is based out of Gunnison, Colorado. He is heavily invested in mentoring and the education of today's youth while focusing on working with men to develop strong fathers and community leaders.
Matthew currently coaches men in a boxing class he calls Fight 4 Your Life and through Ollin Academy. Mature masculinity incorporates the abilities of the four archetypes; King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. Through Matthew's writing and coaching he is developing the archetypes within each man to help heal and grow individuals to their fullest potential.
Readers can learn more about Matthew's lessons by visiting http://www.RulzoftheRoad.com.
Rulz of the Road is a collective resource for young adults to learn from experiences that are true-to-life. This is a growing community and you can submit questions, lessons, and learn at this site.
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