It’s a concept I’ve thought about for years in regards to when people or teams are at their best.  It’s in part an answer for how do you get the most out of yourself, how do you get the life you want?  Even the internal life you want?   By being on purpose and off self. 

Ghanhi addressed in the the grandest sense “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”

In the service of an idea, in the service of a cause, we find our talents and capacity. 

Your best performance when only thinking what’s next to make it happen.  Not can you or can’t you, will you or won’t you, what will it be like if you do, what it will be like if you don’t.  On how it impacts you instead of the simple act itself.  Emerson said “Do the thing and you’ll have the power”.  

This amounts to all of your focus and capacity on the action, less noise, less thoughts.  And if you fail your not thinking why can’t I, why didn’t I, but thoughts are on HOW.  How can I make it better, how can I make the next thing happen.  

How much confidence is lost, capacity is wasted beating ourselves up?  How much is wasted thinking about how you will look, or what will happen to you if do or don’t?  It’s easy to see in a public speaker seeking to give a good speech; focus is on how they are doing, gaining approval, or what they look like.  The output is a speech in their “professional voice”, we all love those.   What would happen if they were on topic, on audience, on purpose?  Completely focused on the information and objective?  Forgetting themselves in the process of communicating something with passion.

On self thoughts create paralysis, tension, indecision, and frustration.  

Leadership: how much time do your people spend trying to please you versus getting the desired results?  Are they experts at managing their leaders and mediocre at doing the actual thing?  Are they getting good at the job or managing up? I’ve found a tremendous amount of time can be wasted by approval seeking within a company.  Powerpoint, meetings, and calls devoted to finding a sense of confidence in the organization, not doing the actual thing.  

Teams: as a fan of the NBA I’ve seen On Self thinking break apart amazing teams and partnerships.   With players so concerned about being the man, being respected, what the press is saying, what the record books are saying, they make decisions based on this rather than on the purpose of winning.  

I’ve seen this take hold in people’s lives.  By considering ourselves; our status, respect, past, future, and situation in comparison to others we lose all that we can contribute.   Focusing on what we aren’t and don’t have we are wasting energy on considering our circumstance that could be used right now to do the thing.   It is challenging because no matter how hard you think ON SELF, nothing happens.  Nothing is created by a complex confused state of mind.  I’ve been most productive and have found personal happiness when my purpose is clear and my thoughts are on doing what’s next to make it happen.    Taking time to reflect is one thing but in a very practical way, how do you DO your life by thinking about yourself?  

In part, a life is just an output of our actions.  It’s about putting all of our thoughts and capacities on the doing and creating of what you want.  Set the goal, solve the problem, learn the skill, make the call, show up.   What’s next… to to create deep friendships, a rewarding marriage, to raise healthy happy children, to build a dynamic team,  to become apart of your community, to build a great company, to hit this months goals, to run a marathon, to cook dinner?  The output is a life.