WEEK 2
If I brought more awareness to my deepest needs and wants—
When I ignore my deepest yearnings—
If I were willing to say yes when I want to say yes and no when I want to say no—
If I were willing to voice my thoughts and opinions more often—
WEEK 3
When I suppress my thoughts and opinions—
If I am willing to ask for what I want—
When I remain silent about what I want—
If I am willing to let people hear the music inside me—
WEEK 4
If I am willing to let myself hear the music inside me—
If I am to express 5 percent more of myself today—
When I hide who I really am—
If I want to live more completely—
And on the weekend, after rereading the week’s stems, write six to ten endings for If any of what I have been writing is true, it might be helpful if I—.
Of course there are other ways to work with these stems. In my self-esteem groups, for instance, we might work with all the stems on this list in one three-hour session, speaking our endings aloud, then discussing our endings and their action-implications.
Courage
Once again we can appreciate that the actions that support healthy self-esteem are also expressions of healthy self-esteem. Self-assertiveness both supports self-esteem and is a manifestation of it.
It is a mistake to look at someone who is self-assured and say, “It’s easy for her to be self-assertive, she has good self-esteem.” One of the ways we build self-esteem is by being self-assertive when it is not easy to do so. There are always times when self-assertiveness calls on our courage.
The practice of self-assertiveness is the fourth pillar of self-esteem.
10
The Practice of Living Purposefully
I have a friend in his late sixties who is one of the most brilliant and sought-after business speakers in the country. A few years ago he reconnected with a woman he had known and loved many years earlier, with whom he had been out of touch for three decades. She, too, was now in her sixties. They fell passionately in love.
Telling me about it one evening at dinner, my friend had never looked happier. It was wonderful to be with him and to see the look of rapture on his face. Thinking, perhaps, of the two divorces in his past, he said, wistfully and urgently, “God, I hope I handle things right this time. I want this relationship to succeed so much. I wish, I mean I want—I hope—you know, that I don’t screw up.” I was silent and he asked, “Got any advice?”
“Well, yes, I do,” I answered. “If you want it to work, you must make it your conscious purpose that it work.” He leaned forward intently, and I went on. “I can just imagine what your reaction would be if you were at IBM and some executive said, ‘Gee, I hope we handle the marketing of this new product properly. I really want us to succeed with this, and I wish—’ You’d be all over him in a minute saying, ‘What is this hope stuff? What do you mean, you wish?’ My advice is, apply what you know about the importance of purpose—and action plans—to your personal life. And leave ‘hoping’ and ‘wishing’ for children.”
His elated smile said eloquently that he understood.
This leads me to the subject of living purposefully.
To live without purpose is to live at the mercy of chance—the chance event, the chance phone call, the chance encounter—because we have no standard by which to judge what is or is not worth doing. Outside forces bounce us along, like a cork floating on water, with no initiative of our own to set a specific course. Our orientation to life is reactive rather than proactive. We are drifters.
To live purposefully is to use our powers for the attainment of goals we have selected: the goal of studying, of raising a family, of earning a living, of starting a new business, of bringing a new product into the marketplace, of solving a scientific problem, of building a vacation home, of sustaining a happy romantic relationship. It is our goals that lead us forward, that call on the exercise of our faculties, that energize our existence.
Productivity and Purpose
To live purposefully is, among other things, to live productively, which is a necessity of making ourselves competent to life. Productivity is the act of supporting our existence by translating our thoughts into reality, of setting our goals and working for their achievement, of bringing knowledge, goods, or services into existence.
Self-responsible men and women do not pass to others the burden of supporting their existence. It is not the degree of a person’s productive ability that matters here but the person’s choice to exercise such ability as he or she possesses. Nor is it the kind of work selected that is important, provided the work is not intrinsically antilife, but whether a person seeks work that offers an outlet for his or her intelligence, if the opportunity to do so exists.
Purposeful men and women set productive goals commensurate with their abilities, or try to. One of the ways their self-concept reveals itself is in the kind of purposes they set. Granted some deciphering may be necessary because of the complexities of private contexts, if we know the kind of goals people choose, we can know a good deal about their vision of themselves and about what they think is possible and appropriate to them.
Efficacy and Purpose
If self-esteem entails a basic experience of competence (or efficacy), what is the relationship of that competence to narrower, more localized areas of competence in particular areas?
We build our sense of fundamental efficacy through the mastery of particular forms of efficacy related to the attainment of particular tasks.
Fundamental efficacy cannot be generated in a vacuum; it must be created and expressed through some specific tasks successfully mastered. It is not that achievements “prove” our worth but rather that the process of achieving is the means by which we develop our effectiveness, our competence at living. I cannot be efficacious in the abstract without being efficacious about anything in particular. So, productive work has the potential of being a powerful self-esteem-building activity.
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It is easier for people to understand these ideas as applied to work than to personal relationships. That may be why more people make a success of their work life than of their marriages.
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The purposes that move us need to be specific if they are to be realized. I cannot organize my behavior optimally if my goal is merely “to do my best.” The assignment is too vague. My goal needs to be: to exercise on the treadmill for thirty minutes four times a week; to complete my (precisely defined) task within ten days; to communicate to my team at our next meeting exactly what the project requires; to earn a specific sum of money in commissions by the end of the year; to achieve a specific market niche by a specific means by a specific target date. With such specificity, I am able to monitor my progress, compare intentions with results, modify my strategy or my tactics in response to new information, and be accountable for the results I produce.
To live purposefully is to be concerned with these questions: What am I trying to achieve? How am I trying to achieve it? Why do I think these means are appropriate? Does the feedback from the environment convey that I am succeeding or failing? Is there new information that I need to consider? Do I need to make adjustments in my course, or in my strategy, or in my practices? Do my goals and purposes need to be rethought? Thus, to live purposefully means to live at a high level of consciousness.
It is easier for people to understand these ideas as applied to work than to personal relationships. That may be why more people make a success of their work life than of their marriages. Everyone knows it is not enough to say “I love my work.” One must show up at the office and do something. Otherwise, the business moves toward nonexistence.
In intimate relationships, however, it is easy to imagine that “love” is enough, that happiness will just come, and if it doesn’t, this means we are wrong for each other. Peop
le rarely ask themselves, “If my goal is to have a successful relationship, what must I do? What actions are needed to create and sustain trust, intimacy, continuing self-disclosure, excitement, growth?”
When a couple is newly married and very happy, it is useful to ask, “What is your action plan to sustain these feelings?”
If a couple is in conflict and professes a desire for resolution, it is useful to ask, “If restored harmony is your purpose, what actions are you prepared to take to bring it about? What actions do you desire from your partner? What do you see each of you doing to make things better?”
Purposes unrelated to a plan of action do not get realized. They exist only as frustrated yearnings.
Daydreams do not produce the experience of efficacy.
Self-Discipline
To live purposefully and productively requires that we cultivate within ourselves a capacity for self-discipline. Self-discipline is the ability to organize our behavior over time in the service of specific tasks. No one can feel competent to cope with the challenges of life who is without the capacity for self-discipline. Self-discipline requires the ability to defer immediate gratification in the service of a remote goal. This is the ability to project consequences into the future—to think, plan, and live long-range. Neither an individual nor a business can function effectively, let alone flourish, in the absence of this practice.
Like all virtues or practices that support self-esteem, self-discipline is a survival virtue—meaning that for human beings it is a requirement of the successful life process. One of the challenges of effective parenthood or effective teaching is to communicate a respect for the present that does not disregard the future, and a respect for the future that does not disregard the present. To master this balance is a challenge to all of us. It is essential if we are to enjoy the sense of being in control of our existence.
Perhaps I should mention that a purposeful, self-disciplined life does not mean a life without time or space for rest, relaxation, recreation, random or even frivolous activity. It merely means that such activities are chosen consciously, with the knowledge that it is safe and appropriate to engage in them. And in any event, the temporary abandonment of purpose also serves a purpose, whether consciously intended or not: that of regeneration.
What Living Purposefully Entails
As a way of operating in the world, the practice of living purposefully entails the following core issues.
Taking responsibility for formulating one’s goals and purposes consciously.
Being concerned to identify the actions necessary to achieve one’s goals.
Monitoring behavior to check that it is in alignment with one’s goals.
Paying attention to the outcomes of one’s actions, to know whether they are leading where one wants to go.
Taking responsibility for formulating one’s goals and purposes consciously. If we are to be in control of our own life, we need to know what we want and where we wish to go. We need to be concerned with such questions as: What do I want for myself in five, ten, twenty years? What do I want my life to add up to? What do I want to accomplish professionally? What do I want in the area of personal relationships? If I wish to marry, why? What is my purpose? Within the context of a particular relationship, what are my goals? In relating to my children, what are my goals? If I have intellectual or spiritual aspirations, what are they? Are my goals clearly in focus or are they vague and indefinable?
Being concerned to identify the actions necessary to achieve one’s goals. If our purposes are to be purposes and not daydreams, we need to ask: How do I get there from here? What actions are necessary? What subpurposes must be accomplished on the way to my ultimate purpose? If new knowledge is required, how will I obtain it? If new resources are needed, how will I acquire them? If our goals are long-range ones, action plans will almost certainly entail subaction plans—that is, plans for the attainment of subpurposes.
Do we take responsibility for thinking these steps out?
Success in life belongs to those who do.
Monitoring behavior to check that it is in alignment with one’s goals. We can have clearly defined purposes and a reasonable action plan but drift off course by distractions, the emergence of unanticipated problems, the pull of other values, an unconscious reordering of priorities, lack of adequate mental focus, or resistance to doing what one has committed oneself to do. A conscious policy of monitoring actions relative to stated purposes helps us to manage problems of this kind. Sometimes the solution will be to rededicate ourselves to our original intentions. Sometimes we will need to rethink what our most important goals actually are and perhaps reformulate our purposes.
Paying attention to the outcomes of one’s actions, to know whether they are leading where one wants to go. Our goals may be clear and our actions congruent, but our initial calculations about the right steps to take may prove incorrect. Perhaps there were facts we failed to consider. Perhaps developments have changed the context. So we need to keep asking: Are my strategy and tactics working? Am I getting where I want to go? Are my actions producing the results I anticipated?
We often see people in business failing this principle by blindly reciting, “But what we are doing always worked in the past.” In a dynamic economy, yesterday’s strategy and tactics are not necessarily adaptive today.
An example: Decades before the problems at General Motors became apparent to everyone, when the company was still at the height of its success, management consultant Peter Drucker warned that the policies that had worked well in the past would not be adaptive in the years to come and that General Motors was moving toward a crisis if it did not rethink its policies. He was met with ridicule and hostility by GM executives. Yet reality vindicated his analysis.
Our actions may fail to produce the consequences we intend, and they also may produce other consequences we did not foresee and do not want. They may work at one level and yet be undesirable at another. For example, incessant nagging and shouting may achieve short-term acquiescence while evoking long-term resentment and rebelliousness. A company may win quick profits by selling shoddy goods and destroy the business within a year as customers drift away. If we pay attention to outcomes, we are able to know not only whether we are achieving our goals but also what we might be achieving that we never intended and may not like.
Again, living purposefully entails living consciously.
Thinking Clearly About Purposeful Living
1. As an example of the confusions that can surround the issue of living purposefully, consider the extraordinary statement made by psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom in his Existential Psychotherapy. He writes, “The belief that life is incomplete without goal fulfillment is not so much a tragic existential fact of life as it is a Western myth, a cultural artifact.”
If there is anything we know it is that life is impossible without “goal fulfillment”—impossible on every level of evolution, from the amoeba to the human being. It is neither “a tragic existential fact” nor a “Western myth” but rather the simple nature of life—and often exhilarating.
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The root of our self-esteem is not our achievements but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve.
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As a life orientation, the alternative to “goal fulfillment” is passivity and aimlessness. Is it a tragedy that such a state does not yield a joy equal to the joys of achievement?
Incidentally, let us remember that “goal fulfillment” is not confined to “worldly” goals. A life of study or meditation has its own kind of purposefulness—or it can have. But a life without purpose can hardly be said to be human.
2. To observe that the practice of living purposefully is essential to fully realized self-esteem should not be understood to mean that the measure of an individual’s worth is his or her external achievements. We admire achievements—in others and in ourselves—and it is natural and appropriate for us to do so. Bu
t this is not the same thing as saying that our achievements are the measure or grounds of our self-esteem. The root of our self-esteem is not our achievements but those internally generated practices that, among other things, make it possible for us to achieve—all the self-esteem virtues we are discussing here.
Steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie once stated, “You can take away our factories, take away our trade, our avenues of transportation and our money—leave us with nothing but our organization—and in four years we could reestablish ourselves.” His point was that power lies in the source of wealth, not in the wealth; in the cause, not the effect. The same principle applies to the relationship between self-esteem and external achievements.
3. Productive achievement may be an expression of high self-esteem, but it is not its primary cause. A person who is brilliantly talented and successful at work but irrational and irresponsible in his or her private life may want to believe that the sole criterion of virtue is productive performance and that no other sphere of action has moral or self-esteem significance. Such a person may hide behind work in order to evade feelings of shame and guilt stemming from other areas of life (or from painful childhood experiences), so that productive work becomes not so much a healthy passion as an avoidance strategy, a refuge from realities one feels frightened to face.
In addition, if a person makes the error of identifying self with his work (rather than with the internal virtues that make the work possible), if self-esteem is tied primarily to accomplishments, success, income, or being a good family provider, the danger is that economic circumstances beyond the individual’s control may lead to the failure of the business or the loss of a job, flinging him into depression or acute demoralization. When a large airplane company closed a plant in one town, the suicide hot lines went crazy. (This problem is primarily one for males, who have been socialized to identify worth—and masculinity—with being a family’s provider. Women are less prone to identify personal worth—let alone femininity—with earning ability.)
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem Page 16