The Every-Year Itch. Kirsten de Bouter Shillam

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      We will always find ourselves somewhere on the tightrope between cause, process and result. The motivation to do something and the need to know how successful it was and how it measured against your last attempt, will always be a fundamental driver. However, learning from experiences and creating meaning happens in the process. It has longevity to it, because the lessons you are taught can be applied in other situations. Rushing for the result is a one-stop shop. You can gather results in life, but be no richer for it. The accumulation of worthwhile experiences always has a greater sum total than a collection of stand-alone results. By engaging in meaningful processes, you evaluate, develop, grow. It brings you to a different kind of result. One where there is no wall, but where you are freshly motivated to move to the next step. There the cause-process-result flatliner becomes a cycle in which you can be continually re-inspired.

      RESULT IS A SWEET . . . DO SOMETHING WITH IT DON'T HAVE A SHELF OF DUSTY SWEETS

       EAT THE SWEET

      ENJOY, DEVELOP, GROW

      AND BE INSPIRED

      The consumer mentality

      The result-based perspective goes hand in hand with a consumer mentality. We have all been conditioned to be consumers in one way or another. By being a consumer you are not in the process of actively putting in, or part of the innovation or the solution. Instead you are standing at the end of the line, consuming or being consumed. There is no responsibility to take, no accountability. You can afford to be a spectator, a user of goods and services which –if not up to your expectations–you can complain about and get your money back on.

      In the result-based consumer world we associate formal education with status and earning potential. The higher the status, the more money, the more you can consume. It’s an adding up of life that doesn’t work so well anymore. Not least because consumerism leaves its casualties along the way, both environmentally and by generating groups of ‘have-nots’ or ‘deserve-nothings’. That’s wasting valuable resources all round. In time, the planet will have nothing left to give and certain groups of people will be convinced they have nothing worthwhile to give.

      In the world of tomorrow new approaches and different perspectives are vital. There is more than one way of doing something and driving to a consumerism orientated result alone is elitist, and not sustainable. Instead of feed me wifi, feed me ready-meals and restaurants, feed me brands and shops on every corner and online, you can be part of the solution. You can honour your talents. You take the lead in your life by making conscious choices, collaborating and taking responsibility for the outcome. It’s an inspiration to be a pioneer not a puppet. Whether you only affect things in your own life or on a bigger scale, the ripple of this vital, self-starting initiative will eventually create a wave.

      Keep moving forward

      Nobody can afford to stand still; you blink and you have missed the next opportunity. Sometimes it is so tempting to go back to what feels safe and familiar; it’s so much easier to let go and wait for instructions.

      NOSTALGIA = LOST AGAIN

      If you re-arrange the letters of the word N-O-S-T-A-L-G-I-A, you get “Lost Again”. Keeping your eyes firmly to the future is more essential than ever before. You can create your future and play an active part in the communities you treasure and the causes you support.

      Read the signs of the time. The cause-process-result sequence is not the only way to get ahead. There are far more innovative ways to move forward in business, collaborating across physical, social and psychological borders. There are opportunities to find new ways, maximise technological options, draw on various cultural skills, execute environmental and social awareness with an emphasis on sustainability, inclusion, diversity, regeneration. Business can reinvent itself. Are structures like the 9–5 day useful? Does business need to happen in large office blocks which people waste time getting to by being held up in traffic? Do there need to be more options for people to engage at work other than a standard contract? How can waste be reduced whilst tapping into the resources of the people in organisations? Thinktanks are needed to pivot and play with these pressing issues.

      Learning can happen in other places than schools and universities, with other means than books and exams. Apprenticeships, mentors, exploration, travel and exchanges, to name but a few. If children and young people can find their way by first discovering their natural talents, then the organic and guided development of that will see new emerging self starters not defined by marks out of ten.