Self-Centered Goal Program - That's The Wrong Center

Always looking for fresh personal goal setting ideas, a current Internet search for "personal development" resulted in 157,000,000 results. Very fascinating.

Plenty of people are publishing articles and templates to fill out with details about the best way to help us help ourselves. Or, perhaps to "correct" ourselves.

And generally, we are taking it all in. We believe we deserve better.

We, as a general group of individuals, are searching for techniques to get better. For what reason?

  • Increase self-assurance
  • Make improvements to our relationships
  • Look better
  • Feel better
  • Get a better job
  • Generate more money
  • You can fill in the blank for your own search.

But here's the problem. The further you (or I) totally focus upon yourself, the more you will see yourself as coming up short of the mark of perfection. It's a spiral. Personal goal setting, or personal development in general takes you to more self examination. i.e., turning a focus on ourselves. This, in turn, points to a self-centered concentration.

In a recent blog post, John Carlson identified the following:

"Your ego is like a snarling little yap dog. Always pissed off, or looking for reasons to go into a hissy fit.

I'm telling you, after years of seeing all sides of this: Your ego is not doing you any favors.

Your ego...

...is an idiot.

And it's robbing you blind..."

That's pretty graphic. But the part about "your ego... is an idiot" really struck home.

OK, so this is more of a individual rant. But I can see many others with the identical self-centered focus.

"How can I produce more... How can I persuade so-and-so... How can I - I - I."

It's time to take a completely different perspective. Revise your personal goal program and shift your center point so that it is no longer looking inward. As an alternative to being ego-centered, we need to begin the process of being "others-centered".

This is not something I just made up. It dawned on me recently that Zig Ziglar said this over and over again, "If you will just help enough people get what they want, you will have everything you want."

I bought that tape series over 30 years ago when I first tried to set up a personal goal setting plan. Listened to it hundreds of times.

Just this week it finally made sense... duh! What an idiot I am.

But, hey, it could have taken longer, I guess.

Of late (and the cause for the "lightbulb experience") I have been readingGo-Givers Sell Moreby Bob Burg and John David Mann. The complete book is about how obnoxious us self-centered men and women are and why we keep missing the gold ring... whatever it is we are trying to obtain, especially sales.

Go-Givers Sell Moreis a sequel toThe Go-Giver. You should read them both because it will give you a different point of view on how to become more productive, not only with sales, but also with relationships and nearly anything else related to dealing with people.

Personally, I feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted. The demand of performing so that I look good to others just isn't there right now. It feels real good.

We (I) need to rewrite our personal goal program with a new perspective.

I am a huge fan of personal development and personal goal setting . I just have missed the mark.

Hoping you don't do the same.