[Neurons] 2015 "Neurons" Meta Reflections #30

Mon Jul 13 06:35:21 EDT 2015

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections #30

July 13, 2015

Learning #6

COGNITIVE FILTERS

THAT DIMINISH LEARNING

When it comes to learning, your very way of thinking may be undermining you.
Fundamental to learning is thinking and if you have some kinds of thinking
styles that prevent you from thinking effectively, then those ways or styles
of thinking will diminish your learning.  Interested?

If the answer is yes, then we are talking about your meta-programs and
cognitive filters (which include cognitive distortions and cognitive
biases).  And these meta-programs can actually prevent you from learning.
If you use any of these programs which are meta to your thinking (hence
meta-programs) when you first encounter something new that you want to
learn-they will filter out the new learnings and distinctions so that you do
not learn.  You do not get it, you do not understand it.  Consequently, you
will probably experience confusion, disagreement, and disorientation.  You
may look around you and see others getting it, learning, being able to then
develop the new skills that the learnings lead to, but you cannot.  I hope
you are getting really interested now!

I have been speaking about this to audiences in the past year or two,
usually at the beginning as we get started.  Sometimes I wait until the
second day after some people have begun to experience the difference between
themselves and others and feeling frustrated, "They are getting it, I'm not.
Why?"  I spoke about this recently at NSTT this year in Mexico and this week
in Guangzhou China during the ACMC training.  Here are perhaps the most
impactful meta-programs, as cognitive filters, that can undermine your
ability to learn. 

Mismatching for difference.  If your frame of mind is to look for what's
different, then when you hear brand new information, you will not primarily
be seeking to match your understanding to what is being presented.  Instead,
looking for differences, you will be mis-matching what the speaker is saying
and you will looking to see how it is not right or accurate.  You will be
saying inside your mind, "Yes, but..."  Yet in doing so, you will not be
learning something new, you will be trying to force what you are hearing to
fit with what you already know.  In terms of learning, this is a terrible
strategy.  Want to reverse this?  Then set a frame of mind that you first
will seek to fully and thoroughly understand what's being presented and that
you will sort for differences later.

Options as alternative ways to do something.  If your frame of mind is that
you are forever looking for options and for alternatives, then when you hear
new information and especially a procedure for how to understand something
or do something, then you will not follow the procedure.  No, you will try
to creatively figure out another way to do it.  Doing that, of course, will
prevent you from learning the correct way to do it from the start.  Now you
will miss out on learning how to play up and down the notes on a musical
instrument and trying to jump forward to playing music.  Yet without having
incorporated the foundational procedure, you lack the fundamentals for
building more advanced skills.  Want to reverse this mind-set?  Then set a
frame of mind that procedures provide the foundation for more advanced
understandings and skills.

Discounting small steps.  In the mental state of discounting, when you
notice that something is working or of value, you have a tendency to frame
it in such a way that you end up saying, "It doesn't count."  It does not
count because it is too small, too little, too late, too easy, too simple,
because anyone could do it, etc.   Yes, it may be just a "baby step"
forward, but if you discount it, you miss its significance and value.  When
you use this frame of mind when you are trying to learn something new, you
trash the small bits and pieces of the new, bits that could possibly come
together later to create a life-changing concept.  In the context of
learning, you can discount by saying, "Oh, I know that."  "That's the same
as ..."  "Everybody knows that."  You may discount by setting your ears on
high alert for big discoveries and insights, then everything smaller than
that is automatically discounted as insignificant.  Want to reverse this
cognitive filter?  Set up a he frame of mind so that you look for small
pieces and variables.  Ask yourself, "What could be great about this?"  "How
could this contribute to an ever larger insight?"

Strong-willed in temperament.  This phrase is a description of a person who
"cannot be told."  A strong-willed person must make his own choices and does
not take instructions very well.  This person has to do it her way or she
feels imposed upon, control, and in a prison.  As a semantic meta-program
the person identifies one's self with will or choosing, "I am a chooser."
In this way the person semantically loads "choosing" with so much meaning,
then he cannot follow another's instruction without feeling controlled or
pressured by that person.  In the learning context, the person will not
follow instructions.  She will sabotage them; he will avoid them in all
sorts of creative ways.  Yet in not following the instructions the person
prevents himself from learning.  His emotions and issues of control keep
getting in the way of the learning.  Want to reverse this cognitive filter?
Set a new frame of mind that when learning something new, you are choosing
to following the instructions of others.

There are additional meta-programs that play into diminishing learning.  For
an entire book on Meta-Programs, see Figuring Out People (1999/ 2007).

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

               Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

               Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

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