Success and spirituality

[potatomasher]

Hello folks,

I just joined up on these forums. I've got to say I'm not following the Getting things done book, but I'm doing other "success programs" in tandem with a sort of spiritual practice plan.

I was wondering whether other folks have found these things in contradiction, like programming your mind for success or goals or whatever it is you're looking for in life at the moment. Should we just put trust into a spiritual mindset and trust that things will work out, or do both to "maximize" the success potential we have available to us? I understand that the Getting Things Done way of doing things is very pragmatic and there might not be reason to discuss spiritual matters, as long as you're succeeding and achieving goals in your life.

But those who have thought about these things or might have had conflict about "changing your mind for success" versus trusting the life process through solving emotional issues, I would like to read your ideas and possible ways of doing things in an integrated way.

 

[Folke]

I don't think there is any contradiction in applying insights of different kinds into your daily life. Some of those insights may be relatively isolated or personal whereas others may constitute entire schools or established methodologies. There is often considerable overlap between methodologies, and sometimes contradiction. Most schools even seem to have its own built-in contradictions and white areas due to perhaps both oversights and a desire for simplification. It becomes essential to quite eclectically handpick whatever you need from these schools and personal insights and make sure you end up with something that makes sense and is useful to you (and is reasonably "lean" and efficient).

Most of the GTD methodology is about how to go about bringing order to what you want to get done, and this also touches upon "higher" or more "spiritual" elements like your overall values etc. At that "higher" level you can also find numerous other schools of thought (of many kinds; time management, leadership, philosophy, psychology, religion ...) that coincide with or complement GTD or which contradict it.

I embrace all forms of cross-fertilization and integration of insights of all types, but I would caution against putting together combinations of elements that do not fit together, and to seriously analyze any contradictions that you discover - they often have the potential to lead to new important insights.

 

[Bluesalt]

Hello folks,

I just joined up on these forums. I've got to say I'm not following the Getting things done book, but I'm doing other "success programs" in tandem with a sort of spiritual practice plan.

I was wondering whether other folks have found these things in contradiction, like programming your mind for success or goals or whatever it is you're looking for in life at the moment. Should we just put trust into a spiritual mindset and trust that things will work out, or do both to "maximize" the success potential we have available to us? I understand that the Getting Things Done way of doing things is very pragmatic and there might not be reason to discuss spiritual matters, as long as you're succeeding and achieving goals in your life.

But those who have thought about these things or might have had conflict about "changing your mind for success" versus trusting the life process through solving emotional issues, I would like to read your ideas and possible ways of doing things in an integrated way.

But what is your program?

 

[ArcCaster]

As far as resolving contradictions -- if you look at the GTD Levels of Perspective, you should be better able to start bringing practices into alignment.