Chapter 5 on Purpose is up

Chapter 5 of my book on self-improvement is up. It is on the topic of ‘Purpose’.

I battled for a while trying to write this chapter. I think it was because I felt I needed to say something particularly groundbreaking or interesting.

In reality however the message I was (am) trying to get across is relatively simple.

Everything we do in life is imbued with some purpose. There is a reason for everything we do. The more choices and decisions and actions we can take where we are clear about the purpose and reasons, the greater the level of control we can take over our lives.

From a self-improvement perspective, the clearer we are about where we are headed in our lives and what we we to achieve, the more specific we can be about choosing what aspects of our lives to improve.

In the chapter I invite you to consider your reasons for self-improvement.

A comment on chapter lengths

If you are following along with the book’s development, you will have undoubtedly noticed that my Chapters are quite short. This is worth addressing, as much for my sake, as that of my readers.

I see this book I’m writing as my first foray into discussing self-improvement, and ultimately Mental Fitness. At this stage, whilst I think I have some relevant things to say, I don’t have a lot to say. There is no need to make the chapters long if my points are limited.

Whilst individual chapters are important, my goal is that there is a coherent story/narrative that goes across the whole book. My hope is that someone could skim read the book (when it is finished) and see clearly the line of logic/thought that flows through it. This is easier to achieve if I keep the narrative within chapters and across chapters simpler.

This book (or a similar form of it) will be used as a guided intervention for university students to build productivity and wellbeing. Brevity and accessibility is an important aspect of that use scenario.

Finally, I am keen for this book to be used as a ‘how-to’ guide, not a summary of the scientific or philosophical literature on self-improvement. A longer piece of work, justifying my foundational standpoint is something for the future.

I suspect that Chapters will increase in size in subsequent drafts as I uncover narrative elements that I want to include. For the time being however, I hope you can enjoy my rather minimalist approach to writing.