Alignment as
Destiny
As suggested in the previous blog post, individuals are subject
to the same cause and effect relationships existing between alignment and results that organizations are subject to. That is,
“Individuals are
perfectly aligned to produce the results that they get.”
Similarly, the corollary principle that applies to organizations
also applies to individuals:
“A good definition of
insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”
The Four Human
Dimensions
The internal alignment of every person is arrayed along the four
dimensions that all humans are known to possess: 1) physical, 2) mental, 3) social/emotional
and 4) spiritual. These four dimensions—in
the language of mathematics—are thought and said to “span the space,” meaning
that everything that is known, or can be known, about our humanity must fall
within the span of those four dimensions.
Physical: To live.
To be physically healthy requires proper nutrition, exercise, rest, and
some form of stress reduction.
Mental: To learn.
To be mentally healthy requires mental stimulation in the form of
reading, writing and thinking. It has
been said, for example, that “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the
body.”
Social/Emotional: To love.
To be socially healthy requires that we maintain good relationships
with the important people in our lives while, to be emotionally healthy
requires that we maintain a good relationship with ourselves.
Spiritual: To leave a legacy.
To be spiritually healthy requires that we continue to work on our
legacy, the thing that we will always be remembered for after our time on
planet Earth has come to an end. Spirit
and legacy are identical, and can co-exist even in the absence of a religious
context, since one can be religious without being spiritual and spiritual
without being religious. The two come
together in some, but not all, people.
The Internal
Alignment of Individuals
Experience teaches that it is possible to change our internal alignment
along one or more of those four human dimensions and thereby achieve a desired
goal that would otherwise have been unattainable. However, the price for making
that change, as Stephen Covey taught, would require bringing to bear the same
three components needed to create any good habit, namely knowledge, skill and
desire.
In short: 1) one would have to know
(or learn) something relevant about achieving the goal in question; 2) one
would have to practice to acquire the
skill or skills necessary for success and, most importantly; 3) one would have
to want it badly enough to do whatever
was necessary to achieve the goal in question.
"Those who
think they can and those who think they can't are both right."
Henry Ford
They would need to acquire knowledge
of physiology, especially the latest discoveries that continue to refine
the cause and effect relationships between the four human dimensions and—in
this case—aerobic exercise. They would
need to practice diligently to develop the skills
needed to acquire the technique and stamina required for faster running times,
and they would need to summon and maintain an unrelenting desire to do all of the things necessary for success in achieving
the ultimate goal.
Physically, they would learn that many changes would be required, including:
better nutrition, better exercise routines, better coaching, better sleep
patterns and better stress reduction. All
of these things would be required to maximize the likelihood of achieving their
goal.
Mentally, emotionally and spiritually, a whole new support industry has
emerged in recent decades designed to improve sports performance while leaving
the physical dimension to other practitioners.
“Sports psychology” has become a huge business that even highly paid
professional athletes employ when they are having a “slump” but are not
otherwise hampered by physical injuries.
Two Fundamental Truths
A great deal of research has documented the validity of the following
two statements:
·
People perform better when they feel better.
·
People feel better when they are treated better.
Both of these fundamental truths have familiar manifestations. For
example, there is a belief in the world of sports that home-field advantage
stems from familiar surroundings and the “home cooking” that the locals get, while
the visiting team eats and sleeps in unfamiliar restaurants and beds. Consider the way some home-team fans treat
visiting teams—attacking arriving buses, hurling invective and occasionally flashlight
batteries at opposing players—all of it intended to “psych out” those players in
hopes of inhibiting their game performance to help ensure a home team win.
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