Four ways you may be defeating your personal growth efforts May 9, 2018
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in personal development ideas.Tags: achieving goals, goal setting, inspiration, life, personal growth program, philosophy, procrastination, psychology, self-actualization, writing
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Personal development, like any other sustained objective we are trying to reach, requires some discipline and guidelines, otherwise our efforts will be ineffective and counter-productive; especially if we fall into certain habits and practices.
(1) Too much theory, not enough action
Because self-improvement is such an interesting subject we can easily become over-absorbed in the research and study of various materials, to the point where we are not putting into practice what we are learning. The action steps are as important, and perhaps more so, than the theory.
(2) Scattering our efforts
Instead of picking a self-improvement program and sticking with it, we try to incorporate too many different ideas or concepts into our program, with the result that our action steps lack focus, leading to frustration with our goal-directed activities.
(3) Working in bursts
We have all probably “crammed” at night to pass a test, but if we try this technique with self-actualization, the result will be disappointment. Any long-term goals require what Seth Godin calls the drip-drip-drip approach for success.
(4) Procrastinating with the hard stuff
Reading the books and expert blogs, watching instructional videos, and listening to podcasts are all helpful, as are all the appropriate action steps. But often with personal growth, the hardest part can be the internal work we need to do to achieve attitudinal change. And that’s the part we often put off doing, because it’s probably the toughest part of personal development.
— Dennis Mellersh
Personal growth: Inflexibility and the failure to achieve goals May 8, 2018
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in personal development ideas.Tags: achieving goals, goal visualization, inflexibility, inspiration, life, personal growth, personal growth program, philosophy, psychology, self-actualization, writing
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In our efforts to focus zealously and determinedly on our self-development goals, we can sometimes want so badly to go in a certain direction in our self-actualization that we may willfully ignore real obstacles and brush them aside without thinking carefully on how to overcome them; and, as a result, perhaps fail significantly in our overall personal growth objectives.
On a much larger scale than the purely personal, this was a problem faced by President Abraham Lincoln as the Civil War with the Southern States was drawing to a close, and Lincoln was seeking support for a non-punitive approach to rebuilding the South after the end of the war.
In the movie Lincoln, the President is portrayed as having a discussion with Thaddeus Stevens, a prominent member of the U.S. House of Representatives, who held the view that the South should “pay” for its secession and for the war through a variety of measures that Lincoln considered vindictive.
Lincoln makes an argument against this “untempered” approach to Reconstruction in this excerpt from the movie:
It’s a strong argument against clinging too rigidly to what we might consider “a correct view” and then failing utterly in our goal, instead of being willing to compromise and achieve at least part of the good outcome we seek.
— Dennis Mellersh
Personal Development Ideas 