Realizing Your Potential For Fulfillment and Happiness: A Guide to Personal Awareness and Understanding - Softcover

Skeer, Ph.D Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1450230970 ISBN 13: 9781450230971

Publisher: iUniverse, 2010

Synopsis

In this self-help guidebook, Martin Skeer, Ph.D., provides a unique conceptual framework that enables others to increase awareness and progress toward realizing personal aspirations, ultimately enhancing the quality of their lives. Skeer presents principles and a series of quantitative scales that allow measurement of one's fulfillment and happiness, challenging others to view their lives more realistically and gain a heightened awareness of the importance of daily gratitude. While sharing ideas cultivated from extensive discussions with Dr. Margie Skeer, an expert in social sciences, Skeer also provides hypothetical examples, guiding you through a journey of self-improvement. Learn how to: • Understand actual versus potential • Construct a value system • Enhance relationships through interpersonal communication • Recognize successes, no matter how small • Differentiate between negative perceptions and constructive advice • Take risks to improve potential Ultimately, there is nothing that matters more than fulfillment and happiness. Skeer's framework challenges you to consider the options to achieving success and inner joy and find a new way to view the world.

About this title

About the Author

Martin Skeer, Ph.D., M.B.A, has been an independent management consultant for over thirty years, leading others to set achievable goals, establish sound implementation processes, cope with external environments, and manage risk. He has three children, five grandchildren, and lives in California with his wife of over forty years.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Realizing Your Potential For Fulfillment and Happiness

A Guide to Personal Awareness and UnderstandingBy Martin Skeer

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Martin Skeer, Ph.D.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-3097-1

Contents

Preface.................................................................................xiiiPart I Understanding Potential and Actual Fulfillment and Happiness.....................1Chapter 1 Introduction..................................................................3Chapter 2 Potential for Fulfillment and Happiness.......................................7Chapter 3 afh and the Relationship to pfh...............................................21Part II Improving Your Potential and Actual.............................................39Chapter 4 Relationships That Affect Quality of Life.....................................41Chapter 5 Other Aspects of Life That Impact pfh.........................................75Chapter 6 Ways to Increase Your afh.....................................................89Chapter 7 Concluding Thoughts...........................................................101

Chapter One

Introduction

We are confronted by and often struggle with life's challenges and adversities on a daily basis. But how well we're doing, or what's reasonable to expect of ourselves under the circumstances, is difficult to assess. My attempt to come to grips with these and other related imponderables stimulated extensive thought-provoking discussion over a period of years. This has culminated in the development of a conceptual framework that brings abstract ideas related to behavior and attitudes into much sharper focus. Ultimately, this book is about enhancing quality of life by increasing our sense of fulfillment and happiness.

After I explored ideas specifically related to personal fulfillment and happiness, a key question that emerged is, to what extent has a person's potential for fulfillment and happiness been realized in relation to his actual fulfillment and happiness over time? It became apparent to me that potential for and actual were two interconnected yet fundamentally different gauges of fulfillment and happiness. In this regard, potential fulfillment and happiness can be defined as how people would be expected to feel under the current set of circumstances; whereas actual fulfillment and happiness is the way people really do feel, regardless of the prevailing circumstances. For convenience and brevity, potential for fulfillment and happiness is referred to as "pfh" or "potential," and actual fulfillment and happiness is termed "afh" or "actual."

A specific example can illustrate the relationship between potential and actual. A person who becomes seriously ill has a lower potential for fulfillment and happiness than if he or she were not ill at all. The illness, which he or she has no control over, has reduced or effectively constrained quality of life. Confronted with this circumstance, some people effectively struggle and persevere in making the most of the situation. Other people go into a tailspin and simply stop trying, feeling sorry for themselves or even remorseful. In both cases, the quality of life that was achievable before this sad turn of events is no longer realizable, but in the former instance, the individual is working very close to his potential; in other words, actual is close to potential. In the latter case, the person has, in essence, written life off, with actual considerably below potential. The bottom line is that in the face of life's realities and constraints, which each of us is subject to, individuals have the power within themselves to decide how they are going to react in order to cope with their unique situation.

Another important observation is an intrinsic relationship that exists between potential for and actual fulfillment and happiness. Potential provides a context for assessing actual, whereby the challenge is to bring actual as close to potential as possible. In so doing, we are not deluding ourselves into trying to accomplish more than is realistically achievable. On the other hand, we are striving to make the most of the situation regardless of the circumstances. That is the most that we can hope to do. Thus, we assess how well we are doing at two levels: first, trying to understand our potential by establishing a subjective, realistic measure of what our potential should be; and then considering our actual in the context of the potential-and what our actual can be. This gives us a sense of proportion and a gauge of how well we're doing under the circumstances.

The following chapters outline potential and actual accordingly.

Chapter Two

Potential for Fulfillment and Happiness

There are two primary gauges of fulfillment and happiness: What is your potential for fulfillment and happiness, and how does this contrast with how fulfilled and happy you actually are? Given your particular circumstances, at any given point in time your actual-your actual state of mind-reflects your innermost feelings. But are these feelings consistent with what an objective outside party would think if that individual had a thorough, in-depth understanding of your situation? In this regard, the term outside party refers to an insightful, informed observer whose perceptions could provide a basis for helping you to gauge your potential.

Consider an example of a wealthy traveler who is feeling miserable because she can't decide whether to vacation in London or Paris, knowing she'll have to forego the delights of Paris if she chooses London, and vice versa. This is appropriately described as the problems of the well to do. An objective outside party would likely say, "There's nothing to be upset about. We should all have such problems." In this hypothetical case, the potential of the traveler anticipating a wonderful time in London or Paris is high, while the actual is much lower because of fretting that whichever city she selects, the other city might afford an even more interesting and enjoyable time. We likely would concur that there is no real basis for feeling unfulfilled. The traveler is seemingly unappreciative of her situation, which would be easily resolved with a change in perspective; for example, she could flip a coin to decide which city to visit and move on from that point.

The Behavioral Framework

The behavioral framework provides a context for exploring behavior in relativistic terms-that is, how you are faring in life in relation to a Value System that we will construct composed of attributes that are significant to you. The attributes within the Value System reflect your unique outlook on life and together with measures associated with these attributes can serve as a benchmark or reference point, giving you ways to further enhance, if not maximize, your quality of life.

To reiterate, the potential for fulfillment and happiness (pfh or potential) is a guideline or measure of what is achievable under the circumstances that we find ourselves in. The potential is developed in conjunction with the Value System. This Value System provides a gauge of the opportunities we are afforded to enjoy life at any point in time, for better or for worse. The true or underlying state of mind of individuals, termed actual fulfillment and happiness (afh or actual) is then considered in the context of the potential. It should be emphasized that each person's life and experiences are unique. Therefore, this model represents a generalized construct that can be tailored to individuals, but only upon in-depth analysis and understanding of the special set of circumstances involved.

While the following section may seem quantitative and a bit confusing, I ask you to bear with me and attempt to do the basic calculations so that you are able to effectively gauge what your potential for fulfillment and happiness in life could be. After walking you through the fundamentals of how to assess your potential, I present a specific example that may help you clarify your understanding of the ensuing discussion.

The Value System

A Value System is composed of a defined set of Value Attributes. These Value Attributes collectively constitute the building blocks of life, or what life is all about. By constructing your own Value System, which constitutes the things in life that are important to you, you can then measure your potential for fulfillment and happiness in that context. Just going through this process might help you to more clearly appreciate how you perceive your life and what adjustments you can make to move your actual closer to your potential.

Table 1 provides a road map of where the following discussion will be taking you, using the Value System framework as a basis for gauging potential in quantitative terms. Although this is by no means a precise formulation, you will get a sense of how this process can help you to get your arms around the most important factors that influence and shape your potential. A specific example is presented in table 2, which expands upon the explanation of the rows and columns in this matrix.

Value Attributes (Column 1)

Your Value System is uniquely determined by specific Value Attributes, such as the condition of your health, your family ties, and your career, all of which you choose. Value Attributes may be thought of as the factors that collectively impact your fulfillment and happiness. Each individual has a distinct set of Value Attributes, which are vitally important to that person. Some Value Attributes are common to almost everyone, such as health or career; others may be unique, such as a particular emphasis on religion or travel. But fundamentally, these attributes constitute what is most important to you.

Importance Factors (Column 2)

An Importance Factor characterizes the influence or impact that each Value Attribute has on your Value System. Importance Factors assigned to Value Attributes reflect their relative importance in contributing to the potential for fulfillment and happiness (pfh). For example, most persons would probably consider physical health the number one priority, since high pfh is difficult to achieve absent good health.

The Importance Factor is a numerical value from 1 to 100 that you assign to each Value Attribute. For example, what value would you assign to Physical Health? Let's say you assign it an Importance Factor of 80. Let's say you also rate the importance of Family with 80, and you assign the importance of Career a score of 40. In this case, Health and Family are equally important, and each has relatively greater importance than Career.

Normalized Value System (Column 3)

Thinking in terms of a total of 100 percent provides a convenient way of ranking the relative importance of the Value Attributes, especially when there are many more than the three cases cited in this example. The relationship of the Value Attributes becomes evident when the Value Attributes have been normalized, which is the process of expressing Importance Factors in percentages. To accomplish this, first determine the sum of the three Importance Factors discussed in the above example, which is 80 + 80 + 40 = 200. Then divide each Importance Factor by the sum of 200, whereby Health accounts for 80/200, or 40 percent, Family accounts for another 40 percent, and Career accounts for the remaining 20 percent. Now we can consider these attributes relative to each other; Physical Health and Family are each 40 percent and Career is 20 percent. The normalized values implicitly reflect your priorities.

Description of Actual Circumstances: Value Measures and the Value Measure Scores (Columns 4 and 5)

We need to link the perceived importance of a Value Attribute to actual circumstances, which we refer to as a Value Measure. In this step of the process, you describe what your actual circumstances are for each particular Value Attribute. Your description should represent an objective point of view; it should reflect what is as opposed to how you feel (which is subjective). The description, although qualitative, will be the basis for assigning a Value Measure Score that describes your actual circumstances. This is conveniently scored from 0.0 to 1.0, which is representative of your real-life situation. For example, if Physical Health is poor, then the score may be 0.2.

Value Measure Scores, ranging from 0.0 to 1.0, will lie somewhere within the bounds of extreme circumstances, as depicted in the following examples:

Physical health: from robust and fit, to encumbered and in physical pain. Family: from warm relationships, to estranged, contentious interactions-or alone. Financial situation: from independently wealthy, to preoccupied with making ends meet. Residence: from safe, secure home that meets or exceeds your needs, to unsafe, insecure home that is insufficient in size and in a substandard, unsafe location. Social network: from extensive network of friends and relatives, to alone and isolated. Education: from well educated (having an education appropriate or necessary to achieve career goals), to uneducated (able to perform only basic tasks). Job skills: from sophisticated, wide-ranging skill set, to virtually no skills.

The following guidelines should be considered in establishing Value Attributes and Value Measure Scores to limit the degree of subjectivity in deriving the potential:

Value Measure Scores conform to what a rational outside observer would conclude about your situation regarding the associated Value Attribute. For example, physically fit is better (has a higher score) than poor health.

A logical, common sense approach should be employed to gauge each Value Measure score. For example, poor is a subset of rich, in that individuals can readily give their money away and become poor; but poor individuals cannot readily acquire wealth to become rich. Hence, rich, with the higher potential (or score), can devolve to poor, but the reverse is not true. Likewise, unskilled is a subset of skilled, and uneducated is a subset of educated, since skilled persons can perform unskilled jobs, and educated persons can choose not to apply their learned skills, but not vice versa.

Value Measures are objectives to strive for and do not apply to how you feel about the situation. Considerations that contribute to heightened awareness are a result of the process. Value Measure Scores should reflect an objective point of view, as if an informed outsider looking in would observe the situation.

PFH Attribute Score (Column 6)

Carrying this forward, if Physical Health were to have an importance of 30 percent, and the score of physical health is 0.2, it follows that the potential component associated with the Physical Health Attribute is 30 percent multiplied by 0.2, which equals 6 percent (30 percent x 0.2 = 6 percent). This means that because a person's actual physical health is poor, his health contributes only 6 percent (out of a potential 30 percent) to his potential. In other words, poor health is seriously affecting the person's potential for fulfillment and happiness.

To determine the potential contribution for each of your individual Value Attributes, first multiply the normalized each Value System score by the Value Measure sore, reflecting your actual circumstances. This yields a percentage contribution of the Value Attribute to overall potential. Once all the individual potential scores are calculated, they are added together to obtain your overall potential. Step-by-step instructions for how to construct your personal Value System are provided at the end of this chapter.

Constructing Your Value System

The creation of the Value System will be based on the following steps: (1) Identifying the Value Attributes; (2) Choosing the value of the Importance Factors for each Value Attribute; (3) Calculating the normalized Importance Factors (having a total of 100 percent); (4) Providing a qualitative description of your actual circumstances, which is referred to as a Value Measure; (5) Assigning a Value Measure Score, from 0 to 1, to reflect your actual circumstances consistent with this description; and (6) Computing your potential, reflecting the contribution for each individual Value Attribute.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Realizing Your Potential For Fulfillment and Happinessby Martin Skeer Copyright © 2010 by Martin Skeer, Ph.D.. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1450230970
• ISBN 13: 9781450230971
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 120