Napoleon Technique

A Problem Solving technique. It is a specific application of modelling and is related to the Acting as If technique.

Take on the persona of someone important and try to solve the problem from that persons point of view. Your new identity may give you a new perspective on your problem. Eg what would Napoleon or Leonardo da Vinci do if he had your problem?

Rule of Five

Do five things everyday that will move you toward your goal completion until you reach the goal.


Achieving external Goals may be different from making internal change and there may be a reinforcement schedule that determines the effectiveness of internal change strategies as for some happiness techniques.

You can blame the event for the lack of outcome or you can change your response to the event until you achieve your desired outcome.

Changing you response means changing your thinking, your communication, the pictures in your head or your behaviours. This can take time as you have to overcome years of conditioned behaviours (Habits).

Speed Reading is an essential skill when you have to master large volumes of information quickly.

By knowing what information you want from a document before you start reading is an important part of the skill. If you only want an outline of the issue that the document discusses, then skim the document quickly extracting only the essential facts. If you need to understand the real detail of the document, then you need to read it slowly enough to fully understand it.

The greatest time savings are gained by learning to skim excessively detailed documents.

Technical Issues

Apart from ignoring irrelevant detail there are other technical improvements you can make to the way you read. This will increase your reading speed.

As you read notice that you are fixing your eyes on one block of words, then moving your eyes to the next block of words, and so on. You  are reading blocks of words at a time, not individual words one-by-one. You will also notice that you do not always go from one block to the next: sometimes you may move back a block if you are unsure about something.

Reading faster involves reading many words in a block and only looking at each block for an instant, then moving on.  This reduces the amount of work your eyes have to do and increases the amount information you can examine in a given amount of time.

Poor readers spend a lot of time on small blocks of words and skip back often. This causes the loss of the flow and structure of the text and limits the overall understanding of the subject. This irregular eye movement makes reading tiring and therefore harder to concentrate and understand the information.

Increasing the number of words read in each block

Skimming is a process of speed reading that involves visually searching the sentences of a page for clues to meaning. Skimming is usually seen more in adults than in children. It is conducted at a higher rate (700 words per minute and above) than normal reading for comprehension (around 200-230 wpm), and therefore results in lower comprehension rates, especially with information-rich reading material.

Another form of skimming involves skipping over text that is less interesting or relevant. This form of reading is not new but is more prevalent due to the ease with which alternative information can be accessed online.

Meta guiding is the visual guiding of the eye using a finger or pointer so the eye to move faster along the length of a passage of text. It can also involve the drawing of invisible shapes on a page of text to broaden the visual span for speed reading. For example, an audience of customers at a speed reading seminar will be instructed to use a finger or pen to make these shapes on a page and told that this will speed up their visual cortex, increase their visual span to take in the whole line. The reduction in subvocalization is supposed to speed up reading. This whole process encourages the eye to skim over the text but reduces comprehension and memory, and leads to missing important details of the text.

Meta Guiding takes a conscious effort. Try to expand the number of words that you read at a time. Practice will help you to read faster. You may find that you can increase the number of words you read by holding the text a little further from your eyes. The more words you read in a block, the faster you can read!

Reduce the length of time spent reading each block.

The minimum amount of time needed to read a block is about 0.25sec. Push yourself to reduce the time you take. You will notice that you get better at picking up information quickly. This is a matter of practice and confidence.

Reduce the number of times you skip back to a previous sentence.
To do this run a pointer along the line as you read. Your finger or a pen will do. Your eyes follow the tip of the pointer making the flow of reading smoother. The speed of this method depends on the speed you move the pointer but just by doing it you can nearly double your reading speed without doing anything else.

Skimming should not be used when complete comprehension of the text is the objective. Skimming is mainly used when researching and getting an overall idea of the text. Where time is limited, skimming or skipping over text can aid comprehension. The main points of a text can be better understood after skimming than after normal reading but there is no difference  in understanding less important information in the text.

Speed reading courses which teach techniques that largely constitute skimming of written text, also result in a lower comprehension rate (below 50% comprehension on standardized comprehension tests).

The technique has its origins in the 1911 paper Philosophie des Als Ob (‘Philosophy of As If’) by Hans Vaihinger.
The theory is: we can never really know the underlying reality of the world. Because of this we construct various systems of thought and then we assume that these match reality. We then behave behave “as if” the world matches our models of the world.

The ‘Acting As If’ technique presupposes that the result has been or will be realized.

The intent is to make it easier to explore possibilities and ideas internally. Such possibilities would not usually be available to us because of the limiting beliefs we usually hold about ourselves and others. The goal of the technique is to allow the limiting beliefs to be set aside by reducing or avoiding internal resistances. The purpose of doing this is to explore alternate possibilities, without having to threaten or challenge our existing world-view. The limiting belief can be kept if it is useful.

For example instead of saying “I don’t know how to be confident in around people I’ve never met before” you can act as if you have done it before. Doing this puts you in the stage of conscious incompetence, but you behave as though you have conscious or even unconscious competence.

This technique allows you to acquire competence rapidly, efficiently and effectively compared to just acknowledging your incompetence.

Using this technique requires you to focus and mobilize your personal resources. ‘Acting’ means that you have to overcome inertia and passivity and become a doer. ‘As if’ implies empowering beliefs that the result is a possibility, if not a reality.

You need to have a vision or a mental model of yourself successfully performing the skill you want. The model may be informed by images and memories of real-life people you’ve seen being confident among strangers. Even if you are learning by trial and error, or by “trial and succeed” there is always a reference point.

You can internally reinforce ‘As if’ behavior by using positive affirmations (Meeting new people is easy for me) and visualization.

The ‘acting as if’ technique can be used to develop skills and roles you require. You can also use it to be the kind of person you want to be. It can be an effective approach to interpersonal communications. When you act as if someone else has a positive intent, you can ‘encourage’ them to express that intent by ’showing’ them a preferred possibility for their behavior. This is a form of personal power.

Examples
I can’t tell my partner how I feel.
But if you could, what would you want them to know?
By acting as if you could you can move away from “I can’t”, towards discussing the the problem or identify what you would like to say. You then spontaneously start to consider ways you could say what you feel. Either move would be a positive step towards learning to solve the problem.

I don’t know anyone who could memorize this poem.
But if they could, how do you think they might do it?
Well, I suppose they would…..
Again you must move away from the flat denial of your capabilities and knowledge. You can then engage in a creative approach to consider how to achieve the goal. This is often called a generative approach. It encourages you to brainstorm and generate new ideas without reference to prior assumptions of inability.

Alternatives for When You Get Stuck
If you continue to feel unable to identify new ideas you could try the following:

• Address the presupposition “What stops you?” [presuposes something specific is stopping you and this can be identified and considered],

• Look for role models “Who else might know?”,

• Test whether there is a generalized belief of impossibility “Could there be anyone who could do it?”,

• Look for a secondary problem or problems (things that mean it cannot safely be considered) “So what would happen if you did?”,

• Search for counter-examples “Has there ever been a time you could…?”,

• Search for potential internal conflicts “Is there a part of you that would have a problem doing that?”

• Look for more positive motivational leverage “What else would you get if you could?”

• Allow yourself to consider broader kinds of solutions from other perceptual positions such as third parties “If your wife was here, what might she say you weren’t seeing?”

• Reorientate yourself to see the problem from a future perspective, such as the double question “How would it feel if you could find a way?” followed by “And how might you get that?”

• Consider smaller steps “And if you could find a way to get there anyway, what might you have to do first?”

“People are not disturbed by events in the world, but rather by the view that they take of them.” - Epicitus

Pain and suffering is inevitable – being miserable is an option

Our view or interpretaion of an event impacts greatly on not only our behaviour in relation to that event, but also our emotional reaction.

Two people may be involved in the very same event, but have a very different emotional reaction based on how they perceived the event. For example research in the forensic field looking at the accuracy of eyewitness testimony shows how two individuals who witness the exact same crime can have two very different perceptions of what happened. Our perceptions can differ due to a variety of external factors such as our location and our physical viewpoint. But this perception is also colored by our own thoughts, values, morals and our past life experiences. Our life view is a sum total of all our experiences, with some experiences (such as the death of a loved one) having more impact on our life than others. From a very early age we learn to incorporate these experiences into our cognitive structure to make sense of the world and how we relate to the world.

These experiences lead us to develop a variety of beliefs and thinking processes. Some of these beliefs are widespread, such as the sun setting in the east and rising in the west. This is an example of a belief that is congruent to our reality. However sometimes our beliefs are not congruent with reality and here is where problems can develop. Albert Ellis, a psychotherapist and founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, described a number of irrational thoughts that he had observed in a large number of his patients. He determined that often his patients problems were influenced by their particular way of thinking and their expectations and interpretations.

Further research has shown that these self defeating beliefs are in existence in most of the population. Most people allow between three to five of these core beliefs to influence and impact upon their emotions and behaviors. Many people will refuse to admit that they may believe these statements as reading through them they are quite obviously irrational and unhealthy. However our behavior is an essential indicator of our thinking processes and we often behave in accordance to these beliefs, without being aware they are in existence.

We can come to hold beliefs that are self defeating. Explore the list of 10 Self Defeating Beliefs and try out the suggestions to change them.

• Self Defeating Belief 1
I must be loved or approved of by significant people in my life in order to be a worthwhile person.

• Self Defeating Belief 2
To feel happy and be worthwhile I must achieve, succeed at what ever I do, and make no mistakes.

• Self Defeating Belief 3
People should always do the right thing. People who don’t are bad and should be blamed or punished.

• Self Defeating Belief 4
If things don’t turn out the way I want them to be it’s a total disaster and completely intolerable.

• Self Defeating Belief 5
My unhappiness is caused by things outside my control and things that happened to me in the past – so there’s little I can do to feel any better.

• Self Defeating Belief 6
If something is going to be dangerous or frightening, then I should be terribly concerned about it and worry about it a great deal to stop it from happening.

• Self Defeating Belief 7
It is easier to avoid problems and unpleasantness in my life than to face it.

• Self Defeating Belief 8
I need someone stronger than than myself to rely on.

• Self Defeating Belief 9
Every problem should have an ideal solution – and it is unbearable when one can’t be.

• Self Defeating Belief 10
I should become upset when other people have problems and feel unhappy when they’re sad.

It is natural to be concerned for a friend or family member when they are experiences some difficulties and this shows signs of being a compassionate person. However when you become over-involved in other people’s problems not only are you using up your energy and time to deal with a situation that is someone else’s responsibility, but you are also taking away their opportunity to grow and learn. If we are forever solving other people’s problems, that is not leaving much time for us to achieve our goals and look at improving our own life. When we take on board other people’s problems we also take on board their emotional reaction to those problems, which uses up our own energy and resources. A good question to ask yourself if find yourself having a strong emotional reaction is “WHo’s problem is this?’ if you answer is that is is someone else problem, then it is that persons responsibility to solve it. You can provide support in a compassionate and caring way and offer advice is asked, but leave the problem with them, that way you also leave the emotions with them.

A healthier idea

It is sad to see other people in trouble, but I don’t help them by making myself miserable. I can cope with feeling sad, and sometimes I can take constructive steps to help them.

It is natural to desire a positive outcome to problems in life. Problems occur when we demand a positive outcome and dismiss potentially satisfactory solutions in search of the perfect solution. When we demand that all problems are solved to perfection we once again set ourselves up for failure and distress. There is no evidence to suggest that there is a perfect outcome to any problem, and by searching for this we miss some very viable options. Often in life the options we are faced with are far from perfect, but that are satisfactory. If we dismiss them then the problem can actually become bigger and we expend more time and energy looking for a solution that just doesn’t exist.

A Healthier Idea

It is good to have a perfect solution to a problem, although that is rarely possible. There are often a variety of solutions and I am capable of using problem solving to choose the most appropriate solution.

It is actually very healthy to be strong enough to ask for help when you need it. We alone are not able to achieve and accomplish everything is life that is necessary for daily living, that’s why we all have different careers and specialty areas. For example when our washing machine breaks down we call a plumber because that is their specialty area. Problems develop from this way of thinking when we are asking for help from others on a regular occasion and we develop a dependence upon them. Over reliance on others can lead to a lot of problems in our life including avoidance of situations and responsibility, lack of confidence in ourselves and our own abilities and an inability to make our own decisions. Some warning signs that you may be defendant on others are not doing things you want to do for fear of other peoples approval, constantly asking other peoples advice, or asking people’s permission to say or do something.

A healthier idea

It is good to get support from others when I want it, but the only person I really need to rely on is myself. Over reliance leads to dependence and I can and will trust my own judgment