Personal growth paradox: Doing last things first March 20, 2014
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Get Organized, Personal Growth Books.Tags: achieving goals, focussing, getting organized, personal development, personal growth, self-improvement, Stephen Covey, time management
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The more we study personal development and growth, in our efforts to improve ourselves, the more often we will encounter the advice to “put first things first.”
Stephen R. Covey, in fact, as the lead author, wrote a 370-page book on this topic, First Things First*. Co-authors are A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.
The implication is that most of us are often tempted to do last things first.
“Last things” being those activities that are not important. In his time management matrix Covey presents a quadrant which is now familiar to many: (1) Important and urgent (crises, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects)
(2) Urgent, but not important (some phone calls, some reports, some meetings)
(3) Important but not urgent (planning, relationship-building, empowerment)
(4) Not important, not urgent ((trivia, busywork ‘escape’ activities, irrelevant mail, excessive TV)
In a chapter entitled, The Urgency Addiction, Covey goes into considerable detail about how to overcome the mistake of attributing the quality of urgency to things that are actually not important; how to distinguish between the demands of the four quadrants; and how to manage our time between the four elements of the quadrant.
The book contains this insight: “Urgency addiction is a self-destructive behaviour that temporarily fills the void of unmet needs. And, instead of meeting these needs, the tools and approaches of time management often feed the addiction. They keep us focused on daily prioritization of the urgent.”
With time pressures being so pronounced for everyone these days, we could all benefit from revisiting the ideas and solutions proposed in this book.
* First Things First, A Fireside Book, published by Simon & Schuster
Small successes are important in a personal development program March 12, 2012
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Goal Setting and Realization.Tags: achieving goals, goal setting, personal development, personal growth plans, self-esteem, self-improvement plans, time management
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Many of us, in trying to accomplish as much as possible in our personal development efforts, can make the mistake of designing or implementing a self-improvement plan that eventually seems to us to be too complex, too detailed, or overly ambitious, and perhaps even unrealistic.
This can happen if instead of working on one area of personal growth at a time, if we are not careful, we end up trying to do everything at once and become overwhelmed. We end up doing a maintenance job on all of our personal growth goals instead of doing a better job on a lesser number of goals.
Like a diet that is too restrictive or severe, an overly ambitious plan for personal improvement with an unrealistic time frame can result in making our goals seem unattainable, and that can produce discouragement. Then our entire improvement plan can become like a broken New Year’s resolution. Such a scenario can end up damaging our self-esteem.
A detailed plan outlining all of our personal development goals makes sense, but the individual goals within the plan need to be accomplished gradually, with components within the goals being tackled one step at a time, over an extended period.
Achieving small victories in our goal realization process also helps to keep us motivated as we can see that we are making progress as we work on our plan each day. Having success in reaching or completing smaller sub- goals within a larger, major goal gives us a sense of satisfaction and encouragement.
Small successes are important. As noted by author J.K. Rowling, “Achievable goals are the first step to self-improvement.”*
*Source: http://www.quotationspage.com
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