Efficacy and purpose

Fundamental efficacy cannot be granted in a vacuum, it must be created and expressed through some specific tasks successfully mastered. It is not that achievements prove out worth but rather that the process of achieving is the means by which we develop our effectiveness, our competence at living. I cannot be efficacious in the abstract without being efficacious about anything in particular. So, productive work has the potential of being a powerful self-esteem building activity.

The purposes that move us need to be specific, if they are to be realized. I cannot organize my behavior optimally of my goal is merely to do my best. The assignment is too vague. My goal needs to be to exercise on the treadmill of thirty minutes four times a week, to complete my tasks within ten days, to communicate to my ream at our next meeting exactly what the project requires, to earn a specify sum of money in commissions by the end of the year, to achieve a specific market niche by specific means by a specific target date. With such specificity, I am able to monitor my progress compare to new information and be accountable for the results I produce.

To live purposefully is to be concerned with these questions. What am I trying to achieve? How am I trying to achieve it? Why do I think these means are appropriate? Does the feedback from the environment convey that I am succeeding or failing?  Do my goals and purposes need to be rethought? Thus to live propos fully means to live at a high level of consciousness.

It is easier for people to understand these ideas as applied to work than to personal relationships. That may be why more people make a success of their work like than of their marriages. Everyone knows it is not enough to say I live my work. One must show up at the office and so something. Otherwise, the business moves toward nonexistence.

In intimate relationships, however, it is easy to imagine that love is enough, that happiness will just come, and if does not, this means we are wrong for each other. People rarely ask themselves, if my goal is to have a successful relationship, what must I do? What actions are needed to create and sustain trust, intimacy, continuing self-disclosure, excitement, growth?

When a coupe is newly married and very happy, it is useful to ask, what is your action plan to sustain these feelings?

If a couple is in conflict and professes a desire for resolution, it is useful to ask, if restored harmony is your purpose, what actions are your prepared to take to bring it about? What actions do you desire from your partners? What do you see each of you doing to make things better?

Purposes unrelated to a plan of action do not get realized. They exit onl as frustrated yearnings.

Daydreams do not [product the experience of efficacy.