I’m going to spend a little more time discussing step one. I had several questions from people which I will try to answer.

Q: In your post you gave examples of getting clear on business, health and our spiritual lives, too.  If I felt the need to work on all three how should I proceed?

A: Generally, until you become experienced, I would suggest working on each of these separately. That means work on one at a time. Remember that you are learning a process that you can use for anything. Sometimes there is a perceived conflict between your business and personal desires so it is better to get very clear about each issue separately before you attempt the balancing act between different spheres in your life. As you make clear your desired outcome for any issue you are revealing who you are. This is a gradual process that takes time. As you work on this the complex you emerges and working on more than one thing at a time becomes possible. This is a benefit of the method.

Q: Let’s talk about health because I know you have a lot of experience with martial arts, Chinese methods and other healing modalities.

A: It’s a good practical example. There are two issues with health and defining your desired outcome. 1) You are too detailed and scientifically oriented or 2) You’re not detailed at all.

The first case is when you decide that health is all about the right numbers. You’re VOx uptake is a certain number, your cholesterol ratio is ‘right’, your resting heart rate is a certain value, and your body fat index is 12%. You can write a list that goes on forever. The problem with this approach is that these numbers are always changing. Also they don’t always correlate with good lifestyles that are maintainable (not even speaking here about no correlation with mortality rates). You get such nonsense in this school of thought that walking is useless because it doesn’t do x or y based on one study.

The second case is when you decide that health means I can fit into a certain size bathing suit or I weigh a certain amount or my jeans fit better. These kinds of specifications don’t give you much help in defining what your outcome is; e.g. how long to you maintain the size, weight or no wrinkles. Without some detail you don’t know what your desired outcome is.

You want to have a very clear picture of what you expect to be after some work. You need a two minute elevator speech to go along with your definition that makes clear to everyone what you are doing. This includes; a) statement of what you are doing and where you are going, perceived value to you or whoever of your actions. You will have a clear snapshot in your mind and in your talk that specifies when you have gotten your perceived desired outcome. And when you meet that requirement you will have your desired outcome; with certainty.

We’ll continue this on the next blog post. Send more questions!