Assignment
The course project is a 5-7 page paper describing your personal life plan. Use Chapter 17 in the text and reinforcement exercises in Week 6 as a guide in developing your plan. Incorporate all the major topics discussed throughout the course. The focus should be career-oriented, however, all aspects of your life work together to create a successful and happy life.
Your plan should include:
• personal mission statement/definition of success,
•financial goals and resources,
•professional goals,
•education goals and resources,
•family/leisure goals and resources,
•spirituality goals and resources,
• physical and mental health goals and resources (attitude/values)
Each goal should be measurable and have a specific time limit or date set for achievement. For each goal you should list at least one specific strategy for achieving that goal. Some strategies may work toward several goals simultaneously. Set goals that stretch you while building on your strengths and minimizing or improving on your weaknesses.
In setting your goals and strategies, take into consideration your strengths, weaknesses, values and dreams regarding: communication, self-esteem, ethics, attitudes, motivation, trust, professional presence, team building, interpersonal skills, stress management and spirituality/physical well-being.
You may find the Reinforcement Exercises in Chapter 17 helpful in developing your plan. These exercises are: "How Do You Define Success", "Right Livelihood" and, "Break a Habit."
Week 6 Reinforcement: Reinforcement Exercise-How Do You Spell Success?
How Do You Spell Success?
This chapter suggests that it is time to establish your goals for the future in light of what you have read and studied thus far. I hope you will accept the challenge to create meaningful goals that you can strive for with excitement and enthusiasm from this day forward. A random, half-hearted attempt at fulfilling a class assignment to "write down some goals" will not get you where you want to go. Remember, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by mapping you plan for the future.
In his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey suggests you "begin with the end in mind." Once you have visualized the big picture of your successful life plan, the intermediate steps will become obvious. Covey points out that there is a mental or first creation and a physical of second creation to all things. When building a house, for example, you create it in every detail in your mind before the first spade of dirt is turned. Your visualization of your finished dream house is then rendered in blueprints: the step-by-step plans that have been thoroughly thought through. Then, and only then, can you begin actual construction of your dream.
Covey warns, however, that when you are in that first step of visualizing your life's goals, you must develop your own awareness of what it is you truly want out of life and must accept personal responsibility for mentally visualizing an accurate, realistic dream. When these two factors (self-awareness and personal responsibility) are missing, you empower other people and circumstances to shape your dreams and goals. "Whether we are aware of it or not, whether we are in control of it or not, there is a first creation (mental) to every part of our lives. We are either the second creation of our own proactive design, or we are the second creation of other people's agendas, of circumstances, or of past habits." If you do not actively establish goals that are meaningful to you, that take you toward your definition of success, you are allowing others to shape your life by default.
Therefore, take time right now to consider very carefully the following segments of your future. Take control of your first creation by visualizing the big picture. The actual blueprints will come later. Right now, "begin with the end in mind." How do you define success in each of these areas?
•FINANCIAL/PROFESSIONAL(career position, salary/income, long-term investments)
•PHYSICAL HEALTH (exercise & weight control)
•MENTAL HEALTH
•EDUCATION/TRAINING (what do I want to learn, how will I learn it, when, where)
•FAMILY/LEISURE TIME
•SPIRITUALITY
Reinforcement Exercise: Right Livelihood
Right Livelihood
The following remarks are quoted on pages 19-20 of the book The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox, published by North River Press in 1986. "Man, how long has it been since I started out down there in industrial engineering as a smart kid who knew everything - fourteen, fifteen years? How many long days have there been since then? I used to think if I worked hard I could do anything. Since the day i turned twelve I've worked...I was always told that if I worked hard enough it would pay off in the end. That's true, isn't it?...but look at me. I worked hard. I sweated my way through engineering school. I got a job with a big company. I made myself a stranger to my wife and kids. I took all the crap that UniCo could give me and said, 'I can't get enough! Give me more!...Here I am, thirty-eight years old, and I'm a crummy plant manager! Isn't that wonderful? I'm really having fun now. Time to get the hell out of here. I've had enough fun for one day.'"
No matter what you call this - burnout, mid-life crisis, depression, whatever - the effects are heartbreaking. The organization suffers because this employee is probably not giving the peak performance needed at work to make everything run smoothly and productively. The employee suffers because of a lack of enthusiasm for life and all it has to offer. Perhaps this person never took the time to determine what it means to experience right lifelihood. Perhaps establishing the various components of your right livelihood right now could save you from experiencing this tragic mid-career trauma. Now that you have established your financial and professional goals, go one step further and address your nonfinancial goals. these are the goals that help you keep things in perspective by recognizing that work is a vehicle for self-expression and placing wealth, material possessions, and status in their rightful secondary position.
PHYSICAL HEALTH:
•What form of exercise will you begin?
•When will you begin your new exercise program?
•Where will you exercise?
•What foods/drinks will you decrease or eliminate?
•What foods/drinks will you increase?
MENTAL HEALTH:
•Identify the mental exercises that help motivate you to do your best while eliminating the need for external stimulants such as drugs, other people and tangible awards.
•Identify the mental or physical relaxation techniques that will help you reduce the need for chemically induced relaxation, such as some people seek through alcohol or drugs.
•List the books currently on the market that you would like to read to help improve your mental health. Check the New York Times best-seller non-fiction list, ask your librarian for suggestions, visit a local bookstore, ask your coworkers and friends for suggestions.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING:
•There is no school in the world that will prepare you for all the challenges you will face during your lifetime. You can, however, stay alert to emerging trends that may affect your progress. What will you do to stay abreast of new technologies and other changes that may force you to adjust your goals?
•What skills do you want to learn that will enhance your work? For example, do you want to learn a new computer program, how to fix a machine without calling the service person?
•What skills do you want to learn that might enhance your leisure time? Play piano? Fly a plane?
•What kinds of knowledge do you want to gain? Learn more about oil paintings, Renaissance music, caves, outer space?
•What do you want to learn? How will you learn it? When will you learn it? Where will you learn it?
FAMILY/LEISURE TIME:
•Describe your ideal family with regard to marriage and children.
•Under what circumstances will you say "no" to professional demands in favor of family or leisure time?
•Many people think they want more leisure time, but when it is available, they don't know what to do. How do you want to use your leisure time?
Reinforcement Exercise: Break a Habit
Break a Habit
As you establish new and exciting goals for your future, examine any behaviors you are currently involved in that are negative, self-destructive, or inhibit your progress toward your goals. Examples include smoking, an eating disorder, procrastination, short-temperedness, and drug or alcohol abuse. Take control of those habits by following the five-step process detailed in your text.
STEP 1: MOTIVATION - What are the benefits of breaking this habit?
STEP 2: KNOWLEDGE - Identify the people, books, articles, or audio/video tapes that can provide knowledgeable opinions on how best to break this habit.
STEP 3: PRACTICE - What daily activities will enable you to practice the behaviors that have replaced your negative habit?
STEP 4: FEEDBACK - Identify friends and family members who are willing to help you monitor your progress and tell you when they see the positive behaviors replacing the old, negative habits.
STEP 5: REINFORCEMENT - Identify incremental rewards as well as the final rewards for breaking this habit.
Chapter 17: A Life Plan for Effective Human Relations
Text Book: Effective Human Relations: Interpersonal And Organizational Applications By Barry Reece, Monique Reece.