The success of a year, like the success of any relationship, journey, business, practice or any other endeavour is best identified by the question; “For what purpose?”.
When you are on a journey it is made meaningful, impact and successful to the degree that it sits with and honours your purpose.
Purpose is a product of your Quadrant 1 activity as defined in thein8model® and this month we want to support and challenge you to explore the reason why you do what you do. Let’s look at the 4 Quadrants that make up ‘Purpose’.
Curiosity
The principle driver of purpose is Curiosity. If you want to develop your practice and your life you must be intensely curious about everything around you. Nothing stays the same and if you are not curious about the new and the different you will live in the boring land of ‘the same old, same old’ and that is an average and boring place to live.
Your prefrontal cortex is constantly tracking on the opportunities that are contained in the field of possibilities that surround you and it is here that the future of your practice, your business and your profession lie.
This year commit to building a habit and a culture of intense curiosity. Whether you are doing your forward planning, in a team meeting or at the adjusting table ask more, learn more, and create unique opportunities for innovation and expansion. Ask the questions Why and Why Not? of every situation or possibility that comes your way. You will be amazed by the options and new learnings that open for you.
Voids
The second factor to consider in purpose is a drawback to the exciting, heartfelt vision that emanates from curiosity. The things in your past that you deem to be negative and that you pull away from in order to be safe. These are your voids.
Trying to make today fit with yesterday is a recipe for the decay and ultimate death of a person, practice or profession. Whilst it is valuable to learn from the past it is important to see the present as a whole new situation. This is a delicate paradox which requires the ability to go from one to the other in order to stay in the present. There is little value in having to learn every moment as it is a totally new occurrence and by the same token it is very destructive to brand every moment as the same as a previous, similar one.
The practice of acting upon today’s challenges based on your evidence of yesterday just doesn’t make sense let alone, work. Evidence based practice is a great example of this insanity. In my opinion, evidence based practice is the biggest lie that chiropractic has bought into in its history. Applying the average results of another place, person and time to an event, person or situation in the present time is not a sane act. Running these behaviours can be a significant disrupter and diluter of purpose.
Values
Your values are your ‘true north’. They are the filter which you see life through. They create and guide your purpose and determine your every thought, word and deed. From your voids and your perception of your past events you have made up stories about your history which you apply to now in an unquestioning way as if nothing has changed.
Your values are unique to you just as they are to each of your team and practice members giving us all our unique world view.
There is an assumption that values are true or even are THE truth –this is far from accurate and in my opinion is the precursor to all human conflict. The question to consider here is ‘are your values useful?’ for you and your purpose? As your values often stem from your voids, or what is perceived to be missing your values may not be useful or even relevant. Whilst your values can be very useful for you they can also be not useful and be holding you back from living your purpose.
Purpose
As you go into the upcoming year be aware that your purpose is not something that you make up and tick off the list and forget about. It is not something that is magically bestowed upon you. It is something, I believe that you discover and uncover as you curiously and creatively consider the journey of life.
The ideal environment to let your purpose reveal itself is in a state of play where you are joyfully doing what you love. Being curious and questioning and at the same time non-judgemental of all circumstances quiets the voids and values and unlocks your inner calling that resonates with your purpose.
So here are your ‘To Do’s’ for playing congruently at purpose so that you will be ‘on-point’ and smashing it in the year ahead.
- Be curious and question every possibility with a ‘why’ and a ‘why not’ relative to the possibilities that it presents.
- Identify where you are behaving in the present like it used to be in the past and be curious and questioning about how you could do it differently.
- Be aware of the values that you do that take you towards your purpose and those which don’t.
- Make sure that your purpose for every action that you plan on undertaking this year is written down and is followed.
Have fun this year and power it up with purpose.
Mark
