The greatest gift we can share with one another is the single-mindedness that helps us all close the gap between struggling to survive and thriving.

SHARING THE GIFT OF SINGLE-MINDEDNESS

by

Bill Cottringer

Single-mindedness:  The universal truths, principles and realities that govern life as opposed to our personal beliefs, perceptions and interpretations of these things; the real objects behind the words used to describe them.

     The greatest gift we can share is a bigger, more accurate picture of a more whole, single-minded reality that helps a person grow from surviving (where he/she is) to thriving (where he/she wants to be). Translating this abstract secret into a practical, concrete game plan is challenging and requires great understanding:

• Understanding the intimate, interactive and constantly evolving connection between a more whole, single-minded, truthful reality (the way life is) and each individual’s limited, fragmented and dualistic perception of it (what you believe to be true ).


• Understanding how to get past the mental frustrations and emotional pains of reconciling these two paths into one in your own mind, and then figuring how to share that secret clearly and meaningfully with others.


• Understanding that “wrong” and “bad” behavior that appears to reject the truth of “right” single-mindedness is a real and purposeful part of everyone and will surface under certain conditions.


• Understanding that such behavior is not an intrinsic or innate characteristic of any person, but rather a product of incubating conditions. Wrong behavior and the person are not the enemy, circumstances are.


• Understanding that clear communication of single-mindedness is extremely challenging because of people’s different levels of knowing it (information, knowledge, wisdom, and awareness) and the different methods by which they acquire it (thinking, feeling, intuiting and experiencing).

     We are all challenged today to create a virtual map and find our way towards this illusive, unified, single-mindedness. This is what it takes to do the gap-closing things that help us to successfully move from the struggle to survive to the satisfaction of thriving.

OBSTACLES TO SINGLE-MINDEDNESS

      The main obstacle in trying to close the surviving-thriving gap is conflict—huge and annoying differences in people’s thinking, values and behavior that make up their personal realities, especially when it comes to communicating them.  In the attempt to get agreement and support for the needed single-mindedness to resolve conflicts, there is the perennial problem of wrong, unproductive behavior that gets in the way.

     Of course, you have to realize the purpose and value of such conflict. The discomfort of conflict is what  provides the motivation necessary for positive change and the subsequent reconciliation of differences through sensible compromises.  This in turn results in a single-mindedness which opens the combination lock on the door to thriving.

     There are certain incubating conditions that give rise to conflict and pose the potential for disruptive and unproductive reactions that fuel conflicts. These conditions include:

Prevailing chaos and disorder	Unusual stress
Peer examples of bad behavior	Outside  family/friends interference
Control and power issues	Lack of control over destiny
Lack of  agreement on goals	Implicit permission to do harm
Fear of the unknown	Absence of  commitment

CREATING A SINGLE-MINDED ENVIRONMENT

     A key personal challenge is to build the unified, single-minded environment that incorporates these important understandings and facilitates conflict resolution. Such an environment enables personal growth, prosperity and collective satisfaction and takes you from striving to survive to thriving.

     Seven actions that build a single-minded environment are:

• Establishing a neat and orderly physical environment free of chaos.


• Emphasizing commonalities over differences.


• Accepting personal responsibility and accountability.


• Rewarding positive contributions towards single-mindedness.


• Communicating openly and honestly.


• Removing all implicit permissions to do harm.


• Allowing reasonable degrees of autonomy and freedom.

     In the end, we are all just trying to share what we know to help each other get in closer sync with life’s single-mindedness that is pulling us. The more we all embrace that single-minded reality, the happier and more successful, prosperous and content we all become. And the real secret is that you don’t achieve single-mindedness by “right” behavior; single-mindedness results in right behavior.

William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA. He is author of You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too and The Bow-Wow Secrets:  Seeing & Being Your Signature Self. He can be reached at (425) 454-5011 or bcottringer.pssp.net