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Personal growth planning: Genuine Progress Indicator April 29, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Planning.
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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.

Personal growth: A process, not an instant solution April 27, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development, Personal Development Potential.
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As we work on our personal development and growth programs, we may reach a stage at which we feel we are not moving along fast enough with the changes we would like to make in our lives.

At such a time, we need to remember that the concept of personal development is an ongoing process. It is not meant to be a discipline whereby we read something inspirational and at that point we are immediately transformed.

Part of the process involves studying a lot of printed and online material on the topic of self-improvement and choosing from these materials those ideas and examples which will be the most helpful in each of our individual circumstances, and thereby gradually reaching our potential.

A complex time-intensive process

Critics of the self-actualization movement sometimes say, “If personal development works so well, then why is there always so much new material available and why do people keep reading such information year after year?”

The answer is because the quest of bettering ourselves is complex, and does not lend itself to formulaic packaged, “one-size-fits-all“ solutions. It takes time and a lot of effort to achieve the improved results we want to bring into our lives.

The Chinese sage Confucius reminds of this in the following:

“A boy from Ch’ueh Village had been hired as the Master’s messenger. Asking about him, someone said: ’Is he making progress?’
‘I’ve seen him sit and walk among his elders,’ replied the Master, ‘as if he were already their equal. He has no interest in making progress. He wants it all right now.” (1)
(1) Confucius, The Analects, as translated by David Hinton is his book, The Four Chinese Classics