LIVING YOUR LIFE AS A PROCESS

WHAT’S A PROCESS?

Processes are the ‘how’ of life. Every time you ask a ‘how question’ and you write it down from what you’ll start with through to what you’ll finish with, the answer describes a process. How do you choose what to eat for dinner? How do you conduct yourself in a job interview? How do you connect with your spouse? Whether you think of them that way or not, your entire life is made up of a series of processes.

When we look towards the future, however, often we do so through the lens of goals, not processes. We ask ourselves questions of what we want the future to be before we consider how to get there. But “how to get there” is more fundamental! You can live your life better without setting a time limit on the results because you are choosing to approach it with a process instead, but you can’t reach a goal without changing your day-to-day behaviour either.

So a process-driven life is a life lived by comparing yourself to yourself. By making gradual daily improvements, a process-driven person is forever on the path towards a better life by tracking their progress. Therefore, living your process is really about living life on your terms. It’s also about leveraging the timeless patterns and practices that have worked well for others and adapting it for your own life.

Living your process means to start living the world on your terms, finding your unique strength, and living your values by creating a framework to the process. To put it another way, this is about “approach over results.”

APPROACH OVER RESULTS

The whole idea of “approach over results” or “living your process” is it’s about giving your best where you have your best to give, making the most of what you’ve got, and focusing on what you control over what you don’t. You can’t control the results (or scoreboard), but you can give your best shot when you get up to start. In life, you control your attitude and response and it’s not what happens to you, but how you react.

In this article, there are five strategies that can be used to live a process-driven life which are:

Articulate your values to measure your daily progress against what really matters.

Track meaningful data over time using success patterns to understand how your processes are working for you.

Listen to yourself to ensure your actions support your physical and mental health.

Schedule a time to invest daily in your most important values and be more self-aware.

Return to your themes to craft long-term benefit out of short-term interests through mottos and metaphors.

GOLDEN CIRCLE

I think before you move to the other concepts that make up Living Your Process, the best place to start your process is from the Golden Circle, which are:

Purpose. Know your purpose. Is it to bring happiness, wisdom, order or change to your social world? Use the framework of Vision, Mission, and Values for some ways to think about this. Tailored for business but you can adapt it for your life, this is done by working out firstly what kind of Lifestyle you want to live and journal your progress towards that.

Why. Know why you do what you do. This is the why behind the why. One technique for finding your “why” is the Golden Circle. For more on the Golden Circle, see Why Do You Do What You Do.

How. Know how you do what you do. Identify your personal success patterns. If you flip back through your life, you can review what’s worked for you and what hasn’t. Carry the good forward. The Golden Circle technique also helps you figure out your personal success patterns. For more on the Golden Circle, see Why Do You Do What You Do.

But also look at your other concepts that which will help you in framing your life, such as:

Values. When you live your values, you feel good. It’s that simple. First, you need to know what your top values really are. You have a lot of values, but you want to know the top values to optimize your life around. Once you know your values, your next move is to live your life like you mean it. This includes seeking out the situations and people that help you live your values, as well as bringing your values to the situation, no matter where you find yourself. See Finding Your Values.

Strengths. You have a lot of strengths, but this is about your top 5 that set you apart. It’s your unique voice. It’s the strengths that come so natural to you that you might not even value them as a strength. One of the keys of going from good to great is focusing on your strengths over weakness. When you focus on your strengths, you get energy and you get stronger. Passion is your key fuel for making things happen.

CONCLUSION

Process-driven living is all about understanding the content of your current life and being realistic about how to improve it. For me, this paradigm means more focus, happiness and fulfillment. I enjoy what I do every day. I believe in what I do every day. That is consistent with purpose.