Concept Note for a Person-centered Website for Accomplishment and Personal Growth

Scope of Project

A website can be created where over a time each individual can create a complete profile of their own life and personality, a private profile that they can examine and work on to continuously develop, a personal diary for setting goals, analyzing problems, defining strategies for accomplishment, self-improvement, improved relationships, romantic fulfillment, personal and spiritual growth.

The site can be developed to handle a variety of situations:

Personality types - dimensional variables of the individual
Social contexts - context in which the person is living in space, time and role.
Aspirations - general motivations guiding the person's life, identity, life stories, personal narrative
Needs - specific problems or opportunities that bring a person to the site

Objectives of the Site

For Individual Members:

Enable individual members to developed in-depth profiles of their personalities and life context as a means for higher accomplishment, self-improvement and personal fulfillment.
Enable individuals to identify unutilized strengths that they can exploit for higher accomplishments.
Enable individuals to identify weaknesses that are a source of problems or obstacles to fulfillment of their aspirations
Enable individuals to identify strategies to enhance their capabilities for accomplishment and eliminate problems.
Enable individual members to obtain constructive feedback from friends, peers and co-workers that will aid in their self-improvement.

For Researchers

Document the role of personality in personal accomplishment and fulfillment as a means for educating the public regarding the importance of personality development.
Provide a large, rich source of data for modeling human behavior and accomplishment to arrive at formulas for higher achievement in specific fields or activities as well as general life.

For Business

As a means for market research to identify social needs and market opportunities
As a means for identifying specific customers for a wide range of products and services.

Principles of Higher Accomplishment

Every person possesses a wide range of energy, ability, knowledge, talent, and capacities that are not fully utilized. Inventoring one's profile helps us identify the personal resources we are not fully utilizing. The site can provide strategies and examples on how to convert any personal resource into a productive asset.

Every person possesses a wide range of opportunities that he/she is not fully aware of or is not fully utilizing for learning, personal development, career advancement, personal relations, personal growth and fulfillment, e.g. the Internet provides almost unlimited resources of various kinds which no one can fully exhaust.

Hierarchy of Needs

The site can address a hierarchy of needs, including

1. Building Personal Capacities

Acquiring or enhancing knowledge in any sphere
Developing or improving physical, interpersonal, organizational and mental skills
Enhancing abilities -- physical, vital, mental
Improving one's faculties
Improving health
Improving memory
Improving appearance

2. Career

Developing a particular skill or personal quality
Getting a job -- improving one's presentation, skills, attitudes
Rising in one's career
Starting a company

3. Interpersonal Relations

Improving relations with family and friends
Making friends
Working as a leader or member of team
Attracting a partner
Forging, retaining and improving relations with a partner
Finding romantic fulfillment through psychological strategies-- this one function could make the site a huge success offering original strategies for successful and lasting romantic relationships

4. Accomplishment -- enhancing one's skills and capacities for

Decision making
Planning
Organizing one's life
Conserving and directing energy for higher achievement

5. Personal Development, Psychological Growth & Spiritual Progress

Improving self-discipline
Developing psychological skills
Becoming happier and more cheerful
Overcoming fear and tension
Becoming a more likeable, lovable person
Becoming a more positive person through personal growth and change of attitudes
Developing one's character through values
Self-discovery
Developing spiritual skills -- silent will, non-thinking, other persons' point of view
Spiritual experience

Concept of Person

We suggest expanding the focus of the site from personality to the Person.

Personal Profiles

Each person could develop a complete personal profile on the site that covered all aspects of their life -- work, education, family, friends, romance, personality, personal growth, even spirituality.

Ideally the profile should be depicted as an image or resource map divided into major sections so it can be surveyed visually.

The main database would then include fields for all aspects of the person's life, personality and capacities, not just attributes of personality.

Personality then becomes the unifying center which relates all element of a greater whole which is the Person, which in turn becomes a part of a greater whole which is the social context.

Person could include all aspects and dimensions of a person's personality, capacities, and life. Including faculties, abilities, traits, values, attitudes, knowledge (all fields and types), skills (mental, vital/social, physical), etc.

Individuals can decide which profiles they want to complete and keep adding profiles over time to address their specific needs.

Examples of profiles

1. Mental faculties (such as)

Memory (of facts, faces, names, incidents),
Observation (sherlock holmes)
Imagination - visual, ideational, auditory, 3 dimensional
Language
1. reading speed and retention
2. writing ability
3. speaking ability
4. accent
5. summarizing
6. vocabulary
7. foreign language acquisition
Sense of humor
Intelligence of different types
Facility with numbers
Artistic

2. Interpersonal abilities

Entertaining
Leading
Coordinating team members
Working with others

3. Physical abilities

Dexterity
Coordination
Musical
Athletic

4. Physical skills

Technical
Computer
Mechanical
Musical
Handwriting
Athletic
Occupational
Domestic - cooking, decorating

5. Social, interpersonal skills

Entertaining
Organizing
Negotiating
Leading
Team building
Selling

6. Attitudes - the full list on growthonline

7. Values - the full list on growthonline

Aspirations

Personality traits refer to atemporal, cross-situational, and noncontingent attributions about persons. In addition, we need to take into account motivational and contextual factors that determine how personality performs under different circumstances depending on aspirations, time, place and role.

Personality theory has already recognized the importance of the person's intention on expressions of personality traits and identified some broad parameters, including

Motives
Goals
Plans
Stages
Life tasks

These directional or motivational factors delineate the context of intention in which the individual personality functions.

Social Context

In addition we need to take into account true external context variables at several levels.

Place
Time
Role

These factors may strongly influence context at three or more levels:

Family
Organization or Peers - company, industry school, community
Society - national climate, generational values, attitudes & behaviors

The importance of these levels may vary according to the issue being addressed. Successful career within a company may depend very much on Organizational context within the company or industry (e.g. software, Silicon Valley). Societal context and generational values will be an important factor in romance and marriage (e.g. USA vs. India or Bahrain).

In P&P the importance of these three is very clear

Family

Bennet family is a mixed class family
Elizabeth is one of five sisters (role)
Their property is entailed so there is no money for dowry
They live in the rustic countryside

Organization or Peers

In this case, the family might be taken to represent the organization
Peers may refer to the community of Meryton. They are a leading family in the community

Society

Values and attitudes of England in 1800 aristocracy (time)
Impact of the French Revolution on social aspirations and social mobility (time)
Because it is war time, military personnel are particularly revered and respected (time)

Passive conduct expected of women (role)

Lady Catherine's conduct is out of general alignment with the changing times

Strategies for Accomplishment or Self-Improvement

For each section and aspect, the site can provide advice on how to become more successful and fulfilled. Illustrative examples from Pride & Prejudice

General Rules for Accomplishment

Other person's point of view: However reasonable your position seems, examining the situation from other people's point of view reveals opportunities for progress and obstacles that are holding us back. - Elizabeth Bennet never tried to conceive that Darcy may have had a legitimate reason for his actions. She later realized that it was her own family that spoiled Jane's marriage to Bingley, not Darcy.
Pride & Self-Importance: Sense of superiority, arrogance, pride and self-assertion are always expressions of ego that evoke reactions from life. Be humble. - Darcy's arrogance brought abuse from Elizabeth and scandalous false accusations from Wickham.
Power of Speech: Be careful what you speak. Negative statements have a way of coming true. - Elizabeth, Mr. Bennet, Mrs. Bennet, Bingley
Be responsible: Take responsibility and effort required of you. - Mr. Bennet
Initiative: Taking the right attitude is better than taking external initiative. When you strive to achieve something above your present level or strength, act inwardly and wait for life to respond. External initiative in these circumstances will only cancel or delay your accomplishment. E.g. you cannot ask someone to love you, you have to win their love. - Mrs. Bennet's aspirations are all fulfilled but her initiatives always fail. Her pressing invitations to Bingley made him leave the town for a year.
Goodwill: Goodwill brings good fortune to those who genuinely wish well to others. Charlotte is the first to web because she has genuine goodwill for Elizabeth and Jane and wants them to marry well, when she thinks there is little chance of her marrying at all. She not only marries first, she also gets their property. Her goodwill for them attracts what they have. Elizabeth's intense goodwill for Jane to marry well gets her a husband many times better.
Be Positive: Think and feel positively. Refuse to see the negative in other people. Attention to the negative energizes it and attracts it to you. Jane refuses to see or think badly of anyone. Even those with bad or false intentions ultimately were forced by life to come around and obliged her.
Mocking criticism: Sarcasm destroys human relationships, even when it is spoke when the person cannot hear it. Do not mock or criticize others. The same vibration will come back to you from life. - Mr. Bennet's mocking sarcasm undermined the harmony of the family, and invited abusive responses from Mr. Collins, Darcy and Lady Catherine. Mrs. Bennet's abuse of Darcy evoked abuse of Elizabeth, her sisters and the whole family from Darcy, Caroline and Lady Catherine.
Silence: Silence is better than words. Do not speak about anticipated good results until they are fully accomplished. Speaking dissipates energy and evokes opposition. - Mrs. Bennet speaking of Jane's marriage prematurely postponed it by a year.
Falsehood: False speech and false motives inevitably evoke a similar or opposite response from life, making you the victim of another's falsehood or exposing your falsehood when and to whom you least wish it known. Darcy's interference in Bingley relationship with Jane is accidentally revealed by Fitzwilliam to Elizabeth, the one person Darcy would wish to conceal it from and the revelation came just an hour before Darcy came to propose to her! Wickham's lies about Darcy ultimately were exposed so his character was known to the entire community.
Attraction to Falsehood: Do not believe what is falsehood. Acceptance of falsehood or people with false motives enables them to undermine your welfare and progress. Elizabeth's attraction to the false rogue Wickham led to her head on collision with Darcy and a year of aggravation until she finally gave him up. Jane's sentiments for false Caroline enabled Caroline to interfere with her relationship with Bingley. She could not marry him until she finally gave up her relation with Caroline.
Act within your rights and strength: Asking for what is not due to you or trying to achieve by force or pressure what you have no right or strength to achieve will only result in failure or the very opposite. Lady Catherine unreasonably demands that Elizabeth give up her claim on Darcy and in the process informs gives Darcy leave to hope for the first time the Elizabeth might actually accept his proposal.

Romance

For example, for a person seeking to win the affection of another person the following psychological strategy is unfailing

See only the other person's strong points and refuse to take note of the other side
Value the person as a person, not for the attributes (e.g. facial appearance) that make that person attractive to others
Be sincere to yourself, not to your desires. Do not value your desire. Value your own self-worth as a person, your values, self-esteem, self-respect.
Instead of pursuing the other person externally or playing indifferent when you do not feel it, concentrate on valuing and relating to the other person as a person in your inner emotions without sacrificing your own self-esteem. The other person will be attracted to you by the strength of your inner attitude.

Spiritual Progress

Develop spiritual skills such as silent will, taking the other person's point of view, non-reaction (equality), refusing to see the negative, faith, prayer, consecration. Some methods are described on Human Science wiki

Energy

Energy is a simple and powerful concept that directly relates to all aspects of a person’s life and accomplishment — work, interpersonal relations, education and happiness. So it may be an ideal entry and starting point for users. The site can assess a person’s energy level at the physical, vital and mental level:

Physical – active vs. lazy or lethargic, wakes with energy, moves quickly, completes work on time.
Vital – enthusiasm for work and human relations, talkative, dynamic, exuberant, never tires of human relations, constantly taking initiative
Mental -- mentally active, thoughtful, productive, intellectually creative

Energy levels may vary according to the context, so it can also examine difference in energy level at home, work, with peers, when alone or with other people and try to determine the reasons for the variations.

The site can provide educational material to make people more conscious of

Importance of energy for accomplishment
Ways in which energy is dissipated or lost in unproductive behavior
Strategies to increase energy level

Strategies also can be at same three levels. Energy is enhanced by taking interest, increasing one’s understanding of oneself, one’s work and other people, and by organizing one’s available energies better by raising the level of skills.

Physical – energy at the physical level relates to health and use of the body. It can be enhanced by regular exercise, getting sufficient sleep, eating and drinking moderately, acquiring or improving physical skills. We can assess people on all these parameters as part of the Personal Profile and recommend a bevy of measures to enhance physical energy.
Vital – energy at the vital level relates to one’s interests and attitudes. It can be enhanced by taking greater interest in work and people, by reversing negative attitudes. Vital energy is dissipated by excessive excitement, unnecessary speaking, irritation, annoyance, frustration, and anger. Relating more positively to other people is a powerful way to enhance one’s energy. Improving ones manners (behavior skills) and interpersonal skills, taking other people’s point of view, organizing one’s life to eliminate waste of time and unproductive movements will raise the energy level.
Mental -- like the body, the mind is energized when it is active. Trying to understand oneself and others, keeping the mind mentally active through reading or study, honing mental skills such as memory, asking more profound questions about one’s life, personality, and goals (which the site can elicit), acquiring positive attitudes such as curiosity and thoughtfulness and positive values such as truthfulness and integrity helps stimulate mental energy. Energy can also be increased by raising the level of one’s idealism, setting goals, taking decisions, commitment, determination and striving to make each action or work as perfect as possible (e.g. eliminating proofing errors in all written materials, keeping one’s electronic files and physical belongings well-organized).
Spiritual – more powerful than these are spiritual skills that can energize the whole being, such as silent will, other person’s point of view, equanimity, inner-outer correspondences, meditation, prayer, consecration. See article Strategies for spiritual progress. The ultimate strategy for enhancing one’s energy is one known to every athlete. Fully exhaust your available energy in striving to exceed your past performance and your energy will continuously increase. Exhausting one’s effort opens you to energy from a higher level.

Decision-Making Matrix

Decision-making can constitute one function of the website. The approach can be based on MSS’s model for a decision-making matrix which is explained in the linked article. The model requires users to assess both objective and subjective factors that impinge on a decision they wish to make. The site can draw on general information already included in the user’s personal profile and solicit additional information specific to the issue under discussion. This will reduce the need for additional inputs. Over time the user will be able to consult the system with less and less input of additional information, i.e. the system will become intelligent.

Two versions of the model have been developed: a simple four quadrant matrix and a more complex 16 quadrant matrix. The effort on the users part will be the same in both cases. The second model makes more precise decisions based on more precise information. The site can start with the four quadrant version but its responses to queries can present 16 possible prognoses based on the 16 quadrant model. It can also include specific strategies or steps needed to improve the prognosis for success depending on which of the factors are rated as low.

Quadrant I decisions succeed: Quadrant I of the Decision-making matrix refers to situations in which both the external and internal factors related to a decision are positive. Decisions taken in this quadrant always succeed.

Quadrant II decisions: Internal factors are positive, but external conditions are insufficient to support accomplishment. Initially the effort will be slow and difficult, but ultimately it will succeed. Bingley’s desire to marry Jane meets with difficulties because Darcy and Caroline are strongly opposed and Mrs. Bennet weakens Jane’s position. Bingley is fully positive internally. He does not act to resist their opposition, but waits patiently. Ultimately Darcy’s opposition fades and reverses into support.
Quadrant III decisions: External factors are positive, but inner attitudes are not. Initially things go well and look encouraging but ultimately they fail due to insufficient commitment and support. Wickham’s slander against Darcy, his planned elopement with Georgiana, and his insincere elopement with Lydia all progress up to a point and then fail because he bases himself on falsehood and deception rather than truth and genuine intention.
Quadrant IV decisions always fail: Both internal and external factors were negative. Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth failed because internally his heart and mind were working at cross-purposes and externally he had offended her and interfered with Jane’s marriage to Bingley. Until he overcomes his inner reservations, removes Elizabeth’s false belief about Wickham.

Database

Each person would maintain their own personal database

Certain portions of the data base could be published at the individual's choice. All basic data would be available to the website for analysis and modeling and statistic reporting.

Site identities would be confidential, but each member can have a personalized email address for receiving the types of information they are interested in.

Individual members can invite their friends (on personal invitation only) to provide anonymous feedback on any aspect of their lives. They can also publish portions of their profile for access by those with common interests, problems, etc. such as drug abuse, problem children, home schooling, social or romantic problems.

Blogs and forums can enable individuals to seek advice on any aspect of their lives from other members, publishing portions of their profile for assessment.

The database would contain specific strategies and examples for addressing different types of needs and problems. It would also refer people to appropriate external resources.

Elements of the database

Personality attributes and assessment surveys
Social contexts and assessment surveys
Aspirations and assessment surveys
Needs and assessment surveys
Personal Profile of personal inventory, personality traits, life context
Visualization of Personal Profile - my map
Definitions & concepts
Principles & Strategies for accomplishment - general text and context specific instructions
Blogs and forums on specific subjects for sharing and feedback from the the website membership community
On-line testing resources (part of website)
Expert external resources (commercial and non-commercial)
Database query for members

Research methodology

Once we agree on a general approach, each of these dimensions of person can be developed as an article on the Human Science wiki so they can be easily edited by team members with tracking of all changes without losing anyone's contribution.

This paper was originally prepared by The Mother's Service Society, India and has been published on http://www.mssresearch.org/ and http://humanscience.wikia.com/.