The above is a quote from C. S. Lewis. In recent years I have come into contact with a number of senior citizens who have stopped setting goals or dreaming new dreams. All they want to talk about are things they have done in the past, not what they are currently doing or things they plan on doing in the future. The problem with this is that when we stop setting goals or dreaming new dreams, we stop growing and when we stop growing, we become boring and our life becomes boring. So, how do we go about the business of continuing to grow? The answer is simply to try to do something new, exciting, or different—something beyond what we’ve already mastered. For example, try getting more involved in your community, helping someone in need, making some new friends, learning new skills, reading a book on a new subject, or brightening the day of someone who is down. The truth is that we’re surrounded by opportunities for growth. All we have to do is take advantage of them. As philosopher William James put it, “The minute a person ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.”
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Recommended Reading
Instant Turnaround!: Getting People Excited About Coming to Work and Working Hard
Transform Your Workplace!
Imagine a company where people are excited about coming to work and giving their best efforts every day. In this innovative and engrossing business parable, Harry Paul and Ross Reck show managers at all levels how they can immediately and easily increase productivity by tapping into the discretionary effort of the people who work for them. Starting from the most basic aspect of business reality—that people intentionally regulate the amount of effort they put into their jobs based upon how they feel they’re being treated—the authors point out that the most important part of the job of every manager, team leader, supervisor, and executive is to treat people in such a way that they become excited about applying all their discretionary effort toward performing their jobs.
At the book’s center is the story of Nancy Kim, a human resources director at a magazine that is struggling with all the problems associated with unhappy employees—low productivity and morale along with high absenteeism and turnover. After she openly challenges the CEO’s new management-by-the-numbers system, she’s charged with turning the situation around immediately. Filled with real-world studies, Instant Turnaround! shows anyone how to turn the workplace into a destination—a place where working hard feels like hardly working because it’s engaging, enjoyable, and fulfilling.
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