There are many ideas, concepts, discoveries that are external to ourselves. There are many that we try to keep external. And then there are those that never can be external – they are part of us … period. Examples of the last group are understandings, mind-sets, standards, etc.
To me, the key to understanding and/or change always comes with personalizing the learning. Learning has to be ‘operational’ in order to have any application and value. I realize that sounds obvious but too often this is the missing step in our application of learning. Without personalizing it, how can it possibly be of use to us?
How do you define personalize? Webster’s, in my humble opinion, is woefully inadequate. It states: “to mark (something) in a way that shows it belongs to a particular person”. And yet, when we do personalize it does mark us. Personalize, in my world of definitions, is the intentional inclusion into my concepts, mind-sets, etc. in such a way that it is seen in my choice of words and actions. Is this any better? Personalizing is deliberate and by choice and it is a behavior.
Why be mindful of personalizing? Because I don’t believe that a willy nilly approach to the important issues and decisions of life should be our MO. We need to know why we do and are as we are, what influences us, how we portray what it is that we are and do. I don’t believe that we were created to be mindless which requires an intentionality. We must know our own who, what, expression, and why. We really can’t be external to who we are.
