Avoid the traps of training courses that fail to deliver.
The Myth of the Missing Piece is a principle used by the professional peddlers of personal progression programmes to persuade you that a piece, yes one elusive piece, is all that’s missing for you to feel complete. If they can initially get you believing that not only is there a missing piece, but they have the piece, perfectly proportioned and shaped for instant installation in you, they have a good chance of a sale. If you buy into the concept, you’re consigned to a path that will ultimately lead nowhere.
You’ll find yourself attending a course, where you’ll be spending time on top of your money, or someone else’s if they’ve sponsored you, in the quest to obtain the piece, safe in the knowledge that once it’s finished … a moment usually marked by the awarding of another meaningless certificate to occupy a space on an already overcrowded wall of achievement, accompanied by the fervent applause of your fellow seekers … not only will the course be complete, so will you.
If only. The problem with their model is overt but rarely seen, you aren’t really missing anything before you go. There is no piece.
They don’t have it, because it doesn’t exist, so turning up to collect it is a quest doomed to failure. What’s worse is it will be your fault when the course fails to deliver. How so? Let me share what happens (spoiler alert!)
It all gets set up in the first exchanges. A sale occurs when you are suckered into their schtick. When you arrive at the end of the course you still have an emptiness inside together with an increased feeling of incompleteness. It’s hard to revisit your earlier decision and see the error when this happens. To do so would only open a regret reaction and you’d lose confidence, so it follows that it’s better to accept a near miss than a complete waste of time and money, and start to look for the next course to rectify the ongoing emptiness as soon as possible. They know that and it’s what they prey upon. They are ready for you whether you’re newly entered into the quest, or rebounding from the latest failure to find it.
On and on it goes, training and accreditation credits mounting in your personal development plan, your bank account shrinking with no prospect of earning the fees you paid to get it from the new knowledge and skills the certificate suggests you’ve absorbed. You will have been consistently reminded of the importance of self-responsibility through their teachings, it’s a transfer of responsibility and well-practiced by them, because it slams the door shut to you asking how come it, and they, made no difference when it’s over. You’ve already been force-fed the answer; it’s you, and only you at fault.
Reflecting on the very reason you paid and played: you thought you had an issue, an error or an absence of an essential, and they agreed. We come full circle and you’re back at deep feelings of frustration and discontent, possibly with a smattering of puzzlement. It’s unlikely this will feel particularly strange to you as you’ve most likely been here before. These moments form a perfect time for a new course suggestion, a newly identified missing piece to get you out of the mess you’re in. They know that. Luckily for them our ability to engage cognitive dissonance alleviates pain or angst at these times, replacing it with ambition, and your soon to be repeated error is hidden by a process which feels like sensible logic.
Don’t mistake this article as a plea to avoid a training course that will help you, since there are many that can. Under no circumstances should you stop learning, as the acquisition of skills, knowledge and experience are all rewarding in themselves, in addition to raising your market value.
Instead recognise its intention to reset your ambition when buying into a course and the promoted change it will make, avoid believing your singular missing piece will be somehow be found, and beware of the accreditation attraction as many accolades aren’t as recognised and revered as the folks who flog them would have you believe.
Every other driver you meet on the road has at one time been tested and deemed competent.
If this example doesn’t convince you that assessment and accreditation aren’t a guarantee that others will recognise your talent, what will?
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