Jesse Meijers

Beyond proactivity: Accelerating personal development

About 5% of people on the world are proactive by nature. The other 95% are procrastinators. It is no small feat to step through procrastinating and become (more) proactive. Yet this is one of the main things that separates successful people from the rest. But that is just half of the story. Obviously the 95% of people who are not by nature proactive, should aim to become so. But proactivity alone is just the beginning. If it is not combined with thinking, it will lead to nothing.

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The Pygmalion Effect – Using Self Fulfilling Prophecies to your Advantage!

You have probably heard of the Pygmalion effect, usually called a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is used to describe the effect that when you've talked about something bad happening, that it would actually happen. The fact is, this is much closer to the truth than most people realize. And you can use this to your advantage!

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See one, do one, teach one

Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who has worked for NATO and United Nations. We got talking about learning skills and how rules of thumb which explain methods can help you in easily remembering a process to learn something. In his line of work, the method 'See one, do one, teach one' is used. This is a very good method to remember when you want to learn a skill yourself, and to remember when you are teaching someone else a skill.

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How to use the Law of Reciprocity to your advantage

Last week I was driving home from a client during the rush hour. There was a long queue of cars, which I was in the middle of, slowly moving to the traffic light. I would say we were driving about 5 km/h (3 mph). There was a man who wanted to turn left, and join the line of cars... right in front of me. I was about to experience the law of reciprocity in action.

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The meaning of the word ‘but’…

This very simple word, 'but', which is used in many languages, has a very profound meaning that most people do not notice. We tend to use this word very much, yet underestimate its power.

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How to learn any skill

When you learn any skill, there are a number of stages that you go throw in order to learn that particular skill. This is the same for any skill that you can think of. Being aware of this process will greatly increase your ability to learn a new skill and also allows you to assess your progress when learning skills.

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Identifying your strong and weak points with Belbin

I am a firm believer in discovering your strong and weak points as a means for personal development. People who know their strong and weak points are often more effective in their lives. They know when things are going over their heads and when they can be of added value. Identifying your weak points is usually not an easy process. It is very natural for people to be able to describe their strong points well, but having a hard time really defining their weak points, or vice-versa. Luckily, there are methods of identifying your weak points by knowing your strong points, and the other way around!

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