By Brother Powell
The focus on these four areas of growth is not unique among the Latter-Day Saints. Compassion International, a Christian faith-based organization that strives to "release children from poverty in Jesus' name" also focuses on these four areas. Each of the children in their program is regularly assessed by professionals on the child's developmental growth in these four areas, and the youth are taught to maintain balance when they go to their centers each week. Ines, a 9-year-old girl from Togo who is in the Compassion program, recently wrote: "I go to the project every Saturday, and I am getting much profit from the teaching in many domains such as spiritual, physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional domains." I recently participated in a book club at work where we read and discussed principles in The Power of Full Engagement* by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. The authors emphasized the need for the professional workforce to balance their lives among these same four categories: physical, intellectual, emotional (social), and spiritual. In fact, they emphasized that people need to have a motivating focus and set of values -- be it family, friends, religion, or service -- that ground their everyday activity. Once spiritual focus is established, activity in the other areas will balance and enable achievement of these higher and more meaningful activities. By having a spiritual purpose outside of work, the authors argue (and demonstrate) that results at work will drastically improve. Along those lines, missionaries and members of the Church are told to strive to serve God with all our "hearts, might, mind and strength" (D&C 4:2). I see these same four areas repeated where hearts = social, might = spiritual, mind = intellectual, and strength = physical. Our family has a missionary embarking on his mission this month. His mission is unique compared with the other six missionaries called to serve from our ward, in that he will be serving his home community. This has allowed our family to meet with the mission leaders in our home, and our missionary has been able to engage in his assignments before he is fully set apart. Each of the growth areas has been emphasized. He has been asked to work out for an hour every day -- even and especially if his service is physical in nature (physical). He will be assigned a companion whom he has been instructed to contact daily, as well as work to love the people he serves (social). Among his service opportunities will be a day a week when he will serve in the temple, and he is expected to maintain a calling in his home ward (spiritual). And finally, the service mission leaders were really interested in our missionary's interests and in finding opportunities for him to grow and give service. As a writer, it was suggested that he might help put together a monthly newsletter for the mission (intellectual). I personally have a piece of paper hanging near my bed that has a spot for me to write down four goals, one in each of Christ's developmental areas. I do this to be an example to my children and the youth, and also because I have a testimony that goal setting and achievement in each of these areas is part of the plan of salvation and our reason to be here on Earth. We all have ways we can develop and grow, and taking the time to do an honest inventory and purposeful goal setting in all four areas is a great way to ensure a balanced approach to our daily lives. *This is not an endorsement. In fact, I have at least a half-dozen other books I would recommend before directing anybody to this one.
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