6 Magical Steps to Align Your Life and Business

Do you ever wonder what your life or business might look like if you’d made different choices?

What if I married a different person? 

What if I lived in a different place?

What if I had chosen a different career? ...Would I be happier?

We all want to be happy, healthy and successful, in life and in our businesses.

So naturally, you want to understand these confusing, swirling thoughts in your head. The feeling that something should have been different. That something isn’t quite right. You can’t see clearly what your life “should be”, you have no idea what you need to change, and you can’t imagine mustering the energy to change it if you did. You have no idea where to begin.

Everyone has been there at some point in their lives and probably will be there again in the future. You are not alone. 

Most of the time, we don’t want to acknowledge that something is off, we would rather power forward than face the fear that we aren’t living the lives we are meant to live or untangle the confusion that comes along with it. 

But realizing that something feels out of place is a good first step. Now you need to dig a little deeper to create a plan forward. Even though it doesn’t always feel comfortable to acknowledge that things aren’t quite right in our lives, feeling it means you have the potential for amazing transformation. Here's how to go about it.

***

I want to introduce you to a simple, yet powerful tool that was created by the amazing Robert Dilts and is used in coaching, learning, and both personal and business transformation. 

This is something many people don’t know entirely, but may have heard variations of it. It’s easy to understand, but can be challenging to implement alone.

This model is called The Logical Levels.

Inspired by anthropologist Gregory Bateson, Robert Dilts created this structure to show how our brains process information. He found that we all process information in a similar pattern, and we can identify different mindset levels that activate different areas of our brains.

Once you are able to plot your own personal situation within these levels, you will easily see the “gaps” and what you need to do to tackle them.

The point of Logical Levels is that all levels need to align to your vision, goal or mission in life and to yourself as a unique human being. 

Let’s dive in to see what I mean:

Environment

This level is a basic step for you to look at things you probably notice everyday. Your office, your house, the people around you, your body, your food. It deals with the material world or the literal space around you, and we’ll be looking at it through the lens of “Where?, When?” and “With whom?” questions. Here are some examples:

Where are you spending your time?

Where does the action of your job take place?

When does it take place?

What are the resources around you?

Who are the people you share the space with?

Who are the people you WANT to have closer to you? 

Actions/Behaviours

This level deals with the steps you take in your day to day to create your environment. This section concerns itself with “What?” questions. 

What does your job look like?

What do you do on a daily basis?

What are some of the tasks you tackle?

What actions can you take to change or grow?

What actions would you rather be doing?

What do you do to create your environment?

What behaviours do you need to develop to move forward?

Capabilities

This is about the learning, skills and abilities you utilize to accomplish the tasks you take to create your environment. This level is all about the “How?” 

How do you tackle your actions?

What skills or training or experience do you bring to the things you do every day?

How can you build upon your training to influence those actions?

How can you plan this going forward?

Let's pause for a second...

After you have understood the tangible, easier levels, it’s time to move onto the harder, higher logical levels. The reason they are more difficult is because we are so focused on our day to day that it requires extra effort to start thinking about the more conceptual aspects of our lives.

The catch here is that no matter what plan you create for yourself, if you don’t know WHY it is important to you or worse, if deep down it’s not that important to you, then the change you implement won’t be the one you actually need.

This is probably the most important part to focus on, WHY is this change important to you? 

Let’s continue to dive in...

Values

Values are what drive us forward. They are the reason we get up in the morning, cycle through our actions and create the environments around us. Values deal with the question of “Why?”. 

Why am I doing this?

Why is it important to me? What drives me?

What motivates me?

What about this change am I excited about?

Why am I doing this right now?

Interestingly enough, you’ll notice that once you establish your personal values, you’ll start to find and choose people around you that share similar values. These will be people who accept you for who you truly are and with whom you will feel completely authentic. They will help you create the environment you strive for, and ultimately make you a happier person. 

Identity

Here we will move to the state of being. The person you are should establish everything you choose to do. Let yourself think for a moment, “Who am I, truly?”

We often attach behaviours to our identity, but the identity level is here to make sure you separate yourself as a unique human being from your day to day actions. 

Who are you as a person?

How do people see you?

Who is the person you want to be?

Who are you when you’re in your current environment?

What do others say about you?

People often take a behaviour or habit and make that synonymous with their identity. They start to believe that this behaviour defines them, but a behaviour is an action, so be careful not to answer your “Who?” with these. 

Think about things like “I am a smoker”, “I am lazy” or “I am an alcoholic”. It is important to understand that these don’t define you as a person. They are habits formed through time. A person that believes that this is WHO they are, will have a hard time releasing these habits if they want to do so.

Pro-tip: Stay clear of using your current role at work as the answer to this question. Instead, I like to frame identity as a function that defines who you are. This helps people focus on themselves and imagine themselves doing that function. For example: I am a builder, creator, problem solver, connector, facilitator, helper, innovator, motivator….

Instead of saying I am a Project Manager say I am a facilitator, executer, communicator, coordinator... Instead of saying I am a Designer say I am an inventor, creator, innovator, builder...

Vision

Have you ever wondered if you’re here for a reason? Everyday of your life you impact the people around you - your family, your friends, your co-workers, your society, the environment and more…

For the Vision level, think about what you do that impacts the people and environment around you. Your mindset for this section should be zeroed in on the question of “Who else?”

How do you impact the world?

Who do you impact?

What mark do you want to leave behind?

What inspires you in this?

How do you envision the future you?

How do you want to be remembered?

What is your contribution now?

What do you want your contribution to be? 

Are you aligned to your logical levels?

Now, I want to offer you a simple exercise. Okay, it might not be so simple but it will be highly valuable for you.

I’d like you to start going through the levels through the lens of your current situation, and for this, think about an area in your life you want to focus on (your personal life, relationships, career, learning, household, health…)

Go through the levels one by one, from bottom up and think about your environment, actions, skills, values, identity and vision as they are right now.

After that, start from the top with your vision and imagine what you could create around you. What impact do you want to have on the world or on others? Move down through the levels from there and give yourself time to really think about what each of them could look like in the future. Allow yourself to envision a different world… a different you.

Here is a template to use:

How it relates to Leadership and Company growth?

Are you an entrepreneur? Building a scaling company? This might be particularly useful for you.

You might think, how could this relate to my growing company or my leadership style?

The logical levels have a unique structure that allows higher level concepts, like vision and values, to resonate with your teams and help them create the tactical steps to accomplish the company's mission.

Look at the diagram below:

Notice the connection?

The Logical Levels is a great tool to establish company-wide perspective and alignment on “WHY ARE WE HERE?”, and is amazingly helpful in finding the right people that will thrive with you.

Think about this: if you create a company vision that impacts others, and you find the identity and values that will lead to accomplishing that vision, you could more easily choose people with similar values that would help drive the company forward, completely aligned and engaged.

This is also helpful in understanding what the gaps in the company are. Are there gaps in the skillsets of your employees? What are the missing capabilities needed to accomplish our vision? Are we lacking basic processes that align with our values? What are the necessary processes to accomplish our vision.

Pro-tip: think about how to incorporate this exercise in your interview process to start finding the right people from the start. (And if you come up with some good ideas, please share them with me!)

SUMMARY

Whether you’re looking to apply the Logical Levels to your personal situation or to your company, here are some things to remember:

1. This is supposed to be hard. Working on aligning your life to your mission is tough work, and our brains are not used to thinking about these things on a daily basis, but it can be highly rewarding if you dedicate the time to getting it right. Make sure to try it more than once, because you’ll always find something you didn’t catch before!
2. There is no right answer. This is about making sure you are making the right choices for YOU and who you want to be. 
3. The alignment is real, but not permanent. You should strive to find alignment and comfort in your choices, but remember they will change, your circumstances will change and your priorities will change. The only thing that should stay stable is your identity and vision. Stay true to yourself and make sure you don’t look at the visions of others as the target you’re aiming for. Each of us have different visions, identity and values.
4. Do not use your title or role as your identity. Instead of Project Manager say facilitator, executer, communicator, coordinator. Instead of Designer say inventor, creator, innovator, builder.
5. Have fun! This should bring clarity and give you relief to find your answers. It can be difficult to tackle, but once you do, it will feel good to have a plan forward and take steps towards your new vision. 
6. What’s next? Now that you've identified why something in your life felt off, it's time to make some changes. If you’re ready, take a pen and a paper now and write at least 1 action step you can commit to THIS WEEK to help you move even just a bit closer to your vision.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Libi