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Examining the role of life purpose in personal development March 18, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Purpose.
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As each of us works on our personal growth or personal development efforts and programs, we will frequently come across the concept of life purpose in our search for information. This is a subject which on examination can raise more questions answers.

The following is an introductory article exploring some of the questions and issues involved in the concept of life purpose with additional posts planned for the future to review specific ideas and strategies in more detail.

Authorities in the field of self-development will often urge us to discover our life purpose or emphasize the need for creating a statement or guideline concerning our life purpose as a logical and necessary part of our personal development efforts.

But what is “life purpose”? Is it something we construct and design, or is it something we are destined to fulfill in some predetermined scenario? Following are a couple of definitions* of “purpose”:

(1) The reasons for which something exists, or is done, made, used

(2) An intended or desired result, end, aim, goal

Using the first definition we could say that the purpose of a pen is to write or draw; and using the second definition we could say that the purpose of writing an article on a particular subject is to convey information on the subject and help people understand it better. An example might be an article written by a psychologist or a famous philosopher providing guidance on how to find true meaning, a mission, or purpose in our life.

But the concept of life purpose and trying to define it is not so straightforward. Is life purpose  a mission that we formulate in our mind to accomplish specific objectives and to follow a certain code of conduct throughout our lives, or is life purpose something we look back on and determine in retrospect? Or is it something that we simply discover as we move through life?

If we look at the life of British politician Winston S. Churchill, for example, we will see that he was a writer of significant talent and substantial literary output during his life; and he was also Prime Minister of Great Britain during a critical time in the country’s history, the period of the Second World War. Which of these areas of endeavour was his life purpose, or was it both? Perhaps it was neither and the purpose of his life was to serve as an inspirational example. But here, we are, in our minds, imposing on Churchill’s life a purpose based on what he excelled at. Yet, what would Churchill have considered his life purpose if we had been able to ask him that question?

Towards the end of the Forrest Gump movie, Gump says, “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.”  And, to add to the dilemma of determining what we should focus on in our lives, Gump’s mother says, “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.”

And, which component or components of our life as a whole could be considered our life purpose? Is it something which we decide on early in our lives, like a life mission, or is it the sum of our accomplishments in one or more areas as we near the end of our lives? Do we create our life purpose or do we discover it?

There are numerous methods within self-development literature in books and the Internet about discovering and/or creating our life purpose. Many of these focus on identifying concepts or activities that we feel very passionate about and cannot do without in our lives.

In addition to these considerations there are a number of ways we can look at our life purpose, such as from a spiritual perspective, from the standpoint of practical achievements, or, perhaps, how we conduct ourselves from an ethical code of personal conduct.

If we are not careful, however, we can get into deep philosophical waters on this topic and starting looking at the question “What is the purpose of life” instead of the question “What is (our) life purpose?” There is a big difference between these two questions.

This article, in raising a number of questions, is one of what I hope will be a series of posts, exploring various ideas in involved in the subject of “life purpose” and hopefully providing some answers from various resources.

How would you define life purpose?

*Definitions Source: Dictionary.com

How to get organized and improve your personal development program’s effectiveness March 21, 2007

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Get Organized.
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Our personal growth plans can become more achievable if we learn how to organize our time and develop an effective program of personal time management

Years ago, in a personal development effort to get organized in various areas of my life one of the books I found helpful was How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, written by time-management expert, Alan Lakein.

Lakein asks at the beginning of his book why should we care about our time. His answer is, “Time is life. It is irreversible and irreplaceable. To waste your time is to waste your life, but to master your time is to master your life and make the most of it.” In some ways that advice is pivotal to developing a personal growth program that works. Without some form of organization, our self-improvement efforts and plans can remain just good intentions rather than achieved goals.

However, Lakein does not consider that effective time management means that you have to give up activities that you enjoy and just work harder and harder to get organized. In fact, he notes, “…please don’t call me an efficiency expert. I’m an ‘effectiveness expert.’ Effectiveness means selecting the best task to do from all the possibilities available and then doing it the best way. Making the right choices about how you’ll use your time is much more important than doing efficiently whatever job happens to be around.”

One of the aspects I found most helpful about Alan Lakein’s approach is his emphasis on setting priorities. As part of this emphasis, for example, he devotes an entire chapter to “Tasks Better Left Undone.” He divides tasks into A, B, and C, priorities. The A’s are items that have a high value, the B’s are those tasks that have a medium value and the C’s are those with low value. In prioritizing, Lakein emphasizes the use of the 80/20 rule, and uses an number of examples to illustrate the rule, such as the fact that 80 percent of file usage is in 20 percent of the files.

To give you an idea of his approach, here are some of the chapter titles:
Control Starts With Planning
What Do You Really Want from Life?
How to Find Time You Never Knew You Had
Don’t Let Fear Get in Your Way
How to Create Quiet Time for Yourself
Using the Swiss Cheese Method
Sometimes It Pays to Slow Down.

Overall, Lakein’s approach in this book provides a good rationale or philosophy towards personal time management and how to get organized in what you want to accomplish. It’s much more than page after page of time-organizational tips. It’s a holistic approach to managing your life through a time-oriented approach to personal development. As the title implies, Lakein sees building time management skills as an integral part of developing life management skills.

The Signet Book copies I have were published some time ago by New American Library. You could check for it in your local library, as well as new and used bookstores. It is also available used and new on Amazon.com.