R36 - La bussola coscienziale (la vita come un'impresa)

Usually we are much more attentive to the quality of the water we put in the iron than to the one we drink. We pay more attention to the number of octane of the gasoline for our car than to the nutrients in the food we ingest. And when a spy turns on, we immediately take the car to the office, while we often ignore the alarm signals that our body sends us in advance. This suggests something important to us, that if we are able to promote virtuous behavior in a particular area of ​​our life, it is not for this reason that we are able to replicate such behavior also in other areas of our life. We know how to take care of our car, making it go through all the cuts of the case, but we are not necessarily able to do the same with our primary transport vehicle, our physical body. It was obviously just an example of our difficulty or inability, which can be more generally attributed to a lack of evolutionary intelligence, that is, of that form of intelligence that helps us promote our conscious evolution. Imagine for a moment being a manager at the head of a company. And if you really are, well, the imaginative effort will be much easier for you. Certainly a part of your work will consist of watching over the good functioning of your company, the one we can define as ordinary administration. But if you are a really capable and intelligent manager, this will not be enough. An important part of your work will in fact also consist of setting new objectives aimed at the performance of the potential of your company, and in strategically planning the various operations that will allow you to reach such performance with the greatest efficiency and efficiency possible. Without this part of your work, as a manager, you know it well, your company would be a bit like a boat without oars and rudders, in the guise of a sea crossed by countless currents, not always all friends. And with this I certainly do not mean that it is not useful, sometimes, to put the oars in the boat for a while and let themselves be carried by the currents, to see if they take us to places that we would never have explored, but this is a method that must be used with art and a lot of discernment, otherwise it is able to produce disastrous effects. Well, now imagine that your business is called My Life, and ask yourself, are you good managers of your business life? Are you able to set yourself always new goals, to plan them, to undertake them systematically and to achieve them, as well as you know how to do it, let's say, in a business environment? As Brian Tracy said, the potential of the average person is like a huge unexplored ocean, a new unknown continent, a world of possibilities that await to be freed and channeled towards some great enterprise. When I begin to reveal this idea of ​​putting yourself in a managerial way in relation to one's own life, objections inevitably arrive. A business is a business, I often hear myself repeat, but life is something else. And then, what taste would there be in doing it? Life must be lived as it comes, in a spontaneous, natural way, like a dance, so much so that we are certainly not the ones to guide it. Yes, but if we are not the ones to guide the dance of our life, or at least a part of it, perhaps we should ask ourselves, is there really someone to guide it? Our autopilot, perhaps? But that, as is well known, prevents us from crashing into moments of greater carelessness, and there are many. Or perhaps it is God himself who constantly watches over us and guides our dance. But are we really sure that God, whatever he or she is, has nothing else to do? As long as, for the divine, the word to do makes sense. Another objection that I often receive is that of romanticism. Where would romanticism be in a life conducted like a business? Yes, romanticism, which so often, unfortunately, is misunderstood to the point of becoming just a form of infantilism. But if we reflect for a moment, it is obvious that developing the ability to govern our boat, that is, to become managers capable of guiding our business life towards goals of value, is not incompatible at all with the aspiration of romanticism understood in the mature sense, which is simply to live passionately, without losing contact with the real. Of course, there are many other possible objections to the idea of ​​becoming managers of one's own life, of one's own evolutionary path. But I presume that if you continue to listen, then at least a part of you agrees with me that we are interested in using a bit of managerial technology also in relation to the important goals of our existence. And, of course, the first thing to do if we want to achieve our most important goals is to learn to identify them and formulate them properly. How do we do it? Well, it is undoubtedly more of an art than a science, but to begin with, we can start with the simple Eisenhower method, according to which all our activities can be evaluated according to four simple categories, depending on their importance and urgency. The first category is that of important and urgent things. These are activities to be performed personally and without delay. The second category is that of important and non-urgent things. These are activities to be performed always personally, but in this case, of course, attributing a delay to them. The third category is that of non-important and urgent things. Since they are not important, they are activities to be delegated to other people, but to be performed, of course, as soon as possible. The fourth category is that of non-important and non-urgent things. These are activities simply to be eliminated, of which we must not occupy ourselves in any way. The Eisenhower method, however, allows us to organize our mind so as not to waste our time and energy, and to focus on what is relevant, which is really relevant. Too often, in fact, our mind is distracted by things of very little importance, but extremely expensive in terms of energy and time. Another thing we can do is to get used to writing our goals in a specific notebook. We can call it the notebook of value goals. Of course, another name will do just fine. And to do this, to get the notebook and start writing in it, is already an important goal of value, and for some of us also very urgent. But what is the most important goal among all our goals? Many simply answer that of being happy. But can happiness really be a goal? As the good old Buddha used to say, as long as it is an authentic quote, there is no road that leads to happiness. Happiness is the road. We are therefore interested in taking responsibility for our happiness, behaving like real adults, that is, stopping being children, because only in this way can we get on the right path, and try to achieve real goals. In this regard, psychologist Giulio Cesare Giacobbe reminds us that the adult has three powers, self-esteem, independence and the joy of living. Well, but if we leave aside happiness, which is not a real goal, and reflect carefully, it is not so difficult to come to the conclusion that the most important goal is to give meaning to our existence. And a concrete way to try to do this is to ask ourselves if we have an existential programming. By this term I mean all those internal and external achievements that we would have somehow planned as a mission during the intermissive period, the one prior to our descent on the physical plane. And if you are not willing to hypothesize that as consciousness we pre-existed our intra-physical birth, well, you can give a symbolic meaning to this possibility. Now, to move towards the completion of our existential programming, it is important to have a good planning and management of our life goals, and this requires managerial skills. Well, but where to start to identify our possible life goals, compatible with our existential programming? One possibility is to follow the direction indicated by the needle of our conscious compass. Now I'll explain. On the one hand, the needle indicates your weak points, your gaps, your defects, everything you still have to learn and overcome. On the other hand, it indicates your strong points, your greatest qualities, your talents, everything you are able to use as an easily usable resource. Your conscious compass then suggests you to position your goals exactly along the direction of the needle, that is, choosing goals that allow you to use your strong points to overcome your weak points. I'll give you a simple example, so we understand each other. Think of a scholar with remarkable intellectual skills, but at the same time uncomfortable when it comes to interacting harmoniously with others. A goal that his conscious compass could then suggest him is to begin to teach, so as to use the intellectual ability to overcome the relational deficiency. It's obviously just an example. Ok, let's suppose now that after looking at your conscious compass, you have set a goal. It is good to understand that a goal can be achieved only if accompanied by a specific plan of action. And to verify whether a goal is achievable, that is, transformable in a plan of action, it is useful to subject it to a particular test, called test SMART. Its name is an acronym. Each letter corresponds to an important point to consider. The first letter, S, corresponds to the English word SPECIFIC, that is, specific. The goal in question must be defined in non-vague terms, not too general or abstract, but to be as specific and concrete as possible. If this should not be possible, then the goal must be fragmented into a set of sub-goals that can more easily be made more specific and concrete. The second letter, M, corresponds to the English word MEASURABLE, that is, measurable. The goal must be defined in a sufficiently objective way, that is, to be conducted to non-subjective parameters, therefore measurable, that allow to clearly determine when and to what extent the goal is achieved. The third letter, A, corresponds to the English word ACHIEVABLE, that is, achievable. The goal must be within the scope of the available resources and the modalities used to achieve it must be clear. And if this was not yet possible, well, then initially consider as a goal the obtainment of the missing resources. The fourth letter, R, corresponds to the English word RELEVANT, that is, relevant. The goal must have characteristics of relief and interest, without which motivation and pleasure are insistent in its achievement. In other words, reconnecting us to the Eisenhower method, the goal must be sufficiently important. The fifth letter, T, corresponds to the English term TIME BOUND, that is, limited in time, or also to the term TRACKABLE, that is, traceable. The goal must be connectable in a precise time arc as far as its possible achievement is concerned and possess a clear timing, although initially only temporary. Well, now that you have all these precious indications, what do you say to try to put them into practice right away? For example, taking four sheets. On the first, write your strongest points. On the second, your weakest points. On the third, try to identify at least three goals that allow you to use your strengths to overcome your weaknesses. In other words, use your conscious compass. And be brave, don't limit yourself. On the fourth and last sheet, try to treat what you think, based on your current understanding, could be your existential programming. The things you would have come down here to do, that you have proposed to do to facilitate your and others' evolution. Finally, choose one of the three goals you have identified and submit it to the SMART test. Try to plan it. And once you've done it, if you want to, make the firm decision to take action according to the timetable you have established. Very good. If you have come this far in listening, it means that you have potential as a conscious manager. This excursus of mine had as its only objective to offer you a stimulus to get you back on track with your business life, in case you were distracted for a moment. And to conclude, I propose one last technique, really very powerful. This technique, precisely because it is so powerful, can only be used by individuals with sufficient psychological and conscious maturity. If you are not sure you have this maturity or understand the meaning of such terms, simply do not apply the technique for the moment. This, among other things, is not suitable for too young people and especially if they are still in training. Having made these due premises, let's come to the technique as such. It is very simple. It consists in taking the following question seriously and acting. If I had only one year left, what goal would it be for me to achieve before leaving this plan of existence? The technique asks you to act as if you really had a single year left and actually take action in order to achieve the goal in question. Obviously, all the difficulty and the power of the technique lie in immediately being sufficient in this simulation and really maximizing your evolutionary potential in the hypothetical remaining year of life. Anyway, it has been said among us, we do not know how much time we really have left, probably much more than a year, but can we be totally sure? In short, the real difficulty of the technique lies in taking the technique seriously, because taking it seriously and considering that the time available to achieve the goal is really limited, this will lead us to be incredibly effective, not to waste time on unimportant things, as in the Eisenhower method. Now, if you realize that you are not yet ready to apply a technique of this kind, or sufficiently determined to take action, and I assure you that it is a more than normal thing, do not feel guilty about this, you can at least ask yourself the following questions in relation to the goal in question. Have I already identified this goal? Have I already planned it? Does it have at least a starting date? Am I already acting in some way to achieve it? In what way exactly? If I'm not doing it yet, what would be the obstacles? And am I trying to overcome these obstacles? And if I'm not doing it yet, what would be the missing resources? And am I trying to acquire these missing resources? Well, to conclude, and returning to the notebook of value objectives, if you ever feel inspired to use it, what do you say to transcribe on the first page the following five questions, on which I really advise you to meditate. First question. Second question. Third question. Fourth question. Fifth question. I end with a sentence that a person once told me, leaving me literally speechless. If you have no problem, then this is your biggest problem. Thank you for listening.