5/28 (Sat.) Forget About Single-Minded Goal(Host: Prudence)

[Tom Lee]

While studying Psychological consultation, I find many people become who they are by absorbing the knowledge and believes that the society and this world are trying to put on them. They seldom had chances to explore what they really like to be or to realize if there is another alternative. For today’s topic, I would like to bring up some discussions which may inspire more self-exploration.


Forget About Single-Minded Goals, Focus on This Instead
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/re ... us-instead by Madelyn Blair Ph.D.

Do you really achieve more when you focus on one thing at a time?

I see many people trying to focus single-mindedly on achieving one macro, superordinate goal. Entrepreneurs, athletes, researchers, artists, and even leaders are bombarded by the advice they need to eat, breathe, and sleep whatever their goal is. If they're not, then they're just not doing it right.
But rare is the person who can succeed in their single-minded focus, though many try. Why is that? Is there a better strategy for managing and achieving our goals?

In my experience, the answer to these questions comes down to an understanding of our roles.

How Many Hats Are You Wearing Every Day?
Most of us fill many roles in our life, and often switch between more than a few "hats" on a daily basis. We are parents, children, siblings, spouses, friends, colleagues, bosses, subordinates, neighbors, and more. Ken Gergen in his wonderful book The Saturated Self speaks very eloquently on the multiple roles we play in this post-modern world and how we transition through them actively and inactively.

In each of these roles, we likely have goals: some long-term, some short-term, some conscious, some unarticulated. For example, when you are in your mother role, your goal is to help your child achieve independence (talk about a long-time goal!). But in your role as a wife, you may have the goal creating a loving environment for your spouse. Then again, in your role as a professional, you may have the goal of leading your team to grow sales. All of these goals exist at the same time, just as all these roles exist at the same time.

In fact, what we see is that those rare individuals who are able to focus single-mindedly on one superordinate goal are also more likely to eschew holding multiple roles. Think of Olympic athletes. Think of Steve Jobs. They purposefully don't wear many hats so they can maintain this focus.
This means that for those of us who, through choice or circumstance, fill many roles the, single-minded approach to superordinate goal achievement is illogical if not plain impractical. Our lives aren't built to accommodate such a severe strategy.

So while we can admire this strategy in others, we shouldn't waste our energy trying to implement it for ourselves.
Focus on Active Rotation, Not Single-Minded Goal Achievement
Now the question becomes how can we strategically work toward achieving and servicing multiple goals simultaneously?

When I look at the resilient leaders I research and work with, I see them intentionally using a strategy I refer to as "active rotation."
This means they have a clear understanding of what goal they want to achieve in each of their life roles, and are deliberate in prioritizing and rotating them according to time, desired achievement pace, and resources.
The rotation can happen on a monthly basis or hourly basis, depending on their current life situation. One individual I know rotates her role focus on a weekly basis, while another rotates depending on the time of day so he can service his goals as a parent to a middle schooler, husband, and business reporter simultaneously.

The key is to make active and conscious decisions about how simultaneous goals are prioritized and attended, and to be agile in your ability to adjust these decisions in light of role needs.

The bottom line here is don’t let pursuit of the highest prioritized goal at the moment look (or feel) like having a single-minded goal. I find life is experienced more richly when we eat, breathe, and sleep the evolving tapestry of our many roles and goals.

Have Common Core Standards Killed Student Creativity?
Six ways to expand creative thinking in the classroom.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/th ... creativity by Marilyn Price-Mitchell Ph.D.

How do students learn to challenge ideas and think beyond the status quo? Can creativity be fostered in classrooms that follow Common Core standards and test for conformity? At first glance, these questions may seem at odds. And, in fact, many educators believe the concept of creativity has been abandoned by today’s schools. Yet teachers can and do foster creativity in standards-based classrooms each and every day.
In the past decade, a new science of creativity has emerged. Neuroscientists are turning previously-held notions of creativity on their heads, including the fact that creativity does not involve just a single side of the brain. Most scientists agree that creativity must be defined by more than the sum of its parts, which include but are not limited to originality, self-expression, risk-taking, intelligence, autonomy, collaboration, and imagination.

The Epicenter of Exploration and Discovery
We depend on our creative abilities to help us adapt and thrive in increasingly complex and uncertain times. Researchers also believe that a creative life fosters happiness and wellbeing, and that there is a significant connection between creativity, meaning, and intrinsic motivation. Creativity is at the epicenter of human exploration and discovery, an ability used to generate and communicate original ideas of value. Inspired by our senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell, creativity is a force that nurtures human development, innovation, and an aesthetic appreciation of the world around us.

Many people associate creativity with those who are gifted and talented. Few would argue that Steve Job’s creativity helped produce the iPhone and other innovative Apple products. But creativity is not confined to people of extraordinary intellect or talent—or to big inventions. Everyone has creative capacities that evoke originality, like producing a new recipe, conveying a powerful idea through self-expression, or discovering a better way to achieve desired outcomes.

We are beginning to learn new and surprising ways creativity is fostered during childhood and adolescence. In an excellent article on the science of creativity, Diane Cadiergue shares surprising concepts about nurturing creativity, including the idea that memorization is necessary to build a student’s ability to generate original ideas. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in The Systems Model of Creativity suggests that talent may be of less importance than encouragement. He cites a wealth of research showing that when adults devote time and energy to children’s overall development, they also help young people develop creative talents.

To foster creativity in classrooms, teachers must understand how creativity originates. It is not enough to give assignments with teacher-perceived creative outcomes in mind. What is most important is to teach the thought processes and attitudes of mind associated with creativity, which include the exploration of intrinsically meaningful ideas as perceived by students. The suggestions below focus on the types of processes and attitudes that spawn creative thinking.

6 Ways to Encourage Creative Thinking

1. Experiment with "Possibility Thinking"
Pose the question “What if?” in as many ways as possible, helping children naturally think of creative possibilities. This involves a shift from more traditional approaches that encourage students to ask, “Why is this and what does it do?” to “What can I do with this?” For further details on this questioning technique, see Chapter 14 of Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom by Ronald A. Beghetto and James Kaufman.

2. Provide Opportunities to Explore Individual Interests
Invite children to choose individual projects that hold special interest to them. Why? Creativity blossoms when children feel invigorated by activities they enjoy. For example, if a student loves playing flute, encourage him to write a paper on the history of flute playing or the mechanics of flute building. If a child loves soccer, provide an opportunity for her to do a creative project about soccer.

3. Develop Five Core Attitudes Associated with Creativity
Nurture the attitudes of mind that generate creativity. Research by Jane Piirto, distinguished professor at Ashland University in Ohio, suggests there are five core attitudes of creative people:
Self-discipline
Openness to experience
Risk-taking
Tolerance for ambiguity
Group trust
In her book, Creativity for 21st Century Skills (Free PDF), she provides a number of ways teachers can embed these attitudes in the classroom, including the use of diary-like journals that help students reflect on their thinking to promote creativity.

4. Engage Students in Collaborative Learning
Encourage students to work together in groups. While creativity is associated with individual talent, we draw inspiration from other people’s ideas and from our cultural surroundings. Great inventions and creative breakthroughs are most often the result of collaboration between people who have similar goals, but diverse ways of thinking or seeing the world. Creative processes are at work when students pool their collective talents to solve a problem.

5. Practice Divergent Thinking
Choose a sentence or short paragraph from a class reading assignment that holds different meaning to different people. Ask students to share as many different ways the words might be interpreted by people from diverse cultures, ages, or life experiences. The goal of divergent thinking is to generate as many different ideas about a topic by exploring a multitude of possible solutions. In his excellent paper on how to encourage divergent thinking, Dr. Daniel Raviv of Florida Atlantic University outlines a number of activities that improve high school students' divergent thinking. Many are appropriate for younger students.

6. Help Students Make Connections
Give assignments that encourage metaphorical thinking to express complex ideas or solve a problem. The use of metaphors help students gain new insights and challenge assumptions. Students who learn to connect seemingly unrelated ideas, thoughts, and concepts develop the ability to synthesize information in creative ways. Explore other creativity tools at MindTools, a website designed for businesses, but a place where teachers can use their creativity to adapt the many brainstorming and idea-generating tools for their classrooms.
What other ways do you foster the thought processes and attitudes of mind associated with creativity in your classroom?


Section I:
1. How many roles are you playing now? What goal(s) do you have in your life? How you adjust your goals in fitting different roles?
2. Please share one of your roles in which you enjoy playing and what efforts have you worked for it(role).
3. How do you prioritize your goals? In other words, what are your values for your life?

Section II:
4. What ways can you find to foster the creative thinking in your life? Please share some of your experiences.
5. It seems that traditional educational environment didn’t offer us too many opportunities in fostering creativity. How do you see that impact in your life?(Does it bring any advantage/disadvantage to your life? if any)
6. While looking back for your life story, what would you do differently if you have second chance?

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[Gloria Lo]

In first article, paragragh 2,
............. Ken Gergen in his wonderful book The Saturated Self speaks very eloquently on the multiple roles we play in this post-modern world and how we transition through them actively and inactively. "

In this sentence, can "transition" be a verb? If it can't, what's the verb form of transition?

[Luis Ko]

yeah, after googling it, transition here is a verb, which means make a transition, change or cause to change from one stage to another stage.

actually it happens sometimes when i can't find some word's verb form on traditional dictionaries, but still see them used in articles as verbs, and find out they do have verb form, sometimes still no, on unconventional online dictionaries, such as thefreedictionary. guess it's quite common for native speakers to use some words in this way in informal writing, maybe lo~ though not sure..

[Rock]

Native speakers don't care about grammar as much as us while we dog and google our wordings. And our wordings still will be questioned if they don't function well.

[Tom Lee]

Attendee:

Tom
Iris
Ken
Sabrina
Michael
Steve
Robert
Vicky Wu
Ramesh
Carrie
David Jr.
Christina
Sharon
Julian
Prudence