Four Ways to Upgrade Any Part or All of Your World

Four Ways to Upgrade Any Part or All of Your World

Taking up an old study recently, I was surprised to find a new way of sorting out any field of data. One you can count this on four fingers and it will help you upgrade anything you are doing to become more efficient and effective.

I started this because I went to someone to see how he was doing the same activity I was, but seemed to have a better grasp of it. Yet couldn’t explain it to me clearly. At least he was more optimistic than I was, after my decade at trying this and that in the field.

(Literally in the field. This was working out how to graze cattle on pasture more effectively — less time, more profit.)

But it turns out that these four obvious points also have to do with any business and even fiction writing. Not to mention improving your family life and relationships in general.

More spare time, more money to spend, better relationships — where do we begin?

Here’s the four points:

• Philosophy
• Principles
• Patterns
• Products

Philosophy

When you break this down, the literal Latin roots mean Love of Truth. If you take it into much older languages, Truth (according to the ancient Polynesians) is defined as being “as valuable as it is workable.”

Instead of being a dry, dead academic study, this means philosophers and engineers and mechanics and artists all have the same drive: “appreciation for things that work.”

The trick is to test everything for yourself. (Especially if I said it.) Because nothing is workable unless you’ve proven it for yourself. Just because it is reported to work for someone else, doesn’t mean it works for you. Otherwise, there is no sense in being an individual. Your resources, abilities, talents, and background is always different from mine. If only slightly.

And that’s how I can tell you something from long ago and far away that you can try and use for yourself right here and now.

Test everything. If it works, then incorporate it into your ongoing philosophy. Otherwise, tweak it until it does work, or use the parts that do, or just let it go.

Principles

In every study or practice of any field, when you look for them, you’ll find certain ideas that consistently show up regularly. These are the principles of any study.

Like adding more lubrication to reduce friction. Or utlizing gravity to increase speed. Or simply turning everything else off in a room so that you aren’t distracted while trying to write.

Certain ideas work all the time, and can be applied to all sorts of things in that field as well as others.

Patterns

Also known as systems. You’ll see certain principles show up in combinations regularly. When you utilize those patterns, you can get the results you want easier.

Like a mystery story. Something bad happens before the story starts or right at the beginning. Then someone has to figure out how that happened and who did it, then reveal the mysteries by the end of the story. That’s the basic plot structure to any mystery story. Romances are often girl-meets-guy, they go apart for some reason and overcome their differences, then get back together with a hopeful ending. That’s a different pattern.

Adventure stories (like Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”) are different yet.

The modern story, as is typical on TV series now, is a hook (exciting scenes to get to you into the story) four separate stages of action that are each more intense and wind up with a good ending, then a cliffhanger which makes you want to anticipate next week’s show (or the next DVD episode.)

Each chapter to a story can also follow one of those patterns above, while fitting into a larger story arc or character arc.

In farming, you have cattle, grass, predator. Those are natural elements that have worked since before humans were around to preserve the balance on the grasslands and prairies of this planet. In our modern day, when humans learned to move the cattle regularly, just as the predators do, then they started getting a better response from both grass and cattle. More grass meant fatter, healthier animals. Feedlots short cut this, and aren’t a natural pattern. So illness in animals and their consumers result.

Automobiles have become disposable, which combines a lot of workable patterns in making attractive, useful vehicles with simple financing, and continual marketing. Otherwise, they’d make very durable cars that last nearly forever and would go out of business.

There are patterns in your business, your job, and your life which are workable principles in combination. Look for these and you’ll see them show up. Test them and you may find they are applicable in other places and activities.

Product

This is also known as result. What you expect to get and what you are getting when you do something. What your goals are.

And this brings up Nap Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” and other books. You set goals as part of your vision for what you want to have show up around you.

This is the acid-test of all the ones before it. Are you looking for things that work? What principles show up on a regular basis as you test things? What patterns do these form? Do they result in the quantity or quality of products you want and need?

When you use these four points together, you’ll see them start to interact with the others. And as you keep testing and tweaking them, you’ll start fine-tuning your business, job, or life to get more out of what you are doing, and more of what you really want.

So very simple.

But you have to work with these yourself to find out how and if they will work for you. Take these, call them whatever makes more sense. Test them over and over and tweak them until they produce what you want.

The key underlying common point to all of these is that they should bring more joy into your life. “If it ain’t fun, don’t do it.” That’s an old Jack Canfield quote. When you have success from improving your life, or achieving a goal, then you have more joy. Your entire day can be joyful.

It just takes being willing to change what you need to in order to get what you want. And watching to see if those changes make you happier or more joyful, or contented, or… you name it.

Your limits to this are only up to you.

Please have fun with this. Because that’s the point.

Originally published at Living Sensical.