[This post is part of a series on The Method to use The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Now, with direction, boundaries, and goals set from steps 0, 1, 2, and 3 it's time to act. You…

[This post is part of a series on The Method to use The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Now, with direction and boundaries set from steps 0, 1, and 2, we plan what we will do. Step…

[This post is part of a series on The Method to use The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Step 2, the Method's first active step, is to pick your direction, the key word being your. You will…

[This post is part of a series on The Method to use The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] The Method's first two steps -- knowing your emotional system and understanding your current emotional cycles -- involve little…

[This post is part of a series on The Method to use The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] The Method's zeroth step was a once-per-lifetime step. Once you understand your emotional cycle once, you can remember it…

[This post is part of a series on The Method to use The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Today’s post will be brief. The Method’s zeroth step is to know your emotional system. I call it step…

This post is better covered by the series on The Method, where you'll get more value than reading just this post. Please click there instead. (I'm keeping the rest of this post for posterity). This post begins describing the Method, which is how to use the Model to lead yourself and others and to improve your life, in particular, using the elements you have voluntary control over. The Method, step by step Before anything else, the Method begins with you knowing your emotional system -- the foundation of self-awareness and emotional intelligence. You only have to learn it once in…

[This post is part of a series on The Method to use The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Eventually a transformation's new environments, beliefs, and behaviors synchronize completely with each other. The cycle you changed brings the…

Once the elements of a transformation start supporting each other the transformation starts to feel like it will take root. You may still feel some inertia, fakeness, and conflict between the old and new you, but decreasingly. Examples of elements supporting each other include After starting a new hobby (behavior) you start meeting others who do the same hobby People compliment you on losing weight People you meet in new circles of friends or colleagues have mutual friends Confirmation biases start reinforcing new beliefs and so on. You also start feeling reward from new cycles as the elements in them…

I should note a caveat for the transition stage. Since this stage involves conflict, feeling fake, and overcoming inertia, you may use a lot of willpower. How do you know you're moving in a direction that improves your life? How do you know you aren't pushing hard on something that you thought would help but isn't? The best answer is through experience. After a few transformations you pick up the subtle cues that show inertia decreasing or that what seemed feeling fake at the beginning also carried feelings of exploration and discovery. For example, if you tried a new style…

You can usually do the preparation stages of transforming a part of your life easily since you can do them yourself, without someone else. Working with other people usually makes things more complex. Still, you generally do benefit from involving others. Because they have different perspectives and can see your life from further away, their input usually helps. At the end of the preparation stages you have two sets of environments, beliefs, and behaviors in mind -- your current one and your desired one. You know your current situation so, however little reward it brings, you know how to get…

We've covered the preparation stages of transforming a part of your life to bring more reward by choosing environments, beliefs, and behaviors based on your interests. Of course your life changes all the time whether you intentionally cause those changes or not. Using the Method, based on the Model, lets you do it systematically, intentionally, and makes you more likely to succeed than alternatives. Now let's look at how the transformation evolves in your life over the next few posts. Unplanned life changes can start and unfold unpredictably. Planned structured ones like intentional transformations following the Method can unfold unpredictably…

EDIT: I modified how I present the Method slightly. Please see the new version of this page and the updated series on implementing the Method. Having conceived of new environments, beliefs, and behaviors consistent with each other, the emotions you want, and what you will, won't, can, and can't do, the next step is to create and implement them. Creating and implementing them means more than just doing some simple task. It means creating a lifestyle for yourself based on your emotional cycles, which you learned about in the first two steps. That is, choosing your environment means choosing whom…