Finding Your Process

24 April 2009 15 Comments

This is a follow up post to my previous post, Living Your Process.   I’ve had enough folks ask me how to map out their success process that I’ll share some more prescriptive guidance.  It’s a work in progress, but it’s enough to share for now.  The big idea with living your process is that it helps you make the most of what you’ve got.  It’s about living with passion and playing to your strengths.  It’s also about living your values whether it’s at work or at play.  It’s about knowing what fulfills you and what sparks you each day.  It’s about living from the inside out and leading yourself first.  When you know your purpose, live your values, and play to your strengths, you can deal with life’s curve balls more effectively.  You also set yourself up for success by getting more chances at bat and improving your chances of succeeding in any situation.
The MapThe map above is a bird’s-eye view of mapping out YOUR process.  Each of the nodes are opportunities for you to flesh out.  In other words, you can think of this as the tree and the branches and you add the leaves.  For example, you would add your purpose, your why, your how, your values, your strengths, your tagline, your metaphors, and your personal success patterns.  That’s YOUR map.  While the sum is more than the parts, an incomplete map is better than none. It’s OK to incrementally figure yourself out.  The more you know, the more you grow.
Why Find Your ProcessHere’s some of the key benefits:

• Success by design.  Rather than luck into success, you’ll know your personal combination for results.  This is the ultimate key to skilled living.  If you know where you’re headed, it’s easier to find your way through the maze of life.
• Living your purpose.  When you’re living your purpose, every day has meaning.  If you know what you want, you can find the meaning in the things you do.  If you’ don’t feel you’re on your path, you can get on it.  Most importantly, If you get knocked off your horse, it’s easier to get back on.
• Living your values.  When you live your values, you enjoy more moments in life, a moment at a time.  When you know your values, you can make better choices about who to hang with and what situations to avoid.  Living your values is what makes you feel good.
• Playing to your strengths.  When you play to your strengths, you’ll improve your energy.  You’ll get stronger every day instead of weaker.  You’ll play at what you do.  You might even whistle while you work.
• Improved results.  You’ll improve your results.  A little self-knowledge goes a long way.  You’ll be a better, stronger, faster you for whatever you want. 

The simplest reason for finding your process is it helps you get your groove on and find your mojo.  If you feel like you’re in a slump, this may be just the map you need.  Make it a project and have fun with it.
How To Find Your Process
Here’s a summary of the key steps:

• Step 1. Find Your Purpose
• Step 2. Find Your Why
• Step 3. Find Your How
• Step 4. Find Your Values
• Step 5. Find Your Strengths

If you get stuck, move on to the next item.  It’s iterative and incremental.  To keep moving forward, simply ask yourself what you know, don’t know and need to know next.  Also, thinking on paper helps more than trying to just do it in your head.  Write stuff down so you can play around with it.
Step 1. Find Your PurposeIn this step, you figure out why you’re here.  Simply ask yourself the following question:

• What’s my purpose in life?

Keep asking yourself until something sticks.  You should have an emotional reaction and it should *feel* right.  It doesn’t have to be perfect.  It doesn’t have to be what you expect.  It just needs to be good enough for now.  If it sounds corny when you say it, then change the words until it works for you.
Examples

• I’m the explorer who paves the path for others.
• I’m the mentor who helps people live more, laugh more, learn more, love more.
• I’m the coach who helps make others great.
• I’m the writer who helps people write their life story.
• I’m the developer who transforms the world.
• I’m the musician who makes people feel alive.
• I’m the poet who makes people think.
• I’m the researcher who finds the truth.
• I’m the bridge builder who connects people.
• I’m the mother who leaves my world a better place than I found it.

Checkpoint

• You have a one-liner way to say your purpose?
• Your purpose resonates for you?
• Your purpose is compelling?

Step 2. Find Your Why
In this step you find your Why.  This is about narrowing down on your motivation and key drivers.  Figuring out why you do what you do, helps reinforce your purpose.   It’s the why behind your purpose.  To find your why, ask yourself the following question:

• Why do you do what you do?

If you can’t distinguish your purpose and your why, it’s fine to consolidate for now.  The key is to know your purpose and know why you care.  If you know why you care, you’ll find it easier to drive your day from your passion as well as find creative ways to bake it into everything you do.
Examples

• Make others great.
• Share the world’s best patterns and practices for work and life.
• Lift others up.
• Change the world.

Checkpoint

• Does it resonate?
• Does it motivate you?

Additional Resources

• Why Do you Do What You Do?
• How To Figure Out What You Really Want
• Who Are You and What Do You Want?

Step 3. Find Your HowThis really is your core approach or pattern for how you tackle things in life.  The better handle you get on your approach, the more you can leverage it time and again.   Think of it as your personal recipe for results.  The simplest way to find your approach is to examine the highlights in your life where you were at your best and think about your approach in those scenarios.
Example

1. Get a new perspective.
2. Create a framework.
3. Add the exponential.
4. See results.
5. Measure satisfaction.

Checkpoint

• You can write your approach down as a small set of steps?
• When you think through your steps, they resonate?
• It’s a pattern you’ve used to get results throughout your life?

Additional Resources

• Why Do You Do What You Do?

Step 4. Find Your Values
In this step you find your top 5 values.   Choose five values that matter the most to you:

Achievement Advancement Adventure Affection Competitiveness Cooperation Creativity Economic Security Fame Family Happiness

Freedom Friendship Health Helpfulness Inner Harmony Integrity Involvement Loyalty Order Personal Dev.

Pleasure Power Recognition Responsibility Self-respect Spirituality Wealth Wisdom

Chances are you’ll like a lot of the values.  The key is to narrow it down to the five that are the most vital for you.  The more you can narrow down, the more focus you have on your real priorities in life.  The more you live your values in your day to day, the better you feel.

Checkpoint

• Are they truly YOUR values? 
• Are they a means or an end? 

If one value is simply to accomplish another, then look to the value you want to accomplish.  If you want economic security because you think it leads to freedom, then freedom is the one you value most.  This is important because there’s multiple ways to accomplish a goal and flexibility is key.  Know what you want, but be flexible in your approach.

Additional Resources

• Finding Your Values

Step 5. Find Your StrengthsIn this step, you identify your top 5 strengths.  To do so, ask yourself:

• What are you really good at?
• What comes naturally for you?
• What activities make you feel great?

Examples

• Making people smile.
• Reading a room.
• Arranging information in new ways.
• Stepping back and seeing the big picture.
• Helping people get new perspective on things.
• Connecting the right people together to solve problems.
• Taking on big challenges that have a lot of ambiguity.
• Making order out of chaos.
• Helping people find their best talents.
• Focusing on a problem until
• Coming up with new ideas.
• Turning ideas into results.

Checkpoint

• You have a list of 5 of your key strengths?
• Your list of strengths resonates?
• Your list of strengths makes you feel strong?
• Your list of strengths show your unique value?

Additional Resources

• Finding Your Key Strengths
• SIGN – The 4 Signs of a Strength

Tag Line / Motto
Your tag line or motto should be something that reminds you what you do and you find compelling.  It should be easy to say.  Here’s some examples:

• Crack the nut on human potential.
• Stand on the shoulders of giants.
• Make others great.
• Make the most of what you’ve got.
• Exponential results for the underdog.

Make it something punchy and precise.
MetaphorsMetaphors can be a simple way to empower yourself.  Choose the metaphors that work for you.  You can find a metaphor for yourself and for life.  Here’s some examples:

• Metaphors for you:  I’m a lover, I’m a fighter, I’m a healer, I’m a lion, I’m a bull, I’m a warrior, I’m a truth seeker, I’m a mentor, … etc.
• Metaphors for life:   Life’s a game, life’s a dance, life’s a tragedy, life’s an adventure, life’s a comedy, … etc.

Personal Success Patterns
You have patterns that work for you and patterns that don’t.  All you have to do is flip back through your past experiences and pay attention to what worked and what didn’t.  Look to patterns for thinking, feeling, and doing.  One way to start is to think of your best patterns that have worked for you for:

• Eating
• Sleeping
• Working out
• Feeling good
• Dealing with stress

Another way to find your patterns is to find the patterns that don’t work for you and contrast them with patterns that have either worked for you or that might work for you.  It’s easy to find some patterns you may have forgotten about for a long time.
Self-Awareness
Know thyself.  There’s several lenses you can use to get better perspective on yourself.  Here’s some of the keys:

• Learning Styles
• 5 Thinking Styles
• Satir Categories – Blamer, Placater, Computer, Distractor, and Level
• 7 NLP Meta-programs for Understanding People
• 6 Styles Under Stress
• Meta-programs and Intrinsic Values in NLP
• The Lens of Human Understanding
• Johari Window – Know and Share Yourself Enough
• 10 Types of Difficult People
• The 16 Myers-Briggs Type Indicators (MyersBriggs.org)

The more lenses you have the easier it gets to use the right tool for the job and to make sense of things.  A large part of life is making sense of the world.  Remember though, it’s not THE world, it’s YOUR world.  Your world is all the people you know, things you do, experiences you have, and everything else you come across throughout your life.  You’re the ultimate meaning maker for your world, so make the most of what you’ve got.
ConclusionMap out your process and lead the life you want to live.  You can do it one moment at a time.  It’s living your process that will keep you going and help you make the most of each and every situation.   It’s your personal recipe for results.  Your map is a living document and you can add to it and refine it over your life time.  It will be one of your best tools as you chart your life.  Sail on and soar on, upward bound and forward looking.  Find a way forward.  You always do.  Now you have a better lens for unleashing your best.


Source:sourceofinsight.com