Time to the Max

One of the biggest problems we have with time is that we don’t have enough of it. In a world where our time (resources, money, etc.) is limited, we must be intentional about how we use it. And so it is with the time we devote to our self-development. Having identified the purpose for which we seek self-development, we can’t afford to spend time on self-development activities that don’t help us accomplish that purpose.

Focusing our self-development goals on our purpose and aligning our self-development activities with our purpose greatly increases the chances that the time we spend in self-development will achieve our purpose for self-development.

For example, my purpose as a leader (at least one of them) is to help other leaders and organizations reach their destiny.

In her book The End of Leadership, Barbara Kellerman states that more than $50 billion a year is spent on leadership development and training in just the corporate arena alone. That’s a staggering figure.

With so many options available for leadership development, it’s easy—in the absence of focus—to spend a lot of time, effort and money on self-development that doesn’t actually make us better leaders. Thus, it’s important to narrow the huge variety of options available to us. One way to accomplish this is to pursue those development opportunities that will help us fulfill our purposes as a leader.

Given that my purpose is to help other leaders and organizations reach their destiny, I would choose a book entitled Leading Leaders: Empowering Church Boards for Ministry Excellence rather than a book entitled Leadership: Top 10 Leadership Secrets For Becoming a Great Leader That People Will Follow. It’s not that Leading Leaders is better than Leadership; it’s that Leading Leaders is more focused on my purpose as a leader.

It’s also important to align our development activities with our purpose. I earned my law degree in my 20s. However, in my mid-40s I took the unusual step of pursuing another advanced degree, at night, while I was working full-time. Why devote so much time and effort to pursuing another degree at my age?

Because a degree focused on organizational development was aligned with my purpose of helping other leaders and organizations reach their destiny.

Discovering our leadership purpose, focusing our development goals on that purpose and aligning our development activities with that purpose helps us maximize the time, effort and resources we devote to our development.