The other day, while looking for something to read, I found a copy of “The One Minute Teacher”. I had gotten this book at one of those “Friends of the Library” sales for a dime or a quarter. This was one of many books that I’ve gotten great deals on, and until now, hadn’t yet read. I am proud to say that now it’s in the list of books that I have finished!To start off with, at just 100 pages, this book is small enough and short enough that it took only about 2 days for this slow reader to get through. Bear in mind that this is also in conjunction with leading my normal life of work, family and tweaking my website, etc.The book itself is written by Spencer Johnson, M.D. (co-author, with Ken Blanchard, of “The One Minute Manager“), and Constance Johnson, M.Ed.

The book is mainly focused toward how teachers and students can better enhance the quality of our learning experience and process. It is worthy to note, however, that the three principles expressed in this book are easily adapted to work in enhancing success in ANY endeavor.

The three steps to success outlined in this book are:

1) Setting One-Minute Goals,
2) Using One-Minute Praisings, and
3) Using the One-Minute Recovery

Step One: Setting One-Minute Goals:

This step is the basic act of seeing mentally where you would like to be at a given future point. It is basic goal-setting, except the goal we WRITE DOWN (a necessary step) should be able to be read in a minute or less every day. The key to getting this step to work most effectively is that we should make sure we are able to FEEL what it will mean to achieve our goal. This is, interestingly, in keeping with what is taught by the entities known collective as Abraham in “Ask and It Is Given“, when Abraham teaches us about the Emotional Guidance System.

Step Two: Using One-Minute Praisings:

This step draws on the fact that we are conditioned in life to only pay attention to what we are doing WRONG, rather than focus on what we do RIGHT, or APPROXIMATELY RIGHT.
When you notice yourself doing something that is in alignment with getting you toward your one-minute goal, take at least a minute and PRAISE yourself immediately. Immediacy in the praise is absolutely essential, because this utilizes what we know about behavioral conditioning. It is much the same as with Pavlov’s dog. The bell was rung immediately upon presentation of the food, so the dog would be more likely to mentally anchor the sound of the bell to the presence of food. Same thing here, praise yourself immediately, and feel good about it. You will reinforce the behavior that is proper to achieving your goals. Even if you fall short of your intended goal, rather than feeling down on yourself, it is possible to give yourself praise for improvement over your previous behavior. You can also praise yourself for remembering to praise yourself. When you feel good about what you are doing, you are more likely to do more of it.

Step Three: Using the One-Minute Recovery:

This step is used when you find yourself doing something that is taking you further from your goal. It uses both positive and negative reinforcement at the same time to maximize positive behavior or negative behavior. The One-Minute Recovery is broken into two parts:

1. Give yourself a 30-second window to notice the behavior in question. Ask yourself “Is this bringing me closer to my goal or further away?”. If the answer is the latter, then take that time to go deep into how badly the bahavior makes you feel, tell youself specifically what you are doing wrong and resolve that you don’t want to feel that way again. Tell yourself that while the bahavior may be bad, that you are NOT your behavior, that you are GOOD.
2. Use the second thirty seconds as a chance to immediately reinforce the One-Minute goal you are working toward. Feel good about yourself, and decide to find a better bahavior to replace the bad behavior. Do not worry about the new bahavior being PERFECT. Just resolve for it to be BETTER.

Just remember, when a space shuttle is on it’s way to the moon, it is actually off course most of the time. The key to getting there is just being able to sense when you are getting off course, and then self-correcting.

In a nutshell, I highly recommend this book to anyone serious about adopting better behaviors and better success habits!