I've been reading a book The Pollyana Principles: Reinventing "Nonprofit Organizations" to Create the Future of Our World by Hildy Gottlieb.In it, Gottlieb outlines six principles - The Pollyana Principles - to help organizations rethink and refocus so they can both thrive and maximize their positive impact on the world around them.
As I read through them, I couldn't help but think, "These ideas are totally relevant for individuals as well."
Below are The Pollyana Principles and my thoughts on how they apply to individuals:
We accomplish what we hold ourselves accountable for.
Yes! When we hold ourselves accountable for something, it focuses our attention. We start evaluating the choices we make in terms of whether or not they are leading us towards that goal. It makes it harder to slide down the slippery slope of inaction, because we're paying attention.
In my work with clients, one of the big benefits that people often experience is that accountability. They know that when they commit to doing something, the next week I'm going to be asking, "How'd that go?" It's a simple idea, but it's powerful.
Each and every one of us is creating the future, every day, whether we do so consciously or not.
Choice. Choice. Choice. That's how we create our own future and the future of the world around us. Like creating accountability, and awareness of the fact that your choices are creating the future can focus your attention. That in turn affects the choices you make.
Everyone and everything is interconnected and interdependent, whether we acknowledge that or not.
This is relevant in a couple different ways. The first is that you're a lot more likely to succeed by connecting and collaborating than by being a lone wolf.
The second relates to the previous point about the choices we make creating the future. Because everything is interconnected, the choices we make have the potential to make a significant impact - positive or negative - on the world around us.
"Being the change we want to see" means walking the talk of our values.
If you want to leave a positive wake as you move through life, "being the change you want to see" is a great foundation. Walking the talk of your values requires two things. First, you have to really know what your values are. That means getting out of autopilot and taking the introspective time to understand them.
And second, you have to do more than pay lip service to those values. Again, back to the idea of creating the future through our choices, it is only by aligning our choices and actions with our values that we can have the kind of impact on the world we want to have.
Strength builds upon our strengths, not our weaknesses.
If you really want to shine, build on your strengths. Think of your weaknesses as holes in the ground. Spending all your time "fixing your weaknesses" means you're just shoveling dirt in the holes to try to bring them up to ground level.
When you focus on your strengths, on the other hand, you have the opportunity to start from solid ground and build your architectural masterpiece. You may still need to address those weaknesses to keep them from holding you back, but they are no longer your primary focus.
Individuals will go where systems lead them.
On the individual level, this is really about creating systems for yourself that foster action and energy that moves in the direction of the life you want to create. It's about looking at your life as a whole system and asking, "What will help me move forward? What is dragging me down?"
How can you put The Pollyana Principles to work in your life?
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