Art makes the difference.
Nothing can challenge our mindset like art, and it's why art should always be at the center of our development as both civilizations and unique individuals.
Before any learning process can take place in our mind, we first need a disturbance that challenges our frame of reference.
It's a well established fact in the science of transformative learning, and it makes just as much sense in personal development, which is essentially a learning process.
That's why we have always been huge fans of art in Mindblaze, and why we use it to a great extent.
It makes the difference when it comes to challenging our existing mindset, since it's a craft based on doing exactly that.
Art is self learning
Now, that doesn't mean that a well-designed personal development process always takes place when interacting with art. Not at all.
It does mean, though, that a disturbance always takes place, but whether we learn from it is entirely up to us. It's art, and it leaves the door open for personal interpretation.
In other words, what we learn from art is self-learning. We have to involve our mind and emotional reactions in the meeting with art, and cherry-pick whatever golden nuggets we find.
Structured, yet flexible
In a facilitated personal development process, that's not enough. It's a great, and necessary, starting point, but to make sure it doesn't just end there, we have to expand the process.
That's where the rubber meets the road in personal development.
It's where it becomes a process of exploration that's structured enough to guide you in the right direction, and flexible enough to let you reach your own conclusions.
There are both good and bad examples of this in the personal development industry, and you have to make up your own mind about it on a case by case basis.
Open and innovative
Generally, based upon my own experiences, I would say that the more dogmatic the mindset, the more closed and definitive the process is.
And, by contrast, the more artistic the mindset, the more open and innovative a process you get.
Needless to say, we are fans of the latter in Mindblaze. It's called personal development because it's personal.
It's up to you to make the best of it, and no one should tell you exactly what to achieve in the process.
Like in art, that's for you to figure out, and it's why art should always be at the center of our development as both civilizations and unique individuals.
Art simply makes the difference.