Dr Hallowell

The Cycle of Excellence

Step 1: Connect

The most important advantage of all for success is emotional connection to people, places and activities we love.  A connected person feels positively involved in a world larger than himself.  He feels–and feels is the crucial verb–held in place by loving and caring relationships.  It is a feeling that precedes words and goes deeper than beliefs or knowledge.  This feeling is like an inoculation against despair, a vitamin that propels positive growth  Indeed, I call it the other vitamin C, vitamin connect.  The key to growth and the best development is love.  And love begets the feeling of connectedness.  Here are the key areas of connection:

• Connection to Family
• Connection to Friends and Neighborhood
• Connection to School or Work
• Connection to Activities You Love
• Connection to the Past
• Connection to Nature and Special Places
• Connection to the Arts
• Connection to Pets and Other Animals
• Connection to Information and Ideas
• Connections to Groups, Teams, Clubs, Institutions
• Connection to a Spiritual Realm or Practice
• Connection to Yourself

The best part about creating connection is that it is available to everyone.  It is free.  All you have to do to create a connected life for yourself is determine to do so.  For more on connection, check out Connect: 12 Vital Ties

Step 2: Play

By play, I mean any activity in which an imagination gets involved and lights up  your mind.  You can play making your bed, imagining the sheets to be ghosts or the walls of billowy caverns.   You can can play solving a geometric problem, as you tinker with one proof after another until the most elegant one pops out.  You can even play picking up dog poop in the back yard, as my son Tucker does as he races with our Jack Russell terrier, Ziggy, from one poop to the next, plastic bag in hand.  Any activity can be turned into play if the imagination gets involved.  In play, we discover the world as well as what kind of mind we have, what we love, and what we want more of.  In play, we grow.  In play, we develop a feeling about life of “I can do it” and “I want to do it,” the feeling of looking forward to tomorrow.

Step 3: Practice

Practice that emerges out of enthusiastic play lays down habits of discipline that actually last.  Getting better at an activity that is challenging and important to you through practice and repetition is key to leading to the next step.

Step 4: Mastery

By mastery, I don’t mean that you become the best at a certain activity.  Being the best or being a star are false idols our culture foolishly and dangerously worships.  What matters is making progress.  If you become the best or become  a star in the process, great.  But the goal ought not to be a star but simply to do your best with each effort and so make progress.  If you do that, your best will get better and better.  That’s what I mean by achieving mastery.  Its effect is magical.

Making progress at an activity that is challenging and important to a person is the single most powerful force we have for building self-esteem and confidence.  Mastery also is the most powerful motivator we have.  People naturally and automatically want to do more of what they’re getting better at, especially if it is important to them.  There need be no other incentive, bribe, or reward than the great feeling of getting better at an activity that’s challenging and important.

Step 5: Recognition

Once you achieve mastery, you naturally receive recognition.  By recognition, I do not necessarily mean that you win a prize or get a lead role.  I simply mean that someone notices your progress.  Someone–a teacher, a teammate, a parent, a friend–gives you a pat on the back or a silent nod, some word or gesture that lets you know that that person sees and values the progress you have made.  such recognition solidifies the confidence, self-esteem, and motivation that mastery engendered, while also connecting you to the person or group who recognized it, completing the cycle.

Adopted from SUPERPARENTING FOR ADD, but equally relevant to Adults and people without ADD