Project You

I came across a quote that reminded me of how my ‘Purposeful Me’ Blog started over four years ago. I had a dream to always work on becoming a better version of me and share my learnings along the way so others can be better too.

We are all works in progress and the expectation is that we do better as we know better. We grow as we fail, learn, unlearn, relearn and the cycle repeats itself. The key is to never stop growing or learning.

As we continue to learn and grow, we are the initial beneficiaries before those immediately around us. Ultimately, the wider community take notice of the result of years of intentional growth.

The idea behind my second book, ‘The Purposeful Life Project’ was how to make yourself the next project you work on. As a project manager, I know how easily a project can define you depending on how it was delivered.

The goal of every project manager is to deliver to the right quality, at the right time and cost and especially in the right manner which is both effective and efficient. And the one thing we can’t forget is how you treat people through the project life cycle.

As much as I love project management, I firmly believe that the most important project that any of us has is, ‘Project YOU’. Yes, I mean ‘YOU’ and ‘I’ being the subject matter of our project management efforts.

The most important work you will ever do is on yourself; from there will flow the important works you will do for and on behalf of others.

Focusing on ‘Project You’ isn’t selfish or self centred; rather it is recognising that you can only give what you have and from your understanding of who you are and what you are meant to be and do.

Here are a few thoughts on ‘Project You’

Make ‘You’ a priority

Working on yourself throughout your life journey isn’t a nice to do; it is a must do. Everything and everyone around us is constantly evolving and to not be left behind, we must be willing to work on ourselves too.

This is definitely not an encouragement to be selfish, instead it is reminding us to add our own growth and ‘self development’ to our agenda and ‘things to do’ list.

Be Intentional

Most good, productive and meaningful things don’t happen accidentally; there is always an intentional approach behind many successes that we appreciate in others.

There is intentionality behind most inventions that we see and benefit from. In the same manner, we have to be intentional when we work on ourselves. Being intentional means we are clear on objectives, goals, timelines, deliverables, measures of success and the how.

So start your ‘Project You’ with intentionality and continue that way until you achieve your results. Then ‘Repeat’ and ‘Repeat’ again.

Get the support you need

We don’t always know how to go about making ourselves a project and not all of us have had decades of experience in project management; but there will be people around you who are skilled at doing this.

So find a mentor, read some books, follow people who have done and proved this; and make them a case study. And of course if you need an easy step by step guide, check out my book, ‘The Purposeful Life Project’ because I wrote it to help anyone who wants to make themselves the focus of their next project.

Celebrate your wins and losses

We won’t always get it right but we can still celebrate throughout the journey. Regardless of experience, some projects have curveballs thrown in but you can always learn from how you handled them.

That applies to any work we do on ourselves; we will win some and lose some, but we will learn and grow through them all. So don’t beat yourselves down when you lose some; recalibrate and move on with your learning in tow.

Results are always visible

Finally I would like to share the quote that inspired this week’s post which says, ‘Your smile is your logo, your personality is your business card, and the way you make others feel is your trademark. Unknown’.

The results of Project ‘You’ are always visible and that is when you realise all the experiences that got you there were worth it.

Thank you for reading and sharing my post. Here’s to a brand new week and a brand new you. See you next week.