Let’s paint a fairly common scenario here.

Perhaps you wrote your JAMB examinations once, twice, or maybe three times. You enter into the university, get your dream course, and, pumped with all the ginger and adrenaline that comes with being a fresher, you enter with a singular goal, to become a first-class student.

So, you do all you think will lead you to your goal. You begin visiting the library every day and ensure you read for at least an hour a day. You stay in the front seat every lecture day, meticulously taking detailed notes of whatever your lecturer teaches. You are certain that you are on the right path, the path of success.

Exams roll up and, quite frankly, the exam questions are not exactly suited to your expectations. So, when the results show up, you get one or two As furnished with a splattering of Bs and Cs. Your morale has been greatly dampened, but you decide to swallow the disappointment and have a go at it again. You spend more hours reading and putting in your all to achieve your first-class dreams. The second semester exams roll up and the results are once more, less than desired.

What are the chances that you would still roll with your dreams of a first-class to your second year? Research shows that unless you have the right explanatory style, and not many of us do, there are chances that you would succumb to the belief that you do not have what it takes to get to that goal or dream of yours, that you would believe that nothing you do would matter.

Essentially, in your academics and academic dreams, you would learn to be helpless.

 

 

LEARNED HELPLESSNESS DEFINED

Many of us have had one or two goals or ambitions that we have abandoned because somewhere along the line, after a few weeks or months of effort without results, we decided that we were just not cut out for the task and gave up hope. What many of us don't know, is that there is a terminology for that experience.

In the mid-1900s, two psychologists, Martin Seligman and Steve Maier were on a roll. They had discovered a theory that was set to completely distort the prevailing behaviourist psychological thoughts of the moment and revolutionize what the world knew about depression, optimism, and pessimism.

Due to his observations from a previous experiment done by his lecturer at the university, Martin Seligman had developed a hypothesis that creatures could learn how to be helpless. Together with Steve Maier, he set out to prove his hypothesis.

The series of experiments conducted by the two are well-known among those in the psychology field. The scientists began by grouping some dogs into three groups.

In the first group, the dogs were strapped into harnesses for a while and then released.

In the second group, the dogs were placed in the same harnesses but were subjected to electrical shocks that could be avoided by pressing a panel with their noses.

In the third group, the dogs received the same shocks as those in group two, except that those in this group were not able to control the shock, even though they pressed the panel. For those dogs in the third group, the shocks seemed to be completely random and outside of their control.

The dogs were then placed in a shuttle box with a low barrier that they all could jump from to escape the shocks and all were subjected to the same amount of shocks. Dogs from the first and second groups quickly learned that jumping the barrier eliminated the shock. However, most of those from the third group made no attempts to get away from the shocks. They just lay there, whimpering and accepting the shocks.

According to Seligman, the dogs just lay there because they had learned that nothing they did mattered and could stop the shocks, and they, therefore, expected that no actions of theirs would matter in the future. In other words, they had learned to be helpless.

This experiment was further carried out on rats, and even humans and they all served to prove Seligman’s hypothesis. Humans, as well as any other being; can learn to be helpless, with all the resultant psychological effects.

According to Martin Seligman in his book, ‘Learned Optimism’, learned helplessness is ‘the giving up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do does not matter.’ In other words, it is a situation where a person doesn’t try to break away from a negative situation or attempt a particular task because the person believes that it is impossible to do so. This can occur when a person has failed on previous attempts or has witnessed others fail.

Unfortunately, that comes with its bounty of repercussions.

 

THE DANGERS OF LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

Learned helplessness has been linked to a host of other negative effects, such as pessimism and depression.

In fact, it has been shown that those who learn to be helpless end up relenting, becoming apathetic, and may end up making the situation they found themselves in much worse than it would have been if they had not learned to be helpless and given up on trying. It also leads to giving in to despair and accepting one’s fate.

In the above instance, suppose you develop the belief and mentality that nothing you do will ever give you the first class you dream of. With that would naturally come an indifference towards your academics; as is quite often the case with a lot of students. As a result, your grades would plummet, which further enforces the belief that you do not have what it takes, which makes you backtrack even more till it becomes a vicious cycle.

These consequences have been seen to manifest in plenty of social situations. Learned helplessness is the reason why many do not vote. They have learned that no matter what they do, the more corrupt politician would still find his or her way to power. 

It is the reason why many men and women living with abusive partners (particularly after a prolonged experience of the abuse and failed escape attempts) do not leave their abusive spouses, even when they have the chance to do so.

It is the reason why many of us have stopped setting new year’s resolutions, believing that it is not worth the stress since we have barely been able to achieve most of the new year’s resolutions that we have set in the past.

Most importantly, it is one of the most popular reasons why a lot of us have given up on our dreams.

 

THE POSSIBILITIES OF FIGHTING AGAINST LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

In the original formulation of the theory of learned helplessness, the researchers glossed over the fact that in the learned helplessness experiments conducted with humans, about a third did not give up hope, and had, contrary to the expectations of the researchers, resisted the natural inclinations of learning to be helpless. This was until John Teasdale made that observation in one of the presentations conducted by Seligman.

As a result of this, the psychologists embarked on further research, which showed that a person’s chances of learning to be helpless depended completely on their explanatory style to adverse encounters or situations. Your explanatory style is how you habitually interpret or explain to yourself why events happen.

This means that how you interpret or explain adverse events affects your likelihood of feelings of helplessness and subsequent depression.

Research has shown that an optimistic explanatory style stops helplessness, whereas, a pessimistic explanatory style spreads helplessness.

This was further explained in the attribution approach to learned helplessness which was proposed by Bernard Weiner. His attribution theory consists of six parts:

A global attribution occurs when the individual believes that the cause of negative events is consistent across different contexts: For instance, the belief that your failure in your year one would apply to whatever other academic endeavours you put your hands to.

2. A specific attribution occurs when the individual believes that the cause of a negative event is unique to a particular situation: For instance believing that your failures were only because you were not well adjusted in your year one and that would not apply in all other scenarios.

3. A stable attribution occurs when the individual believes the cause to be consistent across time: For instance, believing that whatever caused you to fail would continue causing you to fail all through your stay in the university, rendering you incapable of ever improving your performance.

4. An unstable attribution occurs when the individual thinks that the cause is specific to one point in time: For instance, believing that whatever caused you to fail was only related to your performance in your first year, and not necessarily in the entire time you spend in the university.

5. An external attribution assigns causality to situational or external factors: For instance, believing that you did not do well because, perhaps, the exams were completely different from what you were used to, or you had not yet adjusted to the university environment, or that the lecturers set topics outside of the scope of what they taught.

6. An internal attribution assigns causality to factors within the person: For instance, believing that you did not do well because you are inherently incapable of ever getting good grades.

 According to Weiner, those with an internal, stable and global attribution style for negative events are more at risk for falling into learned helplessness and developing a depressive reaction to failure experiences. They are the ones more likely to believe that they are not in control of their situation or destiny and give up and accept whatever situation they are in.

On the other hand, those that have an external, unstable and specific attribution style are more likely to resist learned helplessness and fall into the same line as one-third of humans in the experiments.

 

COUNTERING YOUR NEGATIVE EXPLANATORY STYLE/ PREVENTING LEARNED HELPLESSNESS

Conquering or preventing learned helplessness is reliant on changes you make as to how you view or deal with negative or averse situations, especially those that may occur from time to time, like an academic failure.

In line with this, Martin Seligman introduced the ABCD method in dealing with learned helplessness. He opined that in dealing with learned helplessness, we need to recognise the process that goes on in the formation of the beliefs that lead to learned helplessness, the ABC process.

A – Adversity

B – Belief

C – Consequences

So, when you encounter adversity, you would react by thinking about it. Those thoughts most likely would transform into your beliefs. Those beliefs do not just sit there idly, they have consequences. The beliefs are the direct causes of what you feel about the situation and what you intend to do next.

For instance:

Adversity: I have tried all I can to achieve my goal of becoming a Straight-A student. I have read like one preparing for a scholarship exam, have burned the midnight candle, and yet, all I have are average results.

Beliefs: Why am I still wasting my time going to the library to read and being the first and most attentive in lectures? It is clear that nothing I do will ever give me the first class that I desire.

Consequences: I feel empty and unintelligent, and I have decided that the effort is not worth it. Let me just do what I can to graduate and get out of this university. It is not even as though the grades would determine what my future would be like.

Once you recognize this chain of beliefs, you can break it at the core by destroying the inherent beliefs you have after every negative event.

The best way of dealing with the negative beliefs that lead to learned helplessness is to dispute them.

Disputing beliefs simply means giving them an argument or attacking them. By doing so, you can change your reaction from that of feeling dejected, helpless and giving up to a willingness to keep pushing on and trying again.

To properly dispute beliefs, you have to realise that they are false. To do that, you have to distance yourself from your beliefs so that you can realise that just believing something does not make it so. Just because you fear that you are unintelligent, academically paralysed, not gifted, purposeless and the like, does not make it so. You have to distance yourself from those beliefs and explanatory styles to verify their accuracy. And the fact that pessimistic beliefs often blow things out of proportion means that there is a very high chance that you would find that your beliefs are false.

Furthermore, the best way to dispute beliefs is to provide evidence to the contrary, to show that the beliefs are factually incorrect.

According to Seligman, to dispute your own beliefs, you have to focus on the changeable (not knowing the right way to study), the specific (the exams were not what I expected), and the non-personal (the professors were strict in their grading) causes.

Disputation: I may have hoped to get all As, but I got at least a few As and Bs. I only had two Cs out of fifteen courses. Those are not terrible grades and they do not mean that I am unintelligent. They may not be first-class results, but they certainly do not mean that I cannot achieve a first-class in the remaining three years I have at the university. I, after all, was always one of the first third in secondary school. That has to mean something. Besides, I have been able to identify that I did not do well because I prepared like I used to do back in secondary school and I have been able to see that it is not the best way forward. I will try better and use a different technique in studying so that I can achieve the grades that I desire.

The outcome of such a disputation would be the reverse of the consequences of the negative thoughts you may have had ab initio. Instead of giving up, the disputation would make you feel much better about your goals and make you feel like you have what it takes to try again and again until you eventually succeed.

 

A bulk of the information used for this blog post was gotten from Martin Seligman’s revolutionary book, ‘Learned Optimism’. To get the kindle version of the book, click here.

“I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don’t want, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like.” – Emile Gauvreau

The quest for success is the biggest motivator of our actions as human beings. This statement is a truism. If your definition of success is the attainment of material wealth, you will spend most of your time trying to discover ways to make money as fast as you can. If your definition of success is fame, you will probably be engaging in the activities of those who wish to be famous, venturing into singing or acting, or influencing. If your definition of success is the fulfilment of purpose and your calling in the Lord, the same rule applies.

So why then, is such a term as important as success often misinterpreted and misunderstood by society? Why do we let ourselves live our lives striving for the sort of success that is just a marginal segment of the constituents of true good success?

I believe we human beings have the natural tendency to look for simple answers to complex things. This is why a term as complex as success has been reduced and diluted to merely material wealth, riches, and most often the reputation and fame that comes with attaining wealth. I guarantee that if a worldwide survey of the meaning of success were conducted, at least 90% of the participants would state that success involves both money and some form of repute and fame.

The widely accepted definition of success always involves money. This is a fact that cannot be denied. Even if you are working according to your purpose and living a happy life, if your earnings are not big enough to be described as the earnings of a wealthy man; you most likely would never find anyone, even among your Christian community, who will label you as being successful.

On the other hand, you could be the most pathetically miserable person alive, with failing friendships and relationships, suffering from crushing loneliness and sweeping depression as a result of your empty life; but as long as you have acquired earthly treasures of the sorts that many dream to acquire, you will be not only seen as a success but will have many people aspiring to be just like you.

This cultural limitation of success to monetary acquisition and fame is one of the most dangerous fates that have befallen mankind. In the roots of this definition lie tragedies of lives wasted on the altar of making money, tragedies of the ever-growing corporate rat race that most of us are either stuck in or aspire to get stuck in. At the roots of this definition lie millions of humans so blinded to the complexities of human existence, that they are nothing but shells who believe that their sense of worth comes from nothing other than the amount of ‘dough’ they have in their bank accounts.

 

“Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”

Luke 12:15(NLT)

 

Nowadays, young men and women are constantly driven to sacrifice everything, even their health and well-being, for the attainment of this definition of success.

As a result, we have men and women giving away their senses of morality, their relationships, and family; and working themselves to burnout in the name of success. Unfortunately, most continue like this until it reaches a point in their lives in which they realise that in their drive to attain success, they have managed to make every other aspect of their lives empty. And then they become depressed multi-millionaires, business moguls suffering from afflictions due to their ways of living, suicidal celebrities, or influencers with no true friends.

And others look at them and think: This is success. This is what I want for my life.

 

“Remember that true success is not just the ability to accumulate material wealth; it is the ability to truly enjoy life and everything God provides in it.”- Joyce Meyer

 

As a Christian, you may think that you are not suffering from the consequences of this mentality, merely because you are not willing to use dubious means to attain wealth. But there are countless Christians out there driving themselves to a terrible burnout with the way they set about with their daily businesses, many Christians ruining friendships due to their overt focus on the attainment of success, and watching their spiritual life dwindle all because of this mentality. You may be just as bad as the atheist who measures his life in terms of his money.

Perhaps it is time we stop this close-minded belief and search for a better definition of good success, one that is decoupled from fame and wealth, one that actually looks into personal value and purpose.

Perhaps it is time for a change in the definition of good success.

 

WHAT IS GOOD SUCCESS?

Joshua 1:8

The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

 

1. Having a thriving spiritual life

Our eternal life is far more important than our temporary life on earth. Hence, there is no truer way to begin elaborating on the true meaning of success without bringing our minds to the fact that without a relationship with God, material wealth means nothing.

After all, what good does it do for a man to gain all the luxuries and wealth of this world and then lose his soul? We come to this world empty, and we will leave empty, without whatever we have spent (or wasted) our lives attaining. Do not be one of those Christians who are slowly letting their spiritual life crumble as they go back and forth in the pursuit of wealth.

Without a relationship with God, the core definition of success, aka the attainment of purpose cannot be actualised. Hence, in all our doing, we should remember to put the kingdom of God first; and let all other things and cares of this life fall to the back of the line.

If you seek to have a true relationship with God or to fall back in line if you have backslidden, click on this link to access all the resources you need.

 

2. Attainment of purpose

The attainment of purpose is by far the most important measure of success. Purpose is what we humans have been brought into this world to do, what we have been crafted for by the saviour.

But then again, this begs the question, must the attainment of purpose and the attainment of material wealth work concurrently?

My answer is ‘No’. And I have biblical proof of this. In fact, it may be best to say that while there are times the attainment of purpose might bring about material wealth, the two are mutually exclusive. In the bible, while we have the likes of Job, Abraham, Isaac, Solomon etc., who, in line with the attainment of purpose, were blessed with great wealth, many others lived by simple means. Most of the disciples and apostles lived simply, making just enough to live comfortable lives but not more.

What does this mean? While there is nothing wrong with the attainment of wealth, there are many others that will be called for various purposes that may require the forgoing of the dream of the luxury that comes with wealth. As I once heard a man say, while there are pastors that are called to be widely known and very popular, hence having a huge congregation and means to live in comfort, there are also pastors that are called to reach out to the most abject and neglected of areas, the poor villages and the underdeveloped sections of the world.

Are they being successful in their attainment of purpose? Yes. But in such areas, it is hard to find the luxury that comes with wealth.

Many stories are shared of men who were once very financially successful but were called by the Lord to quite literally shed every burden of their material possessions and begin to walk in purpose by doing activities that would prevent them from making the desired amount of wealth.

And the fact remains, as long as a person is not derailing from purpose, and walking in line with God’s will for the person’s life, such a person is successful.

 

3. Being of sound health and mind

3 John 2 (NIV)

Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

In a world where sickness does not necessarily equate to a short life, more and more people are letting go of their physical health in pursuit of success, neglecting their mental health for the rat race.

People are succumbing to stress due to this never-ending pressure, and according to a survey by the American Psychological Association, this has been leading to health problems, lost relationships and counterintuitively, lost productivity amongst many of us.

And this is why certain diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, heart disease and obesity are on the rise.

It is fair to say that except we come down with a sickness, for most of us, our health is largely neglected. But the fact is; a multi-millionaire or billionaire or mogul cannot enjoy his or her wealth if the person is bedridden or chronically ill. So whilst we strive for success, our health is an aspect that we should never neglect.

 

4. Having good relationships

 

If you have money, use the money to build relationships… Estates do not visit you when you are in the sick bed. Estates do not say I love you. Estates do not say I am praying for you … Don’t be carried away by mundane things and ignore men - Apostle Joshua Selman.

 

In my interview with David McNeff, the writer of ‘The Work/ Life Balance Myth’, we discussed the seven slices of life, one of which includes social or family life. Through his book and the interview, I have realised that many people are willing to sacrifice good friendships and relationships on the altar of work.

When all your waking hours are spent pursuing money and luxury without carving enough time to build good relationships, the result is crushing loneliness and unhappiness despite wealth. This is because we all need people.

In all we do to attain success, we should never be like the wealthy ones with divorces and no true friends. Without people, you can never claim to have good success in the true sense of the word. You really can never be truly happy without having good relationships.

 

5. Peace of mind

Peace of mind is a core aspect of good success that is most often neglected. After all, can one claim to be successful if one has material possessions and fame but is riddled with worries and concerns? Can one be said to be successful if one does not come home every night to a calm and happy home, a home in which one can find true comfort?

Not at all.

We all know the miseries that come with a lack of peace of mind. We must all have watched movies which feature wealthy people who have traded away the peace of mind that is most coveted for the attainment of material success. As we all can tell, the resulting life is not a very happy one.

The Lord wishes for us to have good success, the sort of success that comes with no sorrows, and with peace of mind. And in all that we do, we should realise that if whatever we have set out to do to be successful requires forgoing peace of mind, then it most definitely is not in line with the plan of God for us.

Of course, other elements combine for the formation of good success, and the attainment of financial stability is one of them. But the earlier we step away from the mentality that it is all that constitutes good success, the better for us and the society at large.

 

 

 “This generation doesn’t have a knowledge problem. We have a consumption problem. We are addicted to learning for the sake of knowing. Book after book. Podcast after podcast. Conference after conference. Sermon after sermon. But still, for many of us, life remains the same…” – Dale Partridge (author of Saved From Success)

Here is an unlikely picture of a doomed person. Let’s call him Zain.

Zain has been introduced to the concept of reading personal growth books to change his life. He has perhaps picked his first book and felt that boost of dopamine that comes with knowing something that he believes at least 90 percent of the world does not know. He feels incredible, good about himself, and hopeful for the future.

Zain begins to make vague plans in his head, plans to defeat procrastination, quit his social media addiction, stop eating junk food, wake up earlier, etc. He begins to fantasize about the transformation of his life and how he would most definitely be a successful person in the future.

Perhaps Zain does apply some of the things he has learned from the books for the period in which he still feels motivated. In the first 2 to 3 days, he wakes up by 4 a.m., exercises, journals, prays for an hour, reads the scripture, places his hands on his head, and screams that he has ‘A millionaire mind!' for thirty minutes in front of a mirror.

And then the motivation fades away, slowly at first, but surely. He relapses into old habits and starts feeling like a terrible person; like he is losing sight of himself, his visions, and his goals for the future.

So he buys another productivity or spiritual book, abandoning all the principles and morals has learnt from the first. And for the period that he reads that book, he feels productive. He is getting in line with his goals once again and is getting ahead of his peers. He is being his ideal self.

Everything feels good after that. Soon after, he feels like buying another book and then another and another until this becomes an addiction. He reads productivity books during almost all waking hours. Then he moves to other platforms that give him the same good feeling. Ted talks, sermons, conferences, seminars, and all different avenues provide the same dose of dopamine.

Soon after, his binge reading takes the place of implementing any actions in his life. The brain begins to interpret the hours spent gulping book after book after book as productive ones. With each book he reads, he gets this illusion that he is headed to his bright future, to the success that he wishes to attain.

 

PSEUDOPRODUCTIVITY

Work that looks as though it is valuable but is truly just an elaborate means of wasting time (dextronet.com)

 

Each time Zain opens the first page of a new book; listens to a new sermon, or watches another Ted Talk, his brain fills him up with dopamine. He gets a peculiar sort of high. For him, living in the pages of motivational books or the euphoria of Ted Talks, or other such activities has become his new normal.

These sorts of activities provide him with a tremendous reward. He ends up having little motivation to get off the high, put down the book and apply what he has learned. He probably will never do so. But it does not matter to him, because he already feels diligent and has a sense of fulfilment.

It does not matter that 99 percent of the things he learns in the books are forgotten once he drops them for the next fix. After all, billionaires and powerful men of God read tons of books, right?

Zain does not realise it, but this habit of his leaves him stuck in his current predicament, without any tangible results or change, in an unending cycle that will leave him empty and depressed.

Because at a point in his life, he will have to realise that despite everything, he has achieved nothing yet. He is bound to realise that he has made no real progress in his life. All he has done is indulge in activities that have convinced him that he has been making progress.

 

ADDICTION

A compulsive, chronic, physiological, or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behaviour, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects… (Merriam Webster’s Dictionary)

 

You can get addicted to the good feelings that come with reading personal growth books, much to your detriment. It seems an unlikely correlation, does it not? I am sure many people do not expect to see the words, ‘addiction’ and ‘personal growth books’, being used in the same sentence. But hear me out. Just hear me out.

There is a proliferation of personal growth and spiritual books in the market. This means that no matter what area of your life you are trying to address, there are at least a hundred books addressing that issue, and even more.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with reading these books. Well, some of them. But that is a topic for another day.

But I dare to say that your extensive consumption of books, even spiritual books, sermons, teachings, messages, etc, without giving yourself the time to act by the teachings of those books would lead to outcomes you may not expect, negative outcomes.

And I have the backing of the scripture on this one.

James 1:22:

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

Reading further, the scripture has painted a beautifully tragic picture of the sort of person who continues to listen to the word (or read books) without ever applying the teachings therein.

James 1:23-24:

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror, for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.”

 

The underlying problem here does not stem from reading books. It stems from when these books become just another book to be read, like a novel, to be quickly abandoned and forgotten after reading. The problem lies in the twenty church books we have shoved in our drawers but never gone back to gain new applicable insights from, in the highlighted productivity books that are never used to make our lives better.

The problem lies in when we become so addicted to gaining knowledge about how to be our best selves; that we forget to apply the knowledge we have gained.

And what do we have as a result? Personal growth book lovers still stuck in the same spot because they have not mastered the discipline to apply what they have learned. Pastors not abiding by what they preach. Christians who substitute the reading of spiritual books for spiritual growth.

Do not get me wrong. You are even more doomed if you do not take out the time to read the scripture or spiritual books or personal growth books. At least those who do so know the principles for success. At least, there is some chance that they might realise they need to apply the knowledge they possess. They are on a higher level than the individual that refuses to read anything and refuses to expand his mind.

I once saw a question that asked, “Do you really need to read an entire book to know the right steps to take to be successful?”

Yes, yes of course you do. If you have a particular challenge in your life, wisdom on how to overcome it will not fall from the sky. You need a book, a sermon, or a mentor.

The real question that we should ask here is, “Do you really have to read ten to twenty books dealing with the same topic? Do you need to be told to pray or wake up early or destroy procrastination ten different times in ten different books from ten different authors?”

I mean, if you have gone past book two and have not received enough insight to deal with your challenge, then there has to be something fundamentally wrong with the way you consume these books. You have a consumption problem.

Reading these books this way is a peculiar and dangerous form of procrastination.

You must make a conscious effort not to allow yourself to consume more information than you take action on. Do not let yourself fall into the trap of pseudo productivity or pseudo-spirituality.

Here is the basic truth. Reading spiritual and self-help books in and of themselves would do nothing for you. If you want to change your life, you have to take action. Otherwise, you are no better than the person who has not picked up a book in his entire life.

A person who has read just a single book but has let his subconscious take in all the lessons from that book, and has vigorously implemented it into his life, is better than the binge reader that does nothing with the information that he or she has learned.

A serious question needs to be asked here…

Do you think great men of God just read spiritual books?

Do you think successful and influential people got to that point in their lives by just reading books?

Well, the answer is simple and obvious.

No.

Why?

Because reading books is not enough. What you choose to do with the aftermath of your reading endeavours is crucial to your success and spiritual growth.

 

WHAT TO DO?

1, Read with intention. Do not just grab a book because the title seems nice. You do that for novels, not for books that you presume you are investing money and time in to grow and develop as an individual. Identify a problem you need to solve in your life and begin hunting for books that could help you with that problem.

If you read a book whose teachings you cannot apply, it is wasted knowledge.

Most books have synopsis and summaries online. Even if you think that the book will help you, ensure that you read the summaries online to get a clear picture of what the book is all about and to be certain that the book is the one to help you.

One thing that I have begun to teach myself to do is to read books about specific principles that I would wish to emulate. Hence, I try to avoid vague and clickbait books and go into the more specific ones. If I want to learn how to be consistent, I read a book about consistency and highlight key points to implement. The same goes for any other principle I wish to learn, whether it be how to build good habits, how to forgive, the importance of spiritual mentors, or how to let the Holy Spirit guide my every step.

2. As you read, take notes, and highlight, so that you can have references to return to when you need to refresh your memory.

3. Apply the principles you have learned in your life. Never move to another book without having a clear-cut plan on how to actualise the lessons learned and begin to apply them in your life.

In the end, no matter how many books you read, they are useless if you do not choose to take responsibility and implement changes in your life. You grow by making a conscious effort to grow, not by reading books on how to grow.

 

 

 

Recently, I drew up a poll on LinkedIn asking students and professionals what their biggest challenges were. While imposter syndrome was at the top of the list, lack of ‘work/life balance’ came as a close second.

This comes as no surprise of course. Nowadays, with the increasingly demanding work spaces and academic curriculums, the rise in remote or at-home work, and the upsurge of media dedicated to the promotion of toxic productivity, a lot of people have found themselves devoting more time than is necessary to their work and abandoning other parts of their lives as a result. There is currently a widespread increase in stress levels and burnout across universities and work spaces as people have found themselves migrating from the 40-hour work week to 60 and even 80-hour work weeks. 

Of course, for a person working for 80 hours out of 168, almost half of the person’s week gets devoted to work and with the hours set out for sleep, very little time is dedicated to doing other things that make life worth living.

But what if the issue cannot really be circumscribed into a mere work/life balance issue? What if the answer to the reduction of the increasing rates of stress and lack of balance in life comes, not from trying to achieve a fifty/fifty balance between work and this vague concept of ‘life’, but from the realisation of the fact that our lives cannot be divided into those two categories and that the only way to achieve a full and wholesome life is to be clear and mindful of the many other aspects of our lives that we often sacrifice on the altar of work or even trying to achieve the said ‘work/life’ balance.

I was looking for a work that really explains the concept of having a balanced life, a truly balanced life and not just a life that we try to divide into a 50/50 segment, and I came across a wonderful book titled, ‘The Work/Life Balance Myth’ written by David J McNeff.

I have written a previous review of this book here, and have reached out to the author to provide us with some insights as to how we can achieve a stress-free, balanced, and harmonious life without necessarily having to carve our lives into only two aspects but instead an understanding of the fact that our existence is composed of far more than just ‘work’ and ‘life’.

Enjoy my interview with author, life coach, and president of Peak Consulting Group in Massachusetts, United States, David J McNeff.

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Q: When and how did the idea of the theories that you have laid down in your book come to mind in your life? Was it as a result of personal experiences, or solely on the basis of the experience of others that you got to listen to?

There was no one big event. It was just that part of my upbringing brought the knowledge that there were lots of parts to your life. And so as a teenager, I was sort of aware that these other parts or slices, as I listed in the book, mattered and were important. So, it was a small evolution that took place, and by the time that I got into my twenties and thirties, and forties, it had become a part of my life. And in my business, I began helping people that were under stress. So, it has been more of a part of my life, rather than this special process that took place.

Q: Can a person’s life be strictly said to be divided into only those seven slices? Do you believe, apart from times of retirement, that there could be times in a person’s life in which a person could have more or fewer slices of life?

Remember that the whole point of being aware of these slices is how to manage yourself and stress better. Where you choose to live your life is something different. So spending your time in these five, smaller, time-consuming slices of your life, is designed to help you live better in your family and professional life, meaning, that is where most of the pressure and stress in your life comes from.

So it really is up to you. You can live your life however you want, but the point of the Seven Slice method is, if you are under stress, knowing how to spend time in these other slices can help with the stress. Now, finding your meaning and purpose in life; that is a whole other question. But the Work/Life Balance Myth is about, ‘Can you live your life without feeling like you are going out of your mind?’ And the answer is yes, but that means that you have to live in these other slices for some amount of time per week. And you will find your stress levels come down and you feel like you are really now living in harmony with yourself.

Now, if you want to be a mountain climber or an astronaut, you can do whatever you want to do, but this method will help you live your life with a sense of more harmony and balance.

Can you live your life without feeling like you are going out of your mind?

Q: So all through your life, can you say that you have lived stress-free and in harmony and balance, using this method of yours?

Oh no, no, no. Nobody lives a stress-free life. Stress is constant. The question is, do you manage the stress, or does the stress manage you? 

For a lot of people, it goes like, ‘Oh, I am having a good day because the stress level is low.’ Or ‘Oh, I am having a bad day because the stress level is high.’ But my pitch is, you can be the same every day, if you manage the stress, by living in these seven slices. 

So when I work with people who go up and down, in the sense of, one day they are happy and the other day, they are depressed, I go, ‘You cannot live your life like that, that is crazy’ You have to try to be consistent and have a perspective and the only way to realise that is to take note of the fact that you have a personal, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual life.

You only have to spend minutes on the other five slices per day. And I achieve this by scheduling. So I schedule physical activities. I schedule time to sit and talk about feelings. I schedule time to read books, about 25 a year, two a month. On Sundays, I go to church services and read the bible three times a week. I schedule all this because it works for me. 

You can decide not to schedule and do this whenever you feel like it. But when people do not spend time in any of the other slices of life, it gets them overwhelmed.

The question is, do you manage the stress, or does the stress manage you?

 

Q: You believe in the solution being addition and not subtraction. But is it not possible that there are times in which a toxic amount of time is being invested in a single slice and it would only make sense to cut down on the time spent in that slice?

So I call that getting overwhelmed. When people find themselves getting overwhelmed, spending too much time at work, school or family, i.e. only one slice, that is when you have to pull yourself out to spend time in these other 5 slices in order to go back to that major slice with a better perspective. Because I think that what happens when there is too much focus on one slice, is that it becomes all or nothing. That is, I either spend all of my time on this one slice, or I will fail.

But the perspective changes when you begin spending time in these other five slices, all of a sudden, you realise that it is no longer life or death. It’s just a problem that needs to be solved. So that is how you can get out of being overwhelmed, you spend little bits of time in these other slices.

Q: How does a person incorporate some aspect of balance during those difficult moments of life, like during periods of emergency, in which a person seems compelled to sacrifice other slices of his or her life to focus on a singular slice?

So, there are emergencies, disasters, and crises, that require 100% of our time and attention. In my experience, during times of crisis, there is always a beginning, a middle, and an end. It does not go on forever. So my point is; deal with the crisis, and as the crisis comes to an end, go back to living in all seven slices.

Q: But during that period of crisis, it is alright for you to have an unbalanced life, even for that short period of time?

That is the whole point of it being an emergency, it is different from everyday life. So I get sick, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and then I have to slowly incorporate those other slices of my life so that they can help me deal with the post-emergency. 

Q: Do you believe that the main issue that people have with achieving balance in our lives boils down to the fact that our work lives are more often too demanding?

So, sometimes, our work becomes too much of a burden, too consuming, all the time. That is when you need these five slices the most. What you do is that you take minutes and not hours a day in each of those other slices and it takes the pressure off immediately so that you can put this work problem in the right context, and get through it. 

Everyone who works gets overwhelmed periodically. That is when you are supposed to use this method right away because you have to bring the temperature down so that you can deal with everything calmly. 

I believe that the ‘too demanding’ issue is something that we allow to happen. I have found people who get overwhelmed at work and I ask, “Why did you let that happen?” They usually reply, “Oh no. I am out of control, my boss told me this or that…” You know, in times like that, you could speak up for yourself and say, “Okay, I will take care of it in a little bit. I have to go do something else now.”

They ask, “So you can do that?” and I reply. “Yes. In business, all they want you to do is to finish. So, even if you finish it later, what they want is for you to get it done.”

Business is not to be taken personally. The purpose of it is just to make money. Your business does not have to control your life. And I think that what happens to people is that without a balanced, seven slice life; when they get yelled at while at work, they think that it is the end of the world. That is not how it works. 

You need to keep balance. Finish your work, but live in harmony with yourself, so that the yelling and the emergencies of work do not throw you off. You can take control of your life. You do not have to hand your life over.

I listen to people say things like, “Oh no, I have to work all weekend.” And when I ask why, they say things like, “Well, it is due on Monday.” If it is due on Monday, then get it done on Monday. 

Some people need permission to allow themselves to live a better life. Some people think they have to do as they are told by their boss. This is a reminder; all they want is for you to get the work done. So, get it done, but use your own timeline.

Your business does not have to control your life.

Q: In these current times, in which a lot of people are choosing to work at home and the work slice is slowly getting fused with other slices, how do people achieve balance?

So this was a big problem during Covid when people suddenly went home. So suddenly, you could work all day and all night. That period of time was when I really had to apply scheduling. 

Because, at that period of time, people became very accessible. Everyone knew that all employees were at home with their children on Zoom. Hence, it became very easy to send invites at any time of the day. 

So, a lot of work with the seven slices became about setting boundaries. When working at home, without the commute time and without the office, you have to build boundaries in your home and work life at home. Schedule work, so that it is not all day and all night. 

Q: How were you able to do this as a writer? Because as a writer, I do not really set the proper 8-hour scheduling. Sometimes, I write all day, sometimes I write all night. 

You solve that problem by limiting the amount of time that you are allowed to work. So you get the same amount of work done, for instance, but you get it done in 4 instead of eight hours. So you have a start and you have a stop time. 

And this is how we get people realising that they waste time working inefficiently because they have unlimited time. They say, “Well, it is 9 o’clock, and I can get it done all night.” And then what happens? You get to work inefficiently. You ramble. You get up. You go to get a cup of coffee.

But if you say, well, it is 9’o clock and I have to get ten pages of work done in 2 hours and stay focused in those two hours, stopping exactly when that time is up, something magical happens. Ten pages of work appear.

Remember, if you are any good at all at what you do, you can get it done in a short amount of time. Or maybe you do not know what you are doing. Then that is a second problem. People take a project that should be done in four hours and it takes them eight hours, and they go, well this is a lot of work and so on. No, this work should have taken only four hours. What is the problem here? Because there is something that you do not know if it takes twice the time to do and amount of work as it should take anyone who knows what they are doing.

So let’s not solve the time problem, let’s solve the expertise problem. Before you start writing, know what you are writing about. Spend time learning because if you learn it, then you will write it faster. 

Q: Coming to you, how were you able to identify and begin spending time in the empty slices of your life?

Well, remember that I kind of grew up with this process in mind. So, I have an idea, per week, of how I am going to spend my time. Occasionally, one slice goes wandering off, like my emotional slice, and then I get a little frustrated and angry and I realise that I need to start spending time there. So if you learn to recognise yourself when you are out of balance, you can learn how to address that issue. Again, you do not have to spend a day in a slice. You can spend just twenty minutes. 

And the beauty of these seven slices is that you can combine them. You can go for a walk with your partner and talk about the stresses of the day and that is your physical and emotional slice in one fifteen-minute time period walking around your street. So that I what I do, I usually combine them.

 Learn to recognise when you are out of balance.

Q: What has been the biggest transformation in your life ever since you began incorporating your theory of the seven slices?

Well, the biggest transformation has been applying it and seeing the impact that it has had in the lives of others. Seeing it work in the lives of people gives me a terrific feeling because I grew up with it and it has not been a big deal for me. It gave me quite a shock when I realised that other people did not know this. 

For instance, when the book first came out and I had a Zoom meeting with fifteen or so people, so many of them raised their hands and asked how it was possible that no one had ever written such a book before. 

I replied that it had been sitting there and hiding in plain sight. I mean, we all have these slices, so why did they not use them? And the problem is, many people have about two or so of these slices empty, from my experience. So I tell a lot of people to spend about five minutes or so in the empty slices of their lives and they do so and come back to tell me that they feel better already. 

Q: Finally, an additional question. I know that your book was focused mainly on professionals and people in the workplace, but I believe that students actually have a harder time being able to achieve balance in their lives, with the growing pressure for grades good enough to have a chance in the labour market. What is your advice to students, and how do you think that they should go about achieving balance in all slices of their lives?

People go to school from age five to age twenty-five. That is a lot of time. So I have come to think of school the way that I think of one’s profession. If you leave school, you move to your profession. Hence, if you are in school, that is your professional slice.

So, why would this process not work for you as a student? All that you would have to do is to cross out the professional slice and replace it with school. And you would use it the same way. To me, there is no difference.

I have heard a lot of clients ask me whether it would work for their children in school that suffer from stress and anxiety and I ask them whether the children usually spend time in the other slices of their lives. Most often, the answer is ‘I don’t think so.’ So I say, “Well, why don’t you try it?”

So I would say to you, it works the same way for students.

Q: So, when I read your book, I asked myself how I was going to implement this in my life. You see, I am a law student, and as a law student, my academic life is not restricted to only lectures and assignments. I also have a host of extra-curriculars. Hence, there are times that I would come to school in the morning and leave by 7 pm at night. And there are students who do this, sleep for a few hours, and then come back for night class and the likes. So, I was wondering, is it really workable in my life?

I say to you, it is the same thing. In the course of your day at law school, you can find five minutes for your personal life. What I do is that I take a ten-minute personal vacation every day. So for ten minutes, I do nothing other than stare out the window or read a paper or something. So, for me, I take a break in which I leave every other thing and focus on myself. It makes the rest of the day easier. 

So when I hear people like you saying, “Oh, I am in school from early morning to late at night.” I go, “I bet that I can find an hour of free time in ten-minute increments. Time in which you can read, pray, chant or meditate, talk with a friend about nothing, or take a ten minute.”

There is no barrier to the other slices of your life. It just takes little bits of planned time. It takes a little bit of discipline. It is a decision that you have to make to do it.

What I think is that a lot of people think about life as though it’s just happening to them or just coming at them. I mean, for you, you chose to go to law school. No one made you go to law school. So why do you not manage law school? Why do you let law school manage you?

^{There is no barrier to the other slices of your life. It just takes little bits of planned time and discipline.}

 

You can get the work done even if you follow your own course. The biggest question I ask people is why they follow other people that are stressed out instead of those that are more relaxed with their lives. As I tell them, go with the flow that works for you. If you follow one that does not work for you, you will end up unhappy and miserable.

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You can purchase David McNeff’s book, “The Work/Life Balance Myth” on Amazon. Click on this link to buy and get the full knowledge of what it truly takes to have a balanced life.