Scott H Young

My amazon order for books will end up taking a bit longer than expected. They are usually pretty consistent with delivery times so I failed to notice that this one was going to be shipped a lot later than usual. So, despite its small size, I decided to go our public library.

The librarian told me that I could rent out as many as eight books at a time. Immediately I began to wonder how long it would take me to read eight books if I put a little effort into it. Usually I read at a relaxed pace, taking about a book per week, sometimes two. I wonder whether or not it would be possible to read eight books in eight days.

In my own typical style I decided to make a goal out of it. So I proceeded to rent my limit of eight books which I intend to read over the next eight days. A book per day.

I’ve read entire books in one day before. Usually it is based on how much time I have and how well the author writes, rather than the number of pages. I finished both Blink and The Tipping point in a day each, which says something about Gladwell’s ability to write. But reading one book per day for eight days is a bit more of a challenge.

I don’t think this kind of habit would be sustainable in the long run seeing as there are many days when other commitments would only leave me with a half hour of reading. Still, I think it would be an interesting challenge to pursue over the next week. I’ll make a post when I’m done next Sunday cataloging what I thought of each book and my difficulties with the challenge.

So here are the books I picked out after a quick scan at the library:

How to Practice - Dalai Lama

I had read the current Dalai Lama’s other book, The Art of Happiness, previously and found it to be very interesting read. What I found most surprising about the Dalai Lama was how humble he was. When asked a question he would give it serious thought, and when he couldn’t find an answer he would admit it. The Dalai Lama’s principle towards achieving happiness is to remove negative and destructive emotions and to focus on positive emotions. I personally find his approach to be more of a beginning of happiness rather than the encompassing view of it, but it was still a very enlightening read.

Darwin’s Ghost - Steve Jones

This books is supposedly an updated version of Darwin’s original Origin of the Species. I have read several books on genetics, heredity and evolution. The history of life on this planet is one of the most remarkable tales I have ever heard. I personally believe in evolution primarily because I like the simple elegance of its mechanics. Unlike messy and complex philosophies involving a higher deity or greater intelligence, the evolution is so basic and simple. Despite such a basic driving force it is remarkably complex in its results.

The Advent of the Algorithm - David Berlinski

Creating software and programming is a passion of mine. I have always loved using computers to create something. I use algorithms every day and I find that particular aspect of programming to be particularly fascinating. This should be a very interesting read from a more mathematical rather than computers perspective regarding a tool I use all the time.

Manifest Your Destiny - Wayne W. Dyer

Wayne W. Dyer is an excellent personal development author. His focus is mostly on the ideas of peace, spirituality and thought. I personally find this style of personal development to be an interesting contrast to the more typical personal development focused on ambition, achievement and success.

Jump Start Your Brain - Doug Hall

Creativity is a hugely important part of my life. While some people like to solve problems with analysis and strategy, I’ve always found that the biggest improvements have come by creative thinking. This books is supposed to be about how you can increase your own creativity. Hopefully I can learn a few techniques to add to my own arsenal of creativity tools.

If you haven’t got the time to do it right, when will you find the time to do it over? - Jeffrey J. Mayer

This is a short time-management book. I have become increasingly focused on learning more personal productivity and time-management techniques to use in my own life. Earlier I spent most of my time researching goal setting to create clarity and purpose for my life. Now that I have a lot more focus and clarity, I’ve spent more time focusing on time-management and personal productivity. Even one solid time management idea makes reading an entire book worth its value.

Time Management from the Inside Out - Julie Morgenstern

Another time management book. Once again, I hope reading this book can give me a few ideas to increase my productivity and give me a greater sense of efficiency and effectiveness.

The Google Story - David A. Vise

I love Google. Everyone loves Google. Besides, how can you not read up on the fastest growing company in history?

So I’ve got my work cut out for me. A quick tally reveals over 2,100 pages to be read over the course of these eight days. I’ll write another blog entry when I’m done to give a quick review of each book and the challenge itself. At the very least this should be a very enlightening week.

An idea I am constantly referred to is that of “living up to our full potential.” I don’t agree with this concept. It might seem odd that someone who runs a personal development blog would disagree with the concept of living up to our full potential, an idea that is often used as the fundamental of personal development, so let me explain.

I personally believe that the idea of “living up to our full potential” illustrates a flaw in our thinking about how we define “success”. Our full potential seems to imply that there is an arbitrary point of maximum achievement for each of us in this life time. I think this type of thinking can be inspiring, but also limit us in a way.

Thinking about “living up to our full potential” can often inspire or push us to make improvements. In this sense, having a full potential to live up to is a good concept in order to get us to make the improvements we need to make to live a great life. However, I believe that the concept of “full potential” makes some inaccurate assumptions about success.

In order to see what these inaccurate assumptions are, we need to define success. So what is success?

I personally would consider success to be the measure of happiness, fulfillment and impact we have with our lives. Success is the sense that we are fulfilled with our contribution to the world and are doing our best. Think about it. Everything we do in life is pretty much to directly or indirectly influence these factors. We want to be happy and fulfilled in our life and our life’s purpose. Once we have that we want to increase the positive impact we can have on the world. That is how I would define success.

So where does happiness and fulfillment come from? Happiness and fulfillment come from growth. When we feel we are growing, improving and experiencing life to the best of our abilities is when we are the most fulfilled and contented. Therefore I would say that the measure of success we have in life is the level of growth we are currently experiencing.

So why does this conflict with the concept of “living up to our full potential”?

I believe this conflict arises because this implies that the true measure of success is in achieving a certain point or position in the continuum of personal development. But based on our definition of success, the position is not really what creates success. Success instead is based on the rate of growth or velocity.

So instead of our past concept of “living up to our full potential.” I would say it more accurately as “doing our full potential.” This may seem like semantics but the difference is crucial.

Living up to our true potential, that is the arbitrary point of maximum achievement in our lives is daunting and rarely inspiring. How can one possibly live up to their “full” potential without the benefit of hindsight? Even if we are doing our best, we might make mistakes or incorrect decisions. This true potential implies that success, happiness and fulfillment, are linked to achieving our “full potential”. Seeing as this full potential is always just out of reach, extending this line of thinking says that we will not be happy or fulfilled unless we reach it. This is why I think this statement actually demotivates a lot of people.

Doing our full potential implies that we are going to do our best to grow and improve ourselves. This statement puts the pressure on the present, not the impossibly huge context of our whole lives. In this sense, as long as we are doing the best we possibly can, we are successful. We can always do our best, regardless of a specific outcome.

By focusing on doing our full potential we can experience maximum growth and improvement in our lives. From this improvement and growth we can achieve happiness and fulfillment. Knowing we are doing the best we can is enough to satisfy. From this context I would say that a recovering alcoholic doing his best to improve his life is more successful than someone who has settled into an average life.

Our full potential in the course of our lives is often at the mercy of different factors we cannot control. If we were to suddenly die tomorrow, I wouldn’t say that where we our right now was our full potential. Furthermore, this full potential gets us to strive towards a point, rather than focusing on the growth and direction itself.

This concept of success as being an arbitrary point is prevalent in the way we set goals. I often hear about people who say that they weren’t any happier after achieving their goals than they were before. These people would often go on to claim that the problem was with goal setting entirely.

The fact is, the real problem is that they believed success (happiness and fulfillment) was linked with an arbitrary point, rather than the rate of their own growth. The reason you set goals is to increase your velocity, to increase the rate of your growth, not just to achieve a specific milestone, or position, in that development. It may seem odd that the purpose of goal setting isn’t just to achieve the goal, but rather to get us to push beyond our normal expectations, but it is very true.

I believe that many people who like this expression already use it in the way I describe as doing instead of reaching a point. For those people I think you’ve already got the right idea. Focus on how you can do your best right in this moment. As long as you are doing that, you are successful.

Life is a journey not a destination. Don’t focus on reaching an arbitrary point, whether that is our “full potential” or even your specific goals. Instead focus on whether you are doing your best to grow, improve and expand. Focus not on living up to your full potential but in doing your full potential in every moment of your life.

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