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Live With Purpose
I’ve spent a lot of my life with a rough idea of how I want things to go, and it’s worked out pretty well so far. But as I become a real adult1 I’m realizing that I need to be more purposeful if I’m going to create the life and legacy that I want in the long term.
So I have designed an exercise to develop an ethos that I plan to live (and update, many times) for the rest of my life. I will document the steps I take as part of this series so that you can follow along if you’d like.
Wait, what’s an ethos?
the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations
But you’re just one person
On the outside yes. But inside I’m a wild mashup of different parts2, personas, and alter-egos. Sometimes, rarely, they agree. Sometimes the majority rules, such as when I ‘accidentally’ eat an entire bag of chips. Other times, the debate rages on and I find that I’m not making any progress at all. Those are the times when a guiding ethos, for my whole internal community, will help. I hope.
(Trust) The Process
Here is where I see the series going:
✨ The Purpose - you are here
🔩 The Process - detail the process up front3 to force accountability and clear steps
💎 Virtues - why do I want to do, well, anything?
👤 The Persona - collect the virtues into a pseudophysical form
📏 Principles - how will I do things, and how will I stay aligned to my whys?
📚 The Stack - define which principles overrule others, and in which contexts
💼 Problems - what do I want to accomplish?
📜 The Protocols - remove as much thought and effort from the rest of life so focus can remain on the problems
The outputs will be 3 main data sets: virtues, principles, and problems. Each of those will have a ‘user guide’ of sorts to further compress and structure how I will keep them front-of-mind and put them into action.
But, Why?
Why do an ethos finding/defining exercise:
To live more purposefully. I covered this at the top.
Why virtues->principles->problems in that order:
Simon Sinek gave a TED talk (my notes) about inspiring action. Then he turned the key ideas into a book: Start with Why. I think he’s onto something, so that’s what I’m doing.
Why write about it:
I can think of 3 reasons:
Have content to link when I mention my virtues, principles, or problems in conversation only to get blank stares
Make a commitment, in public, to live this way and (attempt to) solve these problems
Share the process to help others with a similar journey
Think through the ideas more thoroughly; writing helps you think, it’s why I was able to find a 4th reason while writing this list
Why the explicit (over-)compression/structuring:
For memorization, prioritization, and motivation.
It might seem silly but remembering a ~checklist of items is hard for me, especially as I'm 'in the moment' of something. Having the persona and stack(s) will help me to prioritize my working memory space on the most useful and pressing parts without having to look up a list and debate those priorities in the moment.
Seeing how the problems build into my future and align to my purpose will help me to push through the necessary hard work and to avoid despair during inevitable ‘lost’4 days.
If you’re ready to see how this works in practice, here is The Process in detail. <link process>
Define it how you want, I’m talking about balancing work, family, fun, health, and learning in 24 short hours each day
In the Internal Family Systems meaning, a thought architecture that I am very much still learning
I have done some of these already, and will update as I go too
Like when I waste a whole day eating a bag of chips