Plotting your growth map (Part 2: Strategy)

Your strategy plan

Your personal growth map charts your mid-term direction, and the route you’ve plotted to move there, complete with activities, experiences, and celebrations along the way.

If you’ve plotted your growth in the direction of one of the universal virtues supported by your character strengths, and chosen to approach it by route of developing and leveraging one or more of those strengths, you’re ready to roll. And if you’ve summarised your direction and route in a personal mission statement, you’ve unfurled the banner under which you’ll start your journey.

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Image by Jeff / Godfrey http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeff-godfrey/2303229929

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Writing your personal mission statement

Your mission statement is the direction your personal growth map will take over the next 6 months to year or so. It will determine the types of activities you plan and participate in, and influence the development you experience during that time.

You want to get it right, but don’t worry. It’s hard to get it wrong.

It’s your mission, based on your character strengths, and reflects where you want to go in this phase of your life. With a little self-awareness, some vision, and a few basic guidelines, your mission statement will flow out of your pen all by itself.

Plotting Your Growth Map (Part 1: Personal mission statements)

Your direction

Growth is about developing who you are into the person you want to become. You start by taking your bearings: Determine where you stand by ascertaining your character strengths. Then use these to map your way forward.

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Image by Orkboi http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996594214@N01/140093391

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Poll: What are your character strengths?

Your character strengths are the good that you’re good at. They’re the admirable qualities that you tend to display naturally. Applying them to daily activities and special projects guarantees gratification, and developing them is the best way to move forward in your personal growth.

A good way to discover your character strengths is to participate in the VIA Survey of Character Strengths. You can do that at the website of the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center.

When you’re done, you might want to share your strengths with other Making Sense of It readers in the poll below.

Character strengths

Universal virtues

Cultural values are relative. Each culture has its own unique answer to the basic questions of life, and some are not even in agreement on what the basic questions are. While most Western societies place a premium on individuality, self-actualisation, and romantic love, for other peoples, these are merely marginal issues.

As big as the differences may be, though, psychologists have discovered a common denominator shared by over 200 cultural and philosophical traditions: The 6 universal virtues.

Time accounting. Accounting for time.

Time is (better than) money

Time is the currency you exchange for experiences, and invest in relationships. The returns are gratification and growth.

Time is also the coins burning a hole in your pocket that you squander on thrills. You know: The short blasts that pump you up for as long as they last, and leave you feeling deflated and wishing you could have your money back when they’re over.

You can’t, of course. Time past is time gone. It can’t be relived.

But experience enables you to identify  more rewarding, as well as less beneficial uses of your time, and make wiser time allocation decisions in the future.

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Spend time to gain growth

Your magic bank account

 Imagine you went to the bank this morning, and discovered €1,440 (or Pounds or Dollars) in your account along with an excerpt from the bank’s Commercial Terms and Conditions stipulating every last cent had to be spent today, and whatever cash was left over at midnight would dissolve into thin air.

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Blog Adventurers

We’re happy to announce that “Making Sense of It” has become one of the Blog Adventurers.

The Blog Adventurers are a collective of new bloggers sharing inspiration and developing technical expertise together. Each of the Blog Adventurers writes from their own perspective on life and the world, which makes the collaboration a real growth experience for everyone.

You’ll find links to all the Blog Adventurers in the left-hand margin of “Making Sense of It”. We encourage you to visit their sites and participate in their commentary and discussion.

Poll: How do you deal with overchioce?

Image by Sermoa http://www.flickr.com/photos/sermoa/3757963819/

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Everyone has their own strategies for dealing with overchoice. What are yours?

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Overchoice (Part 2: Strategies)

Too much of a good thing

Options are a good thing. They’re what enable you to plot your own route through life. The more options you have, the more control you can take over your personal growth. To an extent, that is.

 

Overchoice (Part 1: The challenge)

Imagine this:

You need a new comb, or coat, or computer. The sales clerk shows you two models. Maybe three. It probably doesn’t take you too long to decide among them, and out the door you go, purchase in hand.

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Image by Andrea http://www.flickr.com/photos/peorth/1182731986

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But what if the clerk points you to an aisle with 10, 15, or even 25 models to choose from?

Enjoying pleasures

Fleeting pleasures

 

A steady focus on gratification combined with reasonable measures of pleasure is fertile ground for happiness to take root and grow.

Gratification penetrates your heart and mind, and strengthens your sense of fulfilment. Pleasures, like beauty, are skin deep. They’re sensual experiences – sights, sounds, savours, and scents – that lift your spirits only as long as they last.

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Stepping out from behind the curtain

I am happy to announce that technical adjustments to “Making Sense of it” have enabled me to begin posting under a personal byline. Blog administration announcements will continue to by made by Indian Summer Publishing, but content postings will appear under my own name.

Pleasure and gratification

 The recipe

Image by Wickenden http://www.flickr.com/photos/wickenden/4147377709/  

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What’s your recipe for happiness?

Whatever herbs and spices you toss into the pot to season it to your liking, there are two staple ingredients you can’t do without:

There’s no universal recipe for happiness

There’s no one universal recipe for happiness. Everyone needs to cook up their own batch from scratch with their own ingredients.

 Here’s a fable that illustrates just that:

Book Review: “Indecision” by Benjamin Kunkel

Options are your doors of access to potential. Potential people and places. Potential experiences. Potential development. To realise that potential, all you’ve got to do is take the decision to open a door and walk through it.

But sometimes your hand freezes on the doorknob. You turn your head back towards the room you’re about to leave, and the other doors you could be opening. You’re overwhelmed by indecision. It happens to all of us sometimes, to some of us a lot of the time, and to Dwight Wilmerding all of the time.

 

Game: Taking decisions and opening doors

Every decision you take moves you ahead into a new situation offering new opportunities. That’s called growth. You can never know exactly where a decision will take you, but you can be sure it will move you forward to more options.

Want to see how? Click here.

Decisions open doors

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Words express meaning and unleash emotion. Here’s an example: Have a look at the word below. What emotions does it evoke in you?

 

Poll: Middle Youth experiences

 Middle Youth is more an attitude than an age, and expresses itself through an eagerness to develop yourself and experience the world, sometimes at the cost of job and relationship security, but generally affording an extra portion of freedom and flexibility. Which of these common middle youth experiences have you got under your belt?

Moving foward, or just moving in circles?

Plot your route

Life is no all-traffic-merges-into-one-lane street. There are intersections, roundabouts, slip roads, and a fast lane to manoeuvre. All in the face of oncoming traffic.

 There’s no standard route. And aren’t you glad?  Each of us has the freedom to plot their own route, backtrack, detour, and change destinations along the way as often as they like. If you’ve got the interest, life offers the opportunities.