How does the future come into being?
We all do varying degrees of planning and live with routines, and we’ve all been surprised by the unexpected and learned how to adjust when our plans fail. But how proactive are we, on a regular basis, about mapping our future?
In business, we make extremely detailed projections, then strategize and execute to hit our numbers. In life, we may come up with goals, what we want to achieve by what age, and then, as we age, perhaps a bucket list of what we want to do before we exit stage right.
What About Our Day-to-Day Experience?
How much of our experience is accidental, just cruising in our routines, hoping for the best, and dealing with what shows up?
That’s how I was living for decades, and it almost killed me. I was an addict, and I wasn’t doing anything to interrupt my unconscious compliance with urges I couldn’t even acknowledge.
While writing my book, The Success Paradox, my writing partner and I came up with an interesting technique for illuminating our future, a very different kind of map. We called this creating your “Quality Profile.” It’s based on my strong belief that authenticity is the priority in life and business. Both for success and happiness, this is it, top of the list.
What Does It Mean to Be Authentic?
Being authentic means knowing ourselves, and one way to move the needle on that is to become more familiar with our most important (to us) qualities.
The premise is simple. When we know who we are and feel free to express our inherent primary qualities, we tend to be happy and successful. In life, in business, in relationships… because we come across as “real.” This inspires trust.
Here’s an example of what we call a “Quality Profile,” one person’s qualities matched with behaviors to help them further develop and express each quality.
Light-hearted. Finding something positive in every situation.
Kind. Listening to others, caring about their suffering.
Attentive. Inquiring, asking questions, noticing what’s happening.
Fun. Telling jokes, being friendly.
Creative. Trying new things, using the imagination.
Curious. Setting aside assumptions, opening the mind
Generous. Giving and receiving with gratitude.
This Quality Profile is someone’s map to their future. Unlike any map you’ve ever seen, right? It’s a “being map” for the mind, not a doing map for achievement.
Your Turn to List Your Qualities
What qualities would you identify that describe you at your best?
Make your own list and then, as in the example above, add one behavior for each quality, enhancing your experience of that quality. For instance, from the example below, the quality of being creative would be enhanced by trying new things and using the imagination.
The point is to become more immediately acquainted with who we are. And, in case this doesn’t seem that important, here’s a quote from author/entrepreneur Dan Kennedy: “There is a huge secret about income that only a small percentage of top earners in every field ever figure out and use to their advantage…
The secret is that the higher up in income you go, in almost any category, the more you are paid for who you are rather than for what you do.”
Next Steps
If you don’t know intimately who you are, how can you realistically expect anyone else to know, let alone reward you appropriately? So, from a very pragmatic point of view, it seems to be essential that we know more about ourselves, and one way to do that is to create your own Quality Profile.
Then, use it. Use it as a map into your future, like the voice guidance on GPS, keeping you on track by staying aware day-by-day of your most important qualities. We shine when we express them because we know them and commit to doing that.
We’re real. Authentic. Trustworthy.
We’re also happy and successful. Our futures develop not according to willpower, luck, or circumstance but because being relentlessly authentic means that we will only contribute to building the kind of world we ourselves would enjoy living in. Originally posted on Forbes.com
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