Going nowhere positive…a global challenge!?

Here in the UK 15% of the population of 16-24 year old young people are going nowhere positive…fast! 

The situation is that they have passed through the compulsory educational system, gained little in the way of formal qualifications, learned little that is relevant to the world of work and life out with school and find themselves with little hope, or opportunity.

In the UK this group are described as NEET, Not in Employment, Education or Training.  The government has a strategy to help these young people, with particular emphasis on the 16-18 year old group.  It is perceived that the longer a young person remains NEET the more difficult it becomes for them, because they become locked into a downward spiral of lower and lower self-confidence, self-esteem and self-belief and an increasing upward spiral of reliance on the welfare state for support.

Readers from other countries know that this challenge exists in communities other than the UK; in fact it might even be a global issue.  While applying focus and resources on the “effect” can have certain positive outcomes, we all know that in order to turn a situation around and really solve a problem we MUST focus our energy on solution based initiatives that are applied directly onto the perceived “cause(s)”.

Unfortunately because this challenge has been developing over an elongated period and has put down deep roots there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of adults over the past decade or two, who as young people experienced similar challenges.  Many of these adults are now living on welfare support or in jobs they don’t enjoy simply working to pay the bills, gaining little to no job satisfaction or sense of personal fulfilment. 

Getting up every day, with little hope or opportunity of getting a job that pays more than the welfare support or forcing ourselves to go and do something that doesn’t satisfy our own interests and values simply to get the money to pay the bills results in a feeling of being trapped, a lack of self-motivation, poor performance, un-happiness and low self-confidence and self-esteem. 

If you asked 1000 people if they want to feel as though they are successful my sense is that they would all answer yes.  It’s an in built human need to feel valued, fulfilled and successful.  We all want those feelings! 

Behind closed doors, at home or in our places of work millions of people in various communities around the world are having isolated conversations about the growing challenge of lack of motivation fulfilment and happiness.

What we need to do is get together, combine our collective intelligence and energy in a positive way focused on finding and implementing a solution.