The Great Personal Imperative

What’s The Personal Imperative?

In our blog, The Re-Enchantment of Work: The Great Resignation, Realignment, and Reassessment, we noted that the Pandemic broke “a spell” many of us had about work. One spell-breaking trend the Pandemic accelerated is “The Personal Imperative.”

I’ve dusted off some notes in my files from 2014 where I was reflecting on “The Personal Imperative’s” meaning and implication.

Writing then, I noted that the “new economy” required us to embrace a new personal responsibility to respond to a new personal imperative.

Why A New Personal Imperative?

In my notes, I highlighted that economically successful people are

Pursuing their passion, packaging their genus, building their brand, and activating it. (I borrowed these concepts from Amanda Littlejohn.)
Offering their unique contributions (their brand) to others and the market as the basis for earning a living today.
Enhancing their brand. The value of their brand provides a basis for financial security today and throughout their lifetime.
Living an intense, yet stress-free, life because they are pursuing their passion, and they are authentic to who they are. They are “living their life” while “earning a living.”

The Great Personal Imperative

Today, I’m calling this “The Great Personal Imperative.”

The adjective “great” highlights the sudden and significant changes ushered in by the Pandemic. Below is a graphic I developed.

Personal Responsibility

Several trends had begun to foster these changes, and I noted we were well into being a part of a post-job, retirement, institutional, and economic security economy.

Consequently, we must be responsible for:

Mitigating risks
Maintaining programs to cover our unemployment, sickness, or other emergencies
Sustaining our employability or ability to earn income.
Managing our financial futures

In the ….	We’re responsible for	Therefore, we must
Post-Job Economy	Our employment security.	Ensure our employability
Post-Retirement Economy	Our retirement financial security.	Secure financially our retirement
Post-Institutional Economy	Our own “risk mitigation” program – unemployment, sickness, emergency planning	Finance our “rainy day funds”
Post-Economic Security Economy	Our own economic “safety net”	Create or join support networks

New Normals

Reassessments aren’t new. In fact, our “normals” are “always new. The sudden effects on work attitudes due to the Pademinic remind us that we must be ever-ready to ride the waves of change.