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3 Steps To Happiness For Project Managers

September 27, 2010 by Mel Bost Leave a Comment

Ultimately, after all is said and done, I believe that we all are searching for “happiness” in our lives.  It’s that combination of emotions, activities and long lasting collaborations which bring us satisfaction and enjoyment from living everyday.

When my daughter was married six years ago, I gave a toast in which I addressed “happiness.”  I said that happiness really consisted of three different things. 

First, if you think back to the past to those things that you have shared with your loved ones, which have made you feel good and fulfilled, that was a first step to happiness. 

Second, if you think about the present day and those events and emotions you share with your loved ones which bring you special joy in the present moment, that is a second ingredient to happiness. 

Third, and most importantly, if you think about the “anticipation” of those things you will share with your loved ones in the future, and how you can work to enrich those experiences for each other, then that is the ultimate ingredient for happiness.  

Lou Tice has often said that “People move toward and become like that which they think about.” 

Thinking about and anticipating happy experiences in the future will help to bring them about and make them an integral part of your life.

My toast was very sincere and heartfelt.  I wanted to leave a lasting impression for my daughter and her husband to be to contemplate as they approached the future together.

Much the same thing can be said about project managers.  I believe that each project manager is seeking “happiness” in his or her own context of the project and the project community.  To really achieve “happiness,” a project manager must look back, examine the present, and anticipate the future.

As a project manager, where are you seeking happiness in your projects?   Perhaps you never thought about a project or a project team being a source of happiness.  But, if you believe my initial premise that all of us are ultimately seeking happiness in our everyday lives, then a project manager must really address his entire experience in–and out of–projects.

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About Mel Bost

Mel Bost is a project management consultant specializing in project closeout and lessons learned, as well as process improvement, best practices, and benchmarking. For the past several years, he has been teaching “Project Management for Research” to postgraduate students at Arizona State University, as well as developing new approaches to the research process. Read More

Project Management Lessons Learned: A Continuous Process Improvement Framework

The NERS department congratulates C. Melvin Bost, Jr., on the publication of his new book.

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