Other types of accomplishment are similar in that they are to a degree attempting to create new behavior with the application of will power and repetition. Changing or developing new habits comes under this heading, as does learning a language, learning a trade, or studying an academic subject. All of this could be termed “learning,” where actual physical changes take place in the brain to represent new information.

Another aspect of personal development involves the mixing of awareness and existing information already resident in our minds. These are the structures we use to order our world, the beliefs and assumptions upon which much of our behavior is based. There is a higher level organization of information that occurs, sometimes instantaneously, when the mind attempts to fit a new idea into its existing store of information. This occurs in the cerebral part of the brain as part of the conceptual and spatial thinking function of the brain.

It is certainly an admirable quality to have the discipline and will power to persevere through the acquisition of a new skill. It is really remarkable, however, when the brain seems to reach a “tipping point,” when it immediately creates and generalizes a new conceptual pattern that will then serve as a portion of the basis for our future worldview and behavior. This is what I call the Shift Point. We have all experienced this to varying degrees in the past, when our point of view, the way we look at the world changes almost instantaneously.

Under normal development circumstances our paradigm, or the way we view the world, is always changing gradually. Sometimes, however, an idea comes into our awareness that seems to be the missing piece of the puzzle so to speak, the piece we need at that time to complete a new and desired worldview. When the pressure of our desire to change builds sufficiently we become open to the solution. We are more willing to allow old patterns to release and new ones to form. We are much less likely to allow this if we are comfortable where we are. The common sense of the subconscious says why fix it if it isn’t broken.

The Shift Point Method was developed as a means to accurately facilitate a conceptual tipping point for those that are ready. During the coaching process the missing piece is identified, a new paradigm is generalized, and the client walks away with a sense of having just awakened to new possibilities. In a future article I will explain more about what is involved in the coaching process.