Kaizen is an interesting concept that still grabs my attention even though I read the book where I was first introduced to the concept. This book is called One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer, Ph. D. The subtitle is called The Kaizen Way.
People get stuck in life because of the fear inside them and the flight or fight process is active, creating a type of paralysis of the mind. The author demonstrates examples from his practice of
psychology of people who couldn't make headway in conquering their fears from people being overweight to people suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The title suggests the
strategy, kaizen, which is taken one very tiny step in the direction or towards the goal. The
kaizen way is using the smallest step - meaning it is literally impossible to break the goal down any further. He would take a person who had a severe case of PTSD and have that person do the smallest step, i.e. if he took that person who was afraid of flying in a plane, and give them the assignment of mapping the route to the airport, then that would be a small step. The next day he might look in the yellow pages to see what airplanes were available in his town. They are easy to do and a person won't cower with fear in performing these actions.
The reason why the flight or fight method rings true is that is is natural to look at life that way.
However, the author determined that people were often paralyzed by fear and stuck that way by yet another mechanism in our brain that remembers the injury and will always keep a person stuck unless overcome by natural means. Kaizen doesn't try to say a person doesn't have fear or to take steps that a person can't take, until they are ready.
This definitely suits my style of psychology and it makes sense. The book jacket states the
techniques: ask small questions, think small thoughts, take small actions, and solve small problems.
Teachers can use kaizen for students in thinking differently about some of their shyer
students or fearful learners. We can use these in looking at our troubles also.
2 comments:
I like the idea of breaking the problem down into the smallest step and making it a step that the person can do successfully. We teachers have to do this and give temporary aids to help our students succeed in those steps. The aids like crutches crutches and calculators can be put away if the student makes progress.
Very interesting. I too like the idea of attacking a fear through the introduction of small steps. I think in the classroom with other students incorporated into the equasion, modeling a small or medium step in a more unintentional group situation with other students might help the student challenge himself beyond his comfort zone to overcome a fear. I guess I am thinking of positive unintentional (or maybe it really is intentional) peer pressure.
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