ARIA model can help create insight and action.

  • Awareness: Lightly focus on the impasse with a quiet mind, distilling the problem into a simple representation. Don’t focus on details.
  • Reflection: Focus on thinking process and find unexplored venues.
  • Insight: The mind eventually shuts down focus on specifics and activates areas for pulling together information into insight.
  • Action: ~10 minutes of intense motivation is triggered.

Useful for getting past impasses.rR1


  1. David Rock, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, 1st ed (New York: Harper Business, 2009). (See notes.)