In terms of a motivating force, how is purpose defined? Roger Fisher, a Harvard law professor, states “There is a fundamental human need for guiding ideals that give meaning to our actions.” Victor Frankl, a psychologist who survived a Nazi concentration camp, says that “man’s search for meaning” is the primary motivation of his life. William Damon, Director of Stanford University’s Center on Adolescence and leading scholar of human development, defines purpose as “a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at once meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self.”

Motivational research reveals that the most deeply motivated people – not to mention those who are most successful and fulfiled – couple their desires to a cause higher than themselves. A simple exercise to uncover your purpose is to ask yourself a few questions. First, what inspires you? Second, if you were guaranteed success, what would you do? Third, what would your Performance Obituary say? Pare each response with a single sentence. If the answer gives you a sense of meaning and direction, ”Great!” You may have oncovered your purpose.

It’s a good place to start. Revisit it from time to time and keep crafting the words until you are satisfied. Use it as your compass. When you write it down, keep asking the question “For the sake of what?” Drill down until you feel you have distilled your answer to the smallest element. Congratulations! That may well be your purpose.

Be patient. It may take a while. Some of my clients work on their purpose statement for months until they are completely satisfied. And even then, it may continue to evolve. You can use your purpose in tandem with your values to direct your actions. Value-based and purpose-driven behavior can be a source of peace of mind.

A couple good resources if you are interested in exploring the concept of purpose are: Why We Do What We Do by Edward Deci; The Power of Purpose by Richard Leider; and Your Life As Art by Robert Fritz.

Good luck. Let me know what you come up with.

The old way of looking at what motivates people required compliance, no questions asked. The science shows us that people are not horses, better smelling horses, that can only be motivated by carrots and sticks. Self-determination theory suggests human beings have an intrinsic desire to pursue mastery. They want to get better at the things they do. They are motivated through engaging in a task or process to grow and develop their strengths and passions.

Mastery contains the possibility of “flow”-optimal experiences when we are fully absorbed in an activity or task. Mastery houses three peculiar principles. Mastery is a mindset: it asks that we see our capacity, not as a set entity, but as something we can improve and expand. Mastery is a pain: an appetite for mastery commands grit, perseverance, and deliberate practice. Mastery is an asymptote: one never really realizes mastery. It is always evolving which is one of the aspects that makes it both frustrating and alluring.

Moving Closer to Mastery

Deliberate practice is a “lifelong period of …effort to improve in a specific domain.” It is purposeful, focused, and sometimes painful. In his book Drive, Daniel Pink suggests following these steps for a decade and you might just become a master:

Engage deliberate practice. It has one objective-to improve performance. Andes Ericsson, a psychology professor at Florida Stae Universtiy says “People who play tennis once a week for years don’t get any better if they do the same thing each time.” Being deliberate about your pracice, no matter what the task, is about changing your perfomance, setting new goals, and pushiing yourself to reach higher and higher.

Repeat, repeat, repeat. Basketball greats don’t shoot 10 or even 50 free throws at the end of practice; they shoot 500. When I was a serious tennis player, every morning before and after school, I took my basket of tennis balls to the courts and served 200 balls. I never became a tennis great, but I did have a mighty strong serve which some of the greats, like Billy Jean King, commented on when they saw me play. Repeat and repeat AND remember to be deliberte.

Seek constant, critical feedback. We all benefit from an objective resource who can see things we can’t see sometimes. Even though feedback is at times hard to hear, if we can’t see what we’re doing incorrectly, we won’t know what needs improving. So, feedback can be good. And, yes, make sure you engage deliberate practice in those areas that you want to improve. Mistakes are for correction, not judgment.

Be prepared that the process of mastery will be physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting at times. Thats why so few people commit to excellence. And, it’s why it works. Like the old saying goes, there’s lots of room at the top, just read Good To Great by Jim Collins.

In his book Drive, Daniel Pink goes in to much more depth on all three motivations: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. It is an interesting read if you want to explore these topics in greater detail. Have fun in the pursuit of mastery!

What is our “default setting”? As children, are we wired to be passive and inert or active and engaged? Have you ever seen a six-month-old or a two-year-old who’s not curious and self-motivated? One of the people Daniel Pink talks about in his book Drive is Edward Deci, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. In his insightful book Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation, Deci expounds on motivational research he has been conducting for over 20 years. The evidence clearly demonstrates that human beings have an “inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise their capacities, to explore, and to learn.”

Deci’s research clearly showed that autonomy is one of three basic human needs. The other two are mastery and purpose. Out of the three, autonomy is the most important. Acting in an autonomous manner means following your own volition and having a say in your life. It’s different than independence, that rugged, go-it-alone individualism that is so “western.” Being autonomous, or self-directed, means acting with choice. We can be autonomous and interdependent.

Behavioral scientists have found that autonomous motivation promotes a host of positive values in business, education, athletics, and in everyday life such as higher productivity, better grades, less burnout, and greater levels of well-being. In Drive, Daniel Pink details companies and individuals who have benefited from autonomous motivation. We all have probably had the experience of being controlled. It can create stress and anxiety, and even anger at times. If you are feeling stressed or out of balance, it might be helpful to increase your awareness of how much autonomy you have in your life.

Conduct an Autonomy Audit. Using a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 meaning “almost none” and 10 meaning “a great deal”, rate yourself on these questions for home and work:

• How much autonomy do you have over your tasks-your main responsibilities and what you do in a given day?
• How much autonomy do you have over your time-when you arrive, when you leave, and how you spend your hours each day?

In Drive, he gives us an in-depth look at the three motivational elements that are inherent to human beings-autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The book is full of examples of how when businesses engage those principles, the workforce becomes more fully engaged and happier. Although Pinks message is mainly directed at exposing the mismatch between what science knows and what business does, the concepts relate to us and how we live our lives.

We are all performers. The simple definition of performance is involvement in a task or activity. Whether you’re a parent or teacher, a business or sales person, an athlete or artist, it doesn’t matter-you are performing and there is solid evidence showing that the highest quality and most enduring performances come when you are engaged in self-direction, learning and creating, and living a life with purpose.

Over the next several Blogs, I’ll offer some strategies that you can use to explore your own experience of self-determination, mastery, and purpose. You can add them to your “motivation toolkit” to enhance your well-being and performance. Let’s take a look at the first one:

#1-Give Yourself a “Flow Test”.                                                                                                                        Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduced the concept of “flow.” Flow is when you are performing at optimal levels no matter what you’re engaged in. To enhance your own pursuit of mastery, give yourself a “flow test.” Set your watch, phone, or some deveice you regularly carry with you to go off forty times randomly throughout your week. When you hear the beep, write down what you’re doing, what you’re feeling and thinking, and whether you feel like you are in the “flow.” As you write your observations down, look for patterns. Consider the following questions:

• Which moments produced feelings of flow? Where were you? Who were you with?
• Are there times in your day that you are more likely to experience “flow?” How could you restructure your day to take advantage of this finding?
• How could you increase the number of flow experiences and decrease those moments you felt disengaged or distracted?
• If you are having doubts about what you do for a living, what has this exercise told you about your intrinsic motivation and what really motivates you?

Have fun!

• Art comes from the skill of creating in music, sculpture, painting, or dance.
• Productivity comes from the process of creating in business.
• When two people have a deep bond and naturally express love for one another, they are using the process of creating.
• Technology uses the skill of creating for inventions.
• Vitality, adventure, expansion come when you begin to use the creative process to design your life.

Each one of these is a form of creating. Each one is different. Even though there is a process in creating results, it cannot be defined by a formula or in a manual. There are books that attempt to describe a process for learning to play the guitar. People will give you formulas for learning to ski or drive a car. People who call themselves experts will give you all kinds of methods and procedures on how to raise your children. Experts will give you a system for how best to love your partner and stay together. Everyone has a tip or technique to share that will fix something about you or the situation.

These tips, formulas and procedures attempt to make all these things sound predictable. I’m sorry, but in my experience, even after a great lesson on the slopes, when you get out there on your own and you are sailing down hill with sticks on your feet and poles in your hands, it is not predictable! Elizabeth Gilbert said it so well in her book, Committed, you may have read the latest and greatest books on childrearing, but when the nurse puts that baby on your lap in your car, on your way home, you are thinking, “they are actually sending this home with me….Oh, …..”

There may be many things about raising a baby, skiing, driving a car that are predictable. When a baby cries, they want something. If you snowplow, you will slow down. When you push on the brakes, you will come to a stop. But, there are many more things that are unpredictable. Likewise, the process of creating is predictable and unpredictable. It involves reason and intuition. It is a balance of thinking and emotions. As the composer Robert Fritz says, it is both composition and improvisation. When you are creating you are constantly adjusting and learning and readjusting.

There is content to be learned to apply in the process of creating. But the form that reveals itself in the process will be unique to the creator. Skiers may have taken lessons form the same instructor and they may apply similar technique, but as they learn and become more proficient at the skill of skiing they will add their own touches. They will involve their own unique personal flare. When the skis become part of them, each one will have their own way of applying the content of skiing, but the outcome will look unique to them. The process of creating is individual. You personalize it according to your personality, strengths, aspirations, idiosyncrasies, interests, challenges, and experience.

In the self-help world it is common to give tips and techniques that will lead everyone to success. You have probably read several. I have. We all know them well. Follow this step-by-step process to success. Do these affirmations five times a day for six weeks and you will have a red Porsche in your driveway. Take this six hour class and you will become rich, famous, and absolutely gorgeous. Right? You’ve seen and heard it all.

Golf is a great example of people clamoring for the latest tip that will change their game over night and cause them to shoot par thereafter. The game of golf cannot be put into tip after tip. Each shot is different and the game is individual to each person. The tip might actually work during the lesson. It may even work for a round or two. But eventually something will happen and the tip will not be effective. Then the person often blames the tip, or the instructor or coach. They very rarely take into consideration that it just might be them that needs to learn differently. The tip will not fix them or give them eyes to see their blind spots. First of all, they don’t need fixed. They need a new way of seeing.

Whether it is the process of raising a child, learning to ski, or playing golf, the distinct elements of each cannot be put in a bottle and sold to everyone without taking into account the individual. There are certain things that must be done and there are things that absolutely must NOT be done. There is technique and there is a skill. But if someone simply learns the technique and tries to apply it to every circumstance, they will not succeed. There is a need for the integration of technique, thinking, feeling, and experience. There is a need for learning, not simply reacting.

It is the same with the creative process. There is content to be learned. There is a process to follow. There are principles to apply. But all of that will be presented, absorbed, learned, and applied differently with each individual. And, even though the content may be presented in a linear fashion, the way it unfolds is very rarely in a straight line. The content will unfold into a unique form depending on the person moving through the process. Once the process becomes part of the person, they can use and apply it in whatever circumstance presents itself. Why? Because they have learned the process, they are not just responding or reacting to a situation. It is not the process that works. It is the person.

The same creative process can be applied to composing a piece of music, building a business, deepening a relationship, being a mother, a CEO of a huge corporation, a writer, or a filmmaker. The same principles apply to different aspects of life, at home, leisure and at work. They are fundamental to the process of creating.

What a difference between that way of seeing and constantly searching for the latest tip that you hope will work! When you learn based on “the you” who is learning, it is not the tip that works to create success in your life. It is you. You are the power behind the creating. This moves you from victim to creator. (More on that some other time.) How do you begin?

Sometimes you don’t have to do anything. You just simply need to notice, or look. We don’t think of “looking at” as a skill, but it is a powerful practice. Having the presence, or mindfulness, to notice what you are thinking, feeling, wanting is a valuable competence. The ability to notice how you are being for yourself, others, and the world is a skill worth pursuing. Can it be mastered? I think a different way to see it is “being about mastery”.

Noticing what we are thinking, feeling, wanting expands our awareness and gives us choices. In a way, having the ability to notice is a freeing experience. It frees us from reacting, and moves us to creating. Noticing is a step in enhancing our awareness. We will explore the power of awareness later. As the Harvard educator, Tim Galwey said, “Awareness is curative.” Awareness is a key component on the CORE Journey.

Over the next week, notice how you look for tips on how to do things. How often do you look outside yourself for the right way to respond? How often do you relinquish the power for creating to some outside person, agency, or situation? Keep a written log as if you were writing your story. You are!

“On the edge of the world of man, standing upon the summit which had been the focus of her dreams, the young mountaineer lifted up her body, her heart, her soul, and her secret longings. As far as the eye could see a realm of snow and rock lay out below her, wrapped in the silence and mystery of the infinite. It was like being in another world; the mountains seemed less a part of this planet than an entirely independent kingdom, unique and mysterious, where to venture forth, all that was needed was the will and the love.”

Gaston Rebuffat, from “On Snow and Rock”

“Turn off Twitter. And don’t clean the house.

That’s what it takes to create the rich life you deserve.”

That’s the advice Anne Lamont offers her writing students in her article called, “Time Lost and Found”. The article is based on her core belief that nothing you can buy, own, achieve, or rent can fill “that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder”. Rather, we can realize peace, meaning, and the feeling of being alive through our own creative expression, whether it is writing, dancing, cooking, gardening, walking in the woods, or simply sitting in your backyard.

Then Anne offers her students the bad news: you have to make time for these things and you have to have the energy to engage in the activity you have chosen. Several months ago I had the Geek Squad come to my house to help me set up my TV system. He was showing me all the “stuff” my system has to offer, one being, YouTube. After watching a clip on YouTube, he casually commented, “Well that’s 3 minutes of your life you’ll never get back.” We both laughed, but I have thought of that comment many times since.

Lamont proffered the same sentiments to her class. The ways we communicate and connect these days-cell, email, text, Twitter, Facebook – snatch valuable time and take away a chance for lasting relations or wonder. We are so busy multitasking and working our way up the ladder of material success that we are losing the ability to connect face-to-face and have a genuinely authentic dialogue. A recent research project out of Stanford found that the average amount of time couples spend talking with each other in a day is less than three minutes! What if one day a week you did not check your Facebook or Twitter every hour, you did not text every 10 minutes, and you did not check your email every time you heard the “ding”, instead you  chose to dedicate a half hour to something that fills your soul? I can hear you now, “Are you nuts? I can’t do that. I must know what’s going on, where my friends are walking to, what my buddies are eating for breakfast, whose talking to who.”

OK, I get the same response when I suggest that to my own students who are working adults. I get the same response that Anne Lamont gets-a complete look of distress from a majority of the people in the room. They can’t stop multitasking; they have twelve kids at home, five dogs to walk, “a hive of bees”, and a 50 hour work week. They are quick to add, however, that they will do all the things they love when they retire, or when the kids go to college, or when they move to the city or the country, or when they get the promotion they want or when they get a better boss. On and on the “when I….” keeps coming. They are waiting for some external event or situation to happen that will bring them fulfillment and happiness. Empathetically, Lamont states, “They are sincere, and they are delusional.”

I remember a story about a beggar who is sitting atop a chest and begging for some coins to sustain him. When he dies they go to bury him and before they toss the chest into the garbage, they open it and inside are hundreds of gold coins. All along the beggar had been sitting on enough money to sustain him and a friend.

Lamont comments, “You already have the gold coins beneath you, of presence, creativity, intimacy, time for wonder, and nature, and life. Oh yeah, you say? And where would those gold coins be?” The students pronounce, not only are there no coins, there is no time!?!

Consider this, what if you did not watch the news every night. In the Four Hour Work Week, Timothy Ferriss suggested that the first thing people should drop is watching the evening news and reading the entire paper from front to back. You can get all you need from the headlines and discussions that you are bound to have during your day. Of course, if you are married to the news anchor, that’s a different story. If you could give up the news just every other night, you would have an extra hour in your week to enjoy doing something you have a passion for-something you find fulfilling.

The point Anne Lamont is attempting to convey is let’s not let life slip by. My sister and I often discuss the things we will be talking about as we rock in our chairs when we are eighty. (The last conversation I had with her she informed me that she thinks we should change that to 90. I agreed.) We probably won’t be talking about how clean we kept our houses or how many people we “friended”; how often we washed our cars or how short we were finally able to keep our Blogs.

We will reminisce about the time we spent with our children, partner, family, friends, and our pets. We will talk about the times we laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe, the books that changed us, a beautiful card we got in the mail, the talks that inspired us, and the walks that gave us a sense of wonder and paece. We will talk about the things that fulfilled us and gave us meaning. If you want meaning and fulfillment, making time for it now is not an option. It is the only time you have.

Be mindful of how you are spending your time and your energy. Time is a constant. Energy is renewable. Consider shifting your perspective from life being a marathon where you must grin and bear the load throughout your day until you are exhausted, to running your day as a sprinter. Focus your energy for 60-90 minutes on the task at hand and then take a timeout and renew your energy. It doesn’t take that long, 60-90 seconds of quiet visualization can be renewing.  Close your eyes, or leave them open if you feel more comfortable, and image a scene by a lake, river, ocean, or flower garden, an image that brings you a feeling of calm. Breathe through your heart, focusing on your breath and the peace the image brings you. With practice, you’ll be able to relax in seconds even in the most hustle-bustle of days. That’s a skill many athletes learn to use in competition. It works! We’ll talk more about that in a later Blog.

Lamont comments, “I’ve heard it said that every day you need half an hour of quiet time for yourself, or your Self, unless you’re incredibly busy and stressed, in which case you need and hour.” Don’t wait until your 75 to begin creating the life you want. Fight tooth and nail to make the time to experience wonder and engage in something that brings you joy and enlivens you. Your time and your energy are your wealth. Be present for life this moment, this hour, this day.

What are you present to this moment?

Thank-you Anne Lamont for having the courage to write the article. May we all have the courage to follow some of your wisdom.

Imagine this radical thought-that everyone is committed to intentionally creating a fulfilling, satisfying, and balanced life. Imagine a world where people value and engage in personal growth. Envision a world where people are committed to making a difference in the lives they touch by making a difference in their own lives. Visualize kids learning in school that it’s OK to imagine an extraordinary life and that such a life is a worthwhile pursuit.

Imagine a world where we remain curious and able to “see” with a sense of wonder and possibility. Picture a world where people take responsibility for their story and embrace the power to be the architect of their life-a world where people intentionally design their life and pursue their vision with total support, encouragement, and appreciation. Imagine a world where people flourish.

John Lennon’s timeless song, “Imagine”, has been on my mind due to a couple of my clients who are completing their CORE Journey. When they first came to see me, they felt like something was missing. They wanted clarity. They wanted to live their life on purpose, not by accident. They wanted to have a fulfilling life, personally and professionally. And, they wanted to develop a structure that would help them be more effective in their daily process.

Some have said that choosing to live a fulfilling life is a radical act that takes courage. My clients had the courage to take on that task. They tapped into their experience, wisdom, and unique strengths and developed a compelling vision. Each day they practiced the skills they were learning to make them part of the culture of their character. Although over the years I have had the joy of working with people who have turned their lives into extraordinary journeys, with each new client I look on with a child’s wonder as the coaching process unfolds and they rediscover a passion for living, learning, and growing.

Imagine this radical thought-that everyone is committed to intentionally creating a fulfilling, satisfying, and balanced life. Imagine a world where people value and engage in personal growth. Envision a world where people are committed to making a difference in the lives they touch by making a difference in their own lives. Visualize kids learning in school that it’s OK to imagine an extraordinary life and that such a life is a worthwhile pursuit.
Imagine a world where people participate in genuine dialogue and really listen, not just to the words, but to the silence between the words. Visualize a world where people acknowledge and support their partners, children, direct reports, and friends in the quest for their dreams, goals, and aspirations. Imagine a world where people thrive, not just survive.

Imagine a world where we remain curious and able to “see” with a sense of wonder and possibility. Picture a world where people take responsibility for their story and embrace the power to be the architect of their life-a world where people intentionally design their life and pursue their vision with total support, encouragement, and appreciation. Imagine a world where people flourish.

Imagine.

You explored what you can do to create. Now let’s focus on another question. Can creating be taught? Can creating be learned? Yes, creating is a skill that can be learned and mastered. The same way that we can learn a language, play golf, make a quilt, be a gourmet cook, become a massage therapist, or use a computer, we can learn to create in our lives. It is a skill. Sometimes my coaching clients ask me how they can be more creative in their lives. They believe that if they were more creative or added creativity to their daily existence they would be happier and lead much more fulfilling lives. This is confusing creativity with the creative process.

This makes creativity sound like one of those little blue pills you take to make you happier or more content with life. It puts creating on the level of buying a hot tub for your backyard thinking that will make you happier. The hot tub may or may not make you happier-just cleaner. Adding creativity to your life may or may not make you happier. Learning the skill of creating the results you want in your life will contribute to your capacity for happiness.

The creative process I am talking about does not come from the human potential movement or pop psychology or self help seminars. It arises out of the arts and sciences. It is a system and methodology that you can learn to apply to your life without any previous training in art or music or science. It is individual to you. So it cannot be right or wrong, good or bad. The question is do you want it in your life, or not. If you choose to learn to create, you begin the same way you learn any skill – you acquire some knowledge about how to do it. Then like any other skill you want to master, you practice, practice, practice. Then you begin to understand and get a feel for the process of creating the result you desire and what that looks like for you.

The creative process has been one of the most influential areas in our history. Technology exists because of the creative process. Architecture is part of the creative process. The power of the creative process can be seen in film, computer science, the microchip, painting, cuisine, fashion, robotics, quantum physics, fashion, teaching, parenting, and on and on. Some of these people are artists, others are not; some are technicians, scientists, some are neither; but the one thing they all have in common is they follow a process that can be learned by anyone who chooses to bring something into existence that did not exist before in their life.

The process is one of content. Its form may, and probably will vary from individual to individual. There are no manuals. There is not a list of tips. It is not a tool. It is a process that everyone assimilates into their own way of seeing, deciding, and acting. With practice, the process of creating becomes part of the culture of your character. It becomes they way you live and see and interact, and be. As Bagger Vance said, “It becomes yours and yours alone.”

As we move forward, I will introduce you to some of the fundamental principles of the creative process. I will give you ideas to experiment with in your own life. I will ask you to question your assumptions and beliefs about creating in your life. I will bring in ideas from a variety of disciplines such as motivation theory, performance psychology, poetry, philosophy, quantum mechanics, and theology, to mention a few. I will offer exercises to explore. If you choose, you will have things to create. I look forward to hearing some of the results you begin to create in your life.

For the time being, here are several things to consider and I encourage you to put them on paper:

1. Is there any place in your life where you are experiencing limited power, freedom, fulfillment, or self-expression? Describe.
2. Are you satisfied with your life? Why? Why not?
3. Do you feel a compelling force to change something about the way things are currently?
4. Are you prepared to begin the process of creating something new or different in your life?
5. What would motivate, or is motivating you to be the creative power in your life?
6. What are some driving forces that would sustain your commitment to making this transformation?
7. How would this change improve or enhance your life?