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Fallacies in the concept of “doing work that matters” August 15, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Concept of personal growth.
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If you absorb enough contemporary writing or video/audio on the concept of personal growth and development, you will come across the concept of the need to do “work that matters.”

Or stated another way, doing work that is meaningful
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The implication, or perhaps the inference some people make with this, is that the work they are engaged in may not be work that matters or is meaningful, and they should find ways to do work that is.

This can be an emotional and intellectual trap.

If we are not careful, in this approach to self-actualization, we can create an internal environment of self-disparagement when we take an overly simplistic approach to the concept of doing meaningful work.

The problem stems from our having a one dimensional view, or definition, of the idea of “work that matters.”

If we assume, as many do, that it is work that changes the world, then the vast majority of us are not likely to create or find or create such work. And to have universe-changing work as an end-goal will likely lead to discouragement and self-defined “failure.”

However, your work does not have to light the world on fire with lightning bolts for it “to matter.”

Doing any work that supports your family and increases self-sufficiency is work that matters.

Doing work that helps others in any way in their lives matters.

Doing your work at 100% to the best of your intellectual and creative ability matters.

Take-away: If your work matters to you, it matters – period

Personal growth: Achieving broad goals via specifics June 25, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth, Goal Setting and Realization.
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One of the traps we can fall into in self-improvement is in setting too many vague and overly broad goals without also establishing specific goals (within our general goals) that can be broken down into smaller tasks or projects.

Examples of vague goals:

Improve my knowledge of current affairs
Increase my understanding of personal development principles
Doing a better job of organizing my time
Establishing more quality time with my family

These are admirable objectives, but if not augmented with specific goals and sub-tasks, they can be a frustrating exercise and remain merely good intentions.

Wide/broad goals need to be (1) subdivided into specifics, (2) then quantified and (3) then be incorporated into a timetable.

For improving our knowledge of current affairs, for example, the sub-goal could be to read (on- or off-line) authoritative, quality newspapers, blogs, and magazines.

Then quantify by choosing a specific number you will read, and which ones.

Finally timetable this by establishing the time of day, week, or month that we will do this plus the amount of time we will devote to this activity.

We need to periodically remind ourselves that taking a systematic and specific-actions approach to our broad goals will result in less frustration and more actual achievement in our self-improvement efforts.

Our overarching goal is to better ourselves; but this can’t happen without an action plan.