Category Archives: Effort

“The highest reward for a person’s toil… “

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“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”

– John Ruskin, 19th century English artist and philanthropist

PROGRESS 1
I am a work in progress. How about you? With the wide variety of daily experiences we all have, I believe that we are constantly evolving and becoming a fuller expression of ourselves.

We all work each day to earn the compensation that allows us to care for ourselves and others. Ruskin’s quote, however, points to the less recognized and often subtle developments that accompany such experiences.

Exercise:

Explore how your daily efforts further your journey toward more fulfilling relationships, enhance creativity, expand greater self-esteem, support vibrant health, and extend your pursuit of wisdom.

How are you going beyond your basic psychological and physiological needs to pursue your own self-actualization? Consider Googling Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to explore this concept in more depth.

“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.”

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“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.”

– Author Unknown

Many years ago, I attended a seminar where the leader suggested – very cynically – that the reason most people get up in the morning is because they did not die in their sleep. Wow, what a horrible thought!

This quote is why I, and perhaps many engaged, optimistic individuals, get up each morning – to make themselves and their world a bit better, each and every day.

With this sense of purpose – to improve their worlds – they awake with both the intention and the opportunity to influence their lives for the better.

Exercise:

How can you structure your professional and personal life in order to take what’s good and make it better, and take what’s already better and make it your best?

Quote from Charles M. Schwab

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“I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.”

– Charles M. Schwab, entrepreneur in the steel industry

Carrots or sticks?  Encouragement or criticism? It’s a choice we make daily at work and at home.

How do you feel when you are acknowledged and encouraged in your efforts? How do you feel when others judge, criticize, and demean your efforts?

Why is it that a fundamental human trait is to be right and to make others wrong? Just look at our political parties to see what can occur.

Exercise:

Put on a pair of imaginary “approval glasses”, and look at the people around you, and the world, to find out what is good and right.

Share this empowering perspective with others, and help them find their own “approval glasses” to wear.