Go Deep/Become Strong
You know you're not a lab rat but you may feel like one if someone or something else is pulling the strings and setting the conditions for your behavior. The best idea is to move out of the task-oriented mindset and view everything you are doing from the perspective of your Future Self. This orientation builds confidence because all your talents can work towards that goal. This is powerful.
Let me introduce the Health for Humans formula. When you want to change and improve your health (and other areas of your life), this routine will facilitate your efforts by highlighting where to apply your focus. Once you have practiced this formula, you won’t have to wonder what to do next.
In other words, the effectiveness of following these simple steps depends on a gradual realignment of your effort with your natural inner strengths. Honing your self-awareness by revisiting the formula steps can distil the most important truths within you. What will that mean? For one thing, you will not have to be trying to fit a model of success that is not in alignment with your self-understanding.
Overtime, as you become experienced at specifying where to improve (WHAT), examining your objectives (WHY), and then implementing the route to effective changes (HOW), you will be able to roll through it quickly and, ironically, deepen your experience in the quest for successful health.
- You can find inner power and guidance
- You can overcome with momentum
- You can exert control
Here's how it works.
Step 1: Make a list of resources
This may seem wacky, but I have found it is very useful to begin with identifying a list of your resources before you identify your WHAT and WHY.
Before you even know what you are going to work on, pull out a piece of paper or open a note app and begin to list everything you can think of for sources of help. Develop this list of resources as fully as you can. When necessary, allow a preparation period for gathering materials like equipment and recipe sources. Don’t forget support from colleagues and mentors, pastors, friends, and family. These are all helplines.
The list must contain actual phone numbers, links, names of books, references for recipes, etc. When work begins on your problem, you don’t want to be searching for these. Add to the list as time goes on. Some of your references may not pan out and others will drift to the top of the list.
This is the time to be inclusive.
Step 2: What are Your Challenges?
Identify and name your challenges (or pain-points or heartaches, etc.).
- Brainstorm and jot down your important challenges and write down each one on its own post-it note. Move quickly. It's OK to repeat a challenge because the descriptive words may be different. That’s good. You can discard duplicate notes later but keep them all at this point.
- Once this is done, discard any challenges that are not immediately important. This leaves you with the ones you will work with now.
- Collect all these notes and group them into buckets or problem categories. I recommend only 1 to 3 of the most important buckets. Later, with more practice and focused application, you can add another category. But for now, keep it as simple as possible.
- Give each problem category a name so you can separate the category from your own nature. This category is something you want to eliminate so you don’t want to call it “my xyz problem”. Give it a title that makes you want to eliminate it. (Maybe something like “The-Stinky-Hurt-in-the-Gut”: shortened to “Stink Pain”.) Try to think of a funky name. This will give it a handle to work with and you won’t have to identify it as part of you.
After identifying the important challenges and putting them into one to three categories, you may assume you need to clarify why it is a problem, but DON’T DO THAT. Don’t focus on the obstacles. Instead, you want to inquire deeply and identify the significant reason why each challenge is important to you. Each time you answer a why question, ask why again.
List the reasons each challenge’s post-it note is important and, if there is room, try to write the final significant reason(s) on this note. Rate the importance with stars so it can be easily identified.
Example
In step #2, you named a category “Organize the Monkey” containing these challenges:
- not accomplishing goals
- disorganized taking supplements.
- no regular time for workouts
- professional position suffering
- no time to play basketball with other guys.
That last challenge lights you up. Now we’re talking! Make “playing more basketball with buddies” your most important challenge because it is closer to the heart.
Now in this step, ask: “Why this?”
The challenge is to “play more basketball with a group of buddies”, so ask “why?”
The immediate answer is “because it is fun”.
And why is that? “I like to get sweaty and talk trash.”
And why is that? “I want to feel exhausted and relaxed.”
And why is that? “It is the one time when I’m not focused on my worries.”
This is getting closer to the authentic “Why This”. If nothing else comes after it, write it down and give it the correct number of stars.
You don’t have to limit this inquiry to a single challenge. You can and should investigate all the challenges - and you will undoubtedly learn a lot as they begin to paint a picture of your heart’s longings. You may be surprised that many challenges that have only 2 stars, for instance, will have a similar thread and having this common thread makes them much more important than the 2 stars rating would initially indicate.
Don't stop here.
Review this plan often and follow-through to utilize any and all resources to help you accomplish your goal.
- Look at your resources in Step 1 and plot a plan.
- After a set amount of time, evaluate how it's going. Revisit your active formula. If you are honest, you will probably see some activities you should continue and some to eliminate. Fine tune any piece of it that is either resolved or transformed. "Rinse and repeat".
Dig Deep
Just like the movie "Ground Hog Day", you have the opportunity to evaluate and repeat or revise the Health for Humans Formula as necessary to reach the most satisfying results. The focus here is to dig deeper each time around. Expect surprises.
Go Deep - Expect Surprises
Summary for the Health for Humans Formula
You may have noticed many of the individual steps or progressions of this formula are commonly used in other formats. I’ve sequenced them here with the added advice of keeping it all honest for your inner glory, not some expected criteria of success. The steps in sequence are:
- Before you get specific, list every avenue to find help for making the transformation from “problem” to new and healing project. This may seem difficult, but it is a realization of all the ways you could explore. It becomes easier as the problem list is crystalized, and the categories are understood from a deeper perspective.
- Name and clarify the problem you want to solve, the health issue you want to resolve, the pain you want to avoid. Write the problems in a systematic way that will allow you to group and regroup them into a few categories that helps you understand them to a greater depth.
- Examine the categories you’ve identified. Now you will ask what is the deep reason that the category is important. If the existence of a category is not based on your deep needs, you may eliminate it. This will bring you down to a shorter and more significant list (and may just be one category).
- Look at your resources in Step 1 and create a plan.
- After a set amount of time, evaluate how it's going. Revisit your active formula. If you are honest, you will probably see some activities you should continue and some to eliminate. Fine tune any piece of it that is either resolved or transformed. "Rinse and repeat".
Look at what you have accomplished.
You have identified your need or challenge - your "what". Then you invigorated your goal with the deep and personal reason/s to make a changes. That was your "why".
Consulting your lists of resources, you can connect these with your goal.
It is often helpful to draw a picture of how everything connects. This will activate parts of your brain that will invite creative approaches. I highly recommend this activity for planning your "how".
Congratulations. You are on your way. Keep reminding yourself of your deep reasons!
If you can push through your negative thoughts, momentum takes over. And if you make that a habit, you become unstoppable.
… Dan Koe
Author of The Art of Focus
Good Luck as you work through the Health for Humans Formula. Let me know what you think about it because it will help me help others. If it doesn’t work for you, I’d like to know about that, too. I’m always grateful for feedback and/or suggestions.
Thanks.
We are strongest and healthiest when we can freely express our heartfelt nature. For over 40 years I have focused on health, first as a nurse, then acupuncturist, and now, through coaching, I help folks find their best health. Join me as we uncover how you can be truly glorious!
