Two key beliefs for personal growth success May 4, 2014
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development.Tags: achieving goals, faith, inspiration, optimism, personal development, personal development planning, personal growth, philosophy, positive thinking, problem-solving
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People who are making progress with their personal growth and development programs generally hold two main beliefs, or articles of faith:
(1) They believe that there are potential solutions to their problems – to the challenges in various areas of their lives that they would like to improve
(2) They believe or have faith that they have, or will gradually acquire, the ability to find, discover, and implement those solutions.
Finding methods (solutions) to make our lives better is the foundational quest in any program that aims at self-actualization.
Let’s look at two other factors:
(a) The concept of self-improvement is all about recognizing the world of possibilities.
(b) Having a strong belief in possibilities and being solutions-oriented is a big part of the self-improvement process.
These are some of the reasons that inspirational-oriented personal growth books and other media are both popular and useful.
Inspirational materials generally involve messages and stories of hope and resulting success in the face of adversity. This helps us to have faith in the idea that solutions are possible, and that the average person can find and put into practice those solutions.
Personal growth planning: Genuine Progress Indicator April 29, 2014
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Planning.Tags: achieving goals, Genuine Progress Indicator, goal setting, personal development, personal development planning, personal development potential, personal growth program, personal improvement, philosophy, self-improvement
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In our ongoing work on our personal growth and development programs we need to be mindful of the dangers of making strong progress in one area of our improvement program only to have our success in that segment of our plan have a negative effect on other components.
For example, if we are trying to achieve a goal of financial betterment, and as part of that we take on three extra part-time jobs for increased income, we could negatively affect another goal, such as spending more quality time with our family.
This goal versus costs dichotomy has become apparent to governmental financial and fiscal planners in their efforts to reconcile apparent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) figures with costs relating to other factors associated with increased GDP.
To figure out impacts, economists devised the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI).
An example would be comparing real economic growth in manufacturing in a country versus the associated environmental and energy-production and/or transportation infrastructure costs.
Positives in one area have to be calibrated in relation to the negatives in another associated area, in order to get a true picture of genuine progress.
Similarly in our self-improvement efforts, we need have our own personalized version of a genuine progress indicator.
We can do this by making sure we are aware of the impacts of achieving success in one area compared with possible losses in another.
An example could be: augmenting our personal educational goal to acquire new skills by taking and paying for numerous seminars and courses, and comparing the costs of this with the negative financial effects produced in another area of our program, such as building up our savings in order to have a financial safety valve for emergencies.
As with most aspects of developing an effective personal growth program, this dichotomy requires using moderation in achieving any particular goal component within our overall personal growth efforts.
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