"Our modern approach to solving our problems tends to be rational and analytic - and thus starkly impoverished. I believe that reason by itself is not - and cannot be - our ultimate salvation, and that we must instead
call on our uniquely human capacity to integrate emotion and reason: to mobilize our moral sensibilities, create within ourselves a sense of the ineffable, and achieve a measured awareness of our place in the universe."
— Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Ingenuity Gap.
This week, I want to share some ideas about "principles to live by" that can help you integrate your choices and actions around higher-level choices that truly matter to you.
Commitment: Choice Activates Your Creating Process
Commitment means, "to pledge, involve, or bind (oneself) to a certain course."
In creating, we commit to a course by choosing the results we want, and then choosing actions that we think best support those results.
Creators make three kinds of choices: foundation choices, primary choices and secondary choices.
Foundation Choices
Foundation choices are higher-order choices about core values and principles such as health, wholeness, freedom, faith, compassion, authenticity, and, for some, living in harmony with the Earth's ecological systems.
Making such choices is basic to creating a hierarchy of values that guides all of our other choices. Such a hierarchy provides a foundation upon which to make primary choices and secondary choices.
When you're stuck about what choice to make, it helps to go up to the next higher level of the hierarchy. If you're stuck, and not sure what action to take, clarify the primary choice that you want to support. If you're not sure what result to create, examine your foundation choices.
Foundation/Highest Value Choices
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Primary/Results Choices
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Secondary/Action Choices
As well as the choices listed above, my clients make foundation choices such as to live in peace, be authentically successful, work for the enlightenment of all beings, and to live by the values and tenets of their faith. Jill's choices included, "Healthy in body/mind/soul."
Many people I've worked tell me they've taken action until they're exhausted, yet failed to create real and lasting results. Probing a little, I discover, for example, that some go to the gym, change their diet and take vitamins but don't choose to be healthy.
Others work hard at their writing, their business, their relationships, but fail to choose to be successful. Others long to live in peace but only hope it'll come to them. They don't make the fundamental choice to be peaceful.
When my clients learn to regularly make foundations choice, they more easily create what matters. Those who choose to be healthy (rather than just fight disease) become healthy, and find the process easier, more engaging and rewarding. Those who choose to be peaceful, find it easier to create peace around them.
Each of us chooses and commits to the foundation choices we want to make, to the values that we want to express in our visions and actions.
But all successful creators make the key foundation choice to use the creative process- to be a creator. If you want to create results, you'll want to make this foundation choice, too - to be the predominant creative force in your own life.
A Compass To Guide Your Actions
You don't act directly on foundation choices. Rather, they create a context for other choices; an orientation. They set up the deep riverbed of your life. They establish an internal compass that helps you align results and action choices with what matters.
When clients report that they are stalled or backsliding in their creating practice, I always ask, “Are you making your foundation choices? Do you have them printed out and tacked up somewhere prominent?”
The answer is usually “no.”
So I suggest they start conscientiously making those choices again. That's often all it takes to get them unstuck, on track, and moving toward their desired results.
Primary and Secondary Choices
With the compass of clear foundation choices, they're better able to orient their other life choices in accordance with their foundation choices. They choose primary choices (results) and secondary choices (actions) that support the foundation choices.
As well, they see action steps as secondary choices that support their primary/results choices. In this way, they integrate and leverage their choices in support of what matters most to them.
Their energy and action then more consistently flow along the path of least resistance set up by the alignment of their foundation, primary and secondary choices. By integrating their various life choices, they are more likely to create an integral and flourishing life.
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VIDEO: THE IMPORTANCE OF ZEST IN AN INTEGRATED LIFE!
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Caroline Adams Miller, author of Create Your Best Life talks about how to get more zest and vitality in your life. Zest will help you be happier and more successful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP_52kqa_b8
Do you have "black holes" in your life - people who suck the zest out of you?
Caroline suggest that you search for "bright lights" - people who bring out the zest in you!
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TEN PRINCIPLES TO LIVE BY IN FIERCELY COMPLEX TIMES
- by Tony Schwarz, The Energy Project
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If you're like most people I work with in companies, the demands come at you from every angle, all day long, and you have to make difficult decisions without much time to think about them. What enduring principles can you rely on to make choices that reflect openness, integrity and authenticity?
Here are ten that work for me:
1. Always challenge certainty, especially your own.
2. Excellence is an unrelenting struggle, but it's also the surest route to enduring satisfaction.
3. Emotions are contagious, so it pays to know what you're feeling.
4. When in doubt, ask yourself, "How would I behave here at my best?"
5. If you do what you love, the money may or may not follow, but you'll love what you do.
6. You need less than you think you do.
7. Accept yourself exactly as you are but never stop trying to learn and grow.
8. Meaning isn't something you discover, it's something you create, one step at a time.
9. You can't change what you don't notice and not noticing won't make it go away.
10. When in doubt, take responsibility. It's called being a true adult.
Reprinted from The Harvard Business Review HBR.org.
For an brief elaboration of each of Tony's 10 Points, click here.
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Tony Schwarz is one of my favourite authors on high performance. His books What Rally Matters, The Power of Full Engagement, and The Way We're Working Isn't Working inform my own life choices, and I try to share his insights and practices with my clients.
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COACHING INFO PACKAGE AND F.REE COACHING CHAT
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Are you living an integrated life, guided by your highest values and principles?
I have space for 2 new coaching clients in August, and 3 in Sept/Oct. I've started interviewing for Oct/Nov, and the fall looks like it'll fill fast. Early fall is a great time to start a coaching program. Why wait until New Year's?
If you'd like more info, send me an e-mail with "Coaching Results Package" in the subject. I'll send you my fr.ee 7-page info package. No obligation! No pressure!
Email to: Bruce@BruceElkin.com
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Here's what another happy client had to say about working with me:
"Bruce's coaching made the difference between successfully easing out of my old job and starting my small business in my basement. Then he helped me scale it up to a size that supports my family in what he calls a "sufficient" way. I couldn't have done it without him, and the excellent "creating-based" framework he taught me, then coached me to apply to my biz and other results I want to create."
– Annie Wilstonson, Seattle, WA
And you? If not now, when?
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QUOTABLE QUOTES
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"Know that tension is an integral part of growth. Instead of avoiding or resisting tension when it arises, identify the opposing forces at play. Make space for each of them to be there together and the tension will transform. "
– Neale Donald Walsch
"There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination, compromise, and integration. By domination only one side gets what it wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish."
– Mary Parker Follett
"The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it — every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have."
– John D. Rockefeller III
"Of all the millions of words written on happiness, this is the oldest and most enduring truth. If the principles of contentment are not within us, no material success, no pleasures or possessions, can make us happy."
– Lillian Eichler Watson
"As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behaviour. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behaviour."
- Dee Hock
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How You Can Help Me
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Thanks for reading my blog. If you like it, please send it on to family and friends, place it on web sites, print it, duplicate it and post it freely. Knowledge is power!
Also, posting a note on Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites can sometimes give us a huge boost. If you want, cut and paste this short post:
"New blog post: "Integrate Your Choices; Integrate Your Life!"
Go to: http://www.aweber.com/archive/simpl-success
For more on the topic of Simplicity and Success, check out my books and ebooks at:
http://www.bruceelkin.com/simplicity.html
Much appreciated!
Bruce |
