Posts Tagged ‘Growth Strategies’

Malcolm Gladwell describes thin-slicing as the main topic of his bestselling book “Blink”.  Thin-slicing is an interesting concept and the term is most frequently used in philosophical and psychological areas.  What is thin-slicing?  Well basically it is the capacity of people to unconsciously identify patterns in experience based on very brief times when it occurred.  In other words, brief slices of experience unconsciously reveal a pattern of behavior to the observer.

Why is this important when we discuss life growth strategies?  One of the concepts covered here is the idea of intuitive knowing and thin-slicing would seem to indicate that some of what we call intuition is based upon experience – even if we do not realize it.

Although it is a valuable concept thin-slicing does not fully explain intuition.  Many Christians dismiss the concept of intuition as something relegated to psychics and unredeemed man.  I personally think this is a simplistic response born more of fear than the leading of the Lord.  Proverbs 14:12 in the Bible states: There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.  Closer examination will reveal that this is talking about reasoning and the rational aspects of the mind and not intuition.

Intuition is a capacity that God has given to mankind for a purpose related to His plan for us.  This verse from Job 38:36, “Who has put wisdom in the mind? Or who has given understanding to the heart”? is translated, “Who gives intuition to the heart and instinct to the mind”? in the New Living Translation.  This latter translation seems to more fully reveal the gist of what is being said.

Someone once asked, “how do you know God is real?” and my response was something like, “I don’t know I just know”.  In my opinion faith is intuitive.  If you will open yourself to the possibility you will find that God is real.

We will be featuring stories of successful people in all spectrum’s of life who have used life growth strategies.

Frequently on this site we post articles and information that could be categorized as self help.  Our reasoning is that self help is certainly better than no help.  There are obvious limitations to what can be accomplished through self help ideas and material but having said that, there can be incredible benefit.

If you will keep reading and exploring the ideas on Life Growth Strategies you will find a thread that permeates and influences what we are all about.  We are not against self help but there is obviously more to be discovered. Check out the humorous article by satirist Dave Barry about the time he paid to attend a 12 hour success rally hosted by Peter Lowe.

Part 2 is here

Personal life growth is a process of the life growth of others and individual life growth. As an individual, the focus is on personal goals, plans and actions aimed at these objectives:

• Establishing clear identity and discovering potential

• Discovering strengths and talents and developing them

• Establishing goals related to life growth plans and executing them

• Establishing vocation and market desirability

• Improving quality of life and desired lifestyle

• Fulfilling life purpose and personal desires

No man or woman is an island and our personal success in life is directly tied to our involvement in the life growth of other’s. Here on Life Growth Strategies we focus on both aspects – individual life growth or development and also the life growth and development of others.

When we look at Life Growth Strategies, the starting off point must be Meaning. Whether we use the term meaning or purpose, we are talking about the same thing.

The story of Victor Frankl certainly could have ended differently. Frankl’s mother and father, his brother and his wife, all died in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Frankl endured extreme torture and brutality, cold and hunger. He could have been sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz, and later Dachau, at any time. A manuscript of his life’s work was taken during his capture and never returned.

Instead of embracing the attitude that life is meaningless and thinking about taking his own life, Frankl rose from the pit of his suffering with a view that could only be considered life affirming.

What was the secret? It was the belief that his life had meaning and a purpose. Frankl believed that even in the most horrific circumstances, like those he endured, a person still has the freedom and ability to choose how they will interpret their life’s events and to create some kind of meaning out of them.

There are several aspects in “Man’s Search For Meaning”, that illustrates the power of purpose. Frankl would frequently imagine himself, after freedom, giving lectures and sharing with others about how horrors, like those of Nazi Germany, must never happen again. He also developed and acted upon the desire to jot down notes that he remembered from his manuscript.

Frankl believed that our task in life is not merely to survive, but to find the purpose and specific guiding truth that is unique for each one of us. This truth can sometimes only be realized in the midst of incredible suffering. Frankl observed that those who gave way to despair and refused to hold on to hope, made a tragic mistake by giving away the only freedom they really had – the freedom to choose their own thoughts.

A theory of Frankl’s became a reality as he was forced to live it out during the war, and this is how Logotherapy came into being. The aim of Logotherapy is not introspection like Freudian psychotherapy, but it attempts to take the person outside of themselves to see their life in a broader and more fuller perspective.

What is your purpose? Why are you alive?

Yes, the very first of our Life Growth Strategies, is the will to meaning or to say it a different way, the discovery of purpose.

There is potential within you that needs to be released, and finding your purpose and working it out will be the most fulfilling aspect of your life.  Join me as we spend time discovering and activating this life growth strategy.

Till next time, Jim

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” ( Ecclesiastes 1 )

These words uttered by Solomon many years ago seem to be full of apathy and cynicism. Why are they included in the Bible, a book of hope, and why is the book where they are found often included in the so-called wisdom books?

Is this wisdom, to express your emotional state even if it is painful and not encouraging?

Listen to this:

“It is a tale … full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.” This partial quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth and uttered by the title character to me exudes pain and hopelessness. Macbeth went so far as to say the story is told by an idiot.

Is there some reason, some meaning – for the pain and suffering that we sometimes experience in life?

You would think that a prisoner in the Nazi Death Camps of World War II would have the same opinion of life as the two quoted above, one real and one fictional, but, the former prisoner who wrote this book does not call life meaningless.

How was he able to find a purpose to life and a reason for living? Cold and hungry – family and possessions all gone, facing the brutality of his demonic captors, death staring him in the face at every moment, – how did he find meaning in his existence?

How will you find meaning for your life? Suffering on the surface appears to be totally lacking in meaning. Many people who have experience suffering in greater magnitudes have come to the conclusion in their belief that there is no God.

No one can tell you your purpose – and no one can force upon you meaning to life’s experience – it is a discovery that descends or ascends upon you while you are living.

Sometimes discovery of purpose is like a sudden burst of revelation that comes upon you when you are not really looking. At other times, it comes up out of the ashes of shattered dreams and expectations.

You will not find all the answers to life on this website. You may find more questions than you are comfortable carrying at one time but there is method to the madness in this process of discovery.

Life Growth Strategies – this implies that there are some strategies that we can discover as we grow in life. I believe this – and I have found this to be true in my own life – that is why I decided to start this website.

Till next time, Jim