As the looming onslaught of state and federal mandates descend upon the legions of educational professionals tasked with their implementation, a workforce that has spent the last decade under the mentality that their field and passion is under siege, it is increasingly common to hear a flow of helplessness and despair in faculty rooms and PLC meetings around the state. How can anyone combat this overwhelming negativity? The answer lies first in each individual. In Dr. Anthony Colella’s essay, “Pathways to Self-Empowerment”, a simple set of guidelines for self-change are presented. Readers will note that in order to truly change, an individual must truly reflect inward and repetitively reinforce the life they imagine. Henry David Thoreau, in his seminal work, Walden, noted that “What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.” Colella recognizes that through recognizing the personal belief system, determining the self-talk an individual engages in, and modifying that talk while supplementing strong visualizations, an individual can take the first step towards changing the environment; changing himself.
Before we can ever hope or even expect to change, there must be a period of honest self-reflection and analysis. Too often the ability to look clearly at our biases and excuses get in the way of changing our lives. One of the fundamental mistakes we make as people is to fall into the cynical belief that we are simply unable to change “who we really are.” This belief alone can have devastating consequences toward our ability to alter our outlook on life, and then improve it. In a study on “mental strength training” performed by exercise psychologists “conclude[d] that the mental training employed by this study enhance[d] the cortical output signal, which drives the muscles to a higher activation level and increases strength” (Ranganathan, et al.). Simply pretending that they were lifting weights in their minds produced actual increases in their physical ability to lift weight. While the rational aspects of our brain would typically reject this anecdote if it were presented by a lay person, a clinical research study is certainly more reliable, and therefore, harder to simply dismiss. Only when we have removed this barrier, the acceptance that we are not simply capable of change, in fact we are built for it, will we be able to take the next step toward creating the changes that we desire. These techniques alone are not a panacea however, and will require dedication and practice in order to see lasting results.
In the same way that we must focus on being self-critical enough to recognize the biases and belief systems that influence our thinking, so too must we take a hard and accurate look at the way we speak to ourselves. Colella refers to this as “Self-talk”, and prior to change we must first determine whether ours is positive or negative: “Simply stated - if one believes that he or she is not capable or competent or lovable, then that person will develop a mental vocabulary and complete life script to substantiate and validate the accuracy of the belief system; however, if one believes that he or she is capable, competent and lovable, the tape and script which follow are consistent with that belief.” Similar to the thesis posited by Carol Dweck in her book Mindset, Colella places a great deal of weight on the perception of an individual in the desire to effectively change. This awareness of how self-talk influences our decision making process, and self-awareness, must be realistic and critical in order for the next step to take place, changing the way we self talk and visualize ourselves.
When we typically think about athletes, we focus on their physical attributes first, how quickly they run, how much weight they can lift, and their various body measurements. What we fail to look at in most instances, are the routines and practices that these same athletes put themselves through outside of the field of play. Johnny Damon, an outfielder for the first Red Sox team to win a World Series in 86 years, stated in his book Idiot, that the only thing that differentiates Triple-A players from Major Leaguers is their dedication to work. Even the highest performers in their sports realize the value of self-empowerment. “...Muhammad Ali, used different mental practices to enhance his performance in the ring such as: ‘affirmation; visualization; mental rehearsal; self-confirmation; and perhaps the most powerful epigram of personal worth ever uttered: ‘I am the greatest’”(LeVan). The ability to train yourself towards positive self-talk and visualization, in place of any type of physical action, still has the capacity to allow for tremendous personal change.
Don Quixote sits aloft his frail horse, with Sancho Panza at his side. Picasso’s rendering of this scene in a simple sketch is often paired with a Spanish verb in strong, red letters: Sonar (To Dream). This poster stood in my classroom for 10 years paired with a different quote, but one that resonates in lieu of Colella’s article. "I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Thoreau once again reminds us that we alone hold the key to making the changes we wish to see in the world. The more this mindset begins to permeate our educational institutions, the more we will see a workforce ready to respond to whatever initiative is thrown their way, with both confidence, and excitement at the challenge.
REFERENCES:
Colella, Anthony J., Ph.D. "Pathways to Self-Empowerment." (1994): n. pag. Print.
LeVan, Angie. "Seeing Is Believing: The Power of Visualization." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 12 Dec. 2009. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
Ranganathan, Vinoth K., Vlodek Siemionow, Jing Z. Liu, Vinod Sahgal, and Guang H. Yue. "From Mental Power to Muscle Power--gaining Strength by Using the Mind." Neuropsychologia 42.7 (2004): 944-56. Science Direct. Web.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. N.p.: n.p., 1929. Print.
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