Inner Development Goals (IDGs)

Lately, I attended a workshop on the Inner Development Goals (IDGs). Let me briefly reflect on this experience.

What are Inner Development Goals?

IDGs challenge our current approach towards a more sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030 are the starting point. As a society we struggle to reach any of these high reaching targets, we therefore should take a step back and reflect why? Why is it that we as a society struggle to end global hunger, to ensure basic human rights or to stop environmental destruction? The IDGs take it back to the individual person. To understand our environment, we need to reflect on ourselves in the first place. Why is it that we as individuals are not willing or capable to change our behaviour?

What is your personal IDG?

In the workshop we went through the IDGs and had to choose our personal IDG skill. We then explained our choice to an unknown person next to us. This exercise turned a rather abstract concept into something very concrete. I started the conversation with the person to the right explaining why a specific IDG skill represents my own ambition. This exercise was especially useful to reflect how I, as an individual, interact with my environment. Explaining it to someone else felt like looking at a mirror reflection of the inner self.

The value of gamification.

Games are a playful way of accessing inner development. During the workshop we learnt about a board game that allows to reflect on the IDGs in a group. In the end it is about a personal decision that comes into reality through our very own expression and explanation. I think we are still at the very beginning, but addressing sustainable development through games is a promising way to raise interest of the broader public. How can personal choices make an impact, rather than being an excuse for not acting towards more sustainable development. It is not about good or bad, right or wrong. It is about an own personal reflection between myself and my environment. What is the impact I have on my environment, what is the impact the environment has on me. Is there a difference between my self and the environment? Where is the boundary? Where do I as a person end and my surrounding start?

Why is this important?

Personally, I found this workshop rewarding. It challenged established concepts and supported my own development. How I want to develop as a person, as a father, as a husband? What is the impact of my work. It questioned what I value in life and how I invest energy.

Conclusion

IDGs are a starting point to a journey for the inner self. It helps any organization to reflect on how to use resources. The fundamental task is to strive for using a minimal amount of resources in the best possible way. That is fundamental to more sustainable development. It is a continuous process that needs willingness to challenge the current status quo and space to explore for better alternatives.