Awareness, purpose, intention, opportunity, force, direction. It's the work of becoming more rigorously and relentlessly who we are, so we can find our highest and best, in order to get to it.
Awareness
We have seven processes that gather awareness. Two are the cognitive processes that control our responses to our awareness: Associative and Sequential. Only some of those responses are conscious, although we can learn to expand our conscious awarenesses and observe our awarenesses through an overarching self awareness called metacognition.
We have five neuromuscular awarenesses. They are our brains' interaction with that portion of the universe available to us: Listener, Observer, Mover, Reader, Talker.
What we know is mediated by these awarenesses.
Purpose
How often are you doing something on purpose? That is, your action is driven by a consciously chosen goal; versus, for example, oops, I did it again.
What are the ideas that will set you in motion on purpose?
Sit for a minute. Be still on purpose. How much of your attention has nothing to do with any consciously chosen goal. The sound of the truck passing by caught my attention and directed it to the window to watch the image of the truck flash by on the road. Then I realized that my sitting has made me vulnerable to the morning chill. What does a purpose-driven minute contain for you? For me, it's writing this post. It's a powerful and consciously-driven goal for me, and yet, a mail truck just flashed by heading down the road. Something for me? Not more important than this post, or, in the unlikely event that there is something more important, it can wait. And yet, I'm wrestling my attention back to this page against the relentless reflexive distraction from this purpose.
Just knowing I have seven kinds of awarenesses doesn't mean I control them. At the same time, it's an important start. I can begin to bring to metacognition what catches my attention; what misses my attention; what raises my energy; what depletes my energy.
Intention
If purpose is a consciously chosen goal, in short, the what; intention is the consciously driven how. Intention is your plan for actualizing your purpose out in that portion of the universe available to you. Intention is the project plan for gaining control over your awarenesses and setting them in motion toward a goal.
Driving a consciously driven intention has to move forward the ideations generated by our awarenesses and sense of purposes. Our how requires the resources of our forces: time, attention, and energy to make the what possible.
Often our awarenesses lead us to define purposes, and those purposes send us down intentional paths. Now we need to acquire, develop, and apply force. For example, with this post, I have awareness, purpose, and intention. At this moment, I need the forces of time, attention, and energy driving the purpose -- which is to generate and deliver for Tuesday morning something worthy of your time, attention, and energy.
Force
Your seven awarenesses, that is, your inner Kairos, control the deep drivers of your attention and energy. These are the processes that drive your actions that flow out of your knowing. We do the work with our attention and energy within the boundaries of time.
"Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of ten years." K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Römerd.
By the way, It has to be the right kind of hard work for ten years. Otherwise, it will be a waste of all that effort for ten years.
Direction
Intention is the plan. Direction guides the practice. Plans change with each shift in opportunity. Opportunity is the wind blowing toward the harbor. As we execute our plans with the forces within our control, the constantly changing forces outside our control require us to observe, reorient, decide differently, and act differently. Good news is as we train and learn, we become able to do things we couldn't before.
Our work here at Kairos is in this space between little certainty and possibility. It's the often relentless work of identifying the goal, developing the strategy, before acting with courage. Psychologists Linda and Charlie Bloom call holding this tension, "a demanding discipline."
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Warm regards,
Francis Sopper
REFERENCED IN THIS LETTER:
oops, I did it again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WGsMplGxU
K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Römerd: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0033-295X.100.3.363
Linda and Charlie Bloom: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stronger-the-broken-places/201807/holding-the-tension-the-opposites