We are all capable of so much more than we accomplish, and often fall short of our potential. In this series, I’ll be discussing the personal development roadblocks that hold us back.
One excuse I often hear (and sometimes make) is how we did the best we could, and then blame our failure on “the situation.” For example:
- “I didn’t quite reach my goal weight, but with work and happy hours it was impossible to stick to my diet. I would say I did pretty well, considering the situation“
- “It might have looked like Mike dropped the ball on that one, but he did the best he could – given the situation.”
- “I know from the outside it may have seemed irresponsible to be as late as she was, but you can’t blame her considering the situation“
In this article I discuss the root possible root causes behind this excuse, and present a five step plan for getting past “The Situation.”
Have you ever read a horoscope, taken an online personality test, or even had a keyring that told you what your personality was based solely on your name? Were you surprised at the accuracy of what was said about you?
Perhaps what you should have been surprised by is your own gullibility. Don’t feel too bad about it though – we all do it. It’s what’s known as the Forer effect, and it’s just one aspect of mental bias.
Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and First Things First popularized the concept of a Time Management Matrix for prioritizing that I love (Side note: I say “popularized” because it appears Eisenhower was originally credited with using it). The system advocates the use of four quadrants to determine the tasks you “need” to do and deciding what should be made a priority.
In addition to providing text examples, I’m going to have a little fun and illustrate items from each quadrant using one of my favorite comics: XKCD.
Welcome to the end of the first week in January, the week where more New Year’s resolutions are broken than any other. According a study conducted in 2002, 25% of New Year’s resolutions are broken in the first week alone. The good news is that the very act of resolving to do something increases the likelihood of succes – that same study found that, after 6 months, those who set resolution were 10 times more likely to stick to their resolution than the non setters (46% versus 4%). That’s great news for many of my friends, who have publicly committed on their blogs to New Year’s resolution and goals. Over and over I see many of the same themes:
- New Year’s resolutions to get in shape
- New Year’s resolutions to eat better
- New Year’s resolutions to give up smoking
I have no doubt many of them will be successful. I’ve already discussed the importance of writing down goals, and absolutely believe that increases the likelihood of success. Having the support and social pressure from friends is another kick in the right direction. There’s one thing that has been missing from the discussions I’ve seen online however - how to balance these new resolutions with our prior commitments.
Her email closed with – “are there any books you like? what should I read?”
“Easy question” I thought to myself, as my fingers flew to the keyboard and I rattled off 10 books, then 20. I could have gone on, but I stopped.
I took a step back, and realized that my reader didn’t need yet another long lists of books – there are plenty of those online, and if you want an endless list of reading material, check out this list of all the self improvement products at Amazon (1,140 at last count).
No – she was asking for my help, to sort through it all. The more items I gave her, the less helpful I would be. A better approach would be to give her a list that provided the best value – a list of the best personal development books, and the shorter better. This was a much more difficult problem.
After a lot of thought, I cut it down from twenty to the six four three most effective personal development books I have read. While the Pareto principle may not always hold in other situation, in this case a handful of the books I’ve read are responsible for most of my achievements and personal development. These books are the ones most worth your time to build a solid foundation for overall personal development and personal productivity.
We’ve all experienced it: that surge of powerful motivation at the start of a project. We’re on top of the world and feel unstoppable.
Yet somehow, after a few weeks, that motivation high has gone. New blogs, new year’s resolutions to diet and workout routines can soon become burdens as we lose our enthusiasm for them.
From the time we embark on a new project until we are deeply entrenched in following through with it long term, we go through a few different changes and emotional highs and lows: fluctuations that aren’t so different than what we experience elsewhere in our lives.
Read on as we consider these parallels, and then, using lessons from our emotional lives, discuss strategies for coping when our enthusiasm for a project fades.
