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Pressure is a Privilege. - Billy
Jean King
I use the word tension, instead of
other synonyms, because it doesn't have a perjorative meaning
to most people. Tensions exist everywhere, in fact they are
the main constituents of Scaffolding and Design.
Without tension, we couldn't
breathe.
And lately, I've begun to postulate
a case for "existential" tension--pressure to focus on things
we need, rather than having everything we need, without
tension. What I'm saying is that tension is a basic tool of
FLOW.
Learning to recognize and
regulate tension is leveraging, but more so, designing
tension gives us tools, most systems don't understand, let
alone use in design.
It seems that tension is required,
and that tension is what our goal-inherited systems respond to
best. Even in Pressure-Prompted Systems, tension is key to
deliver particular kinds of results.
Example:
If I am designing a system where I
wake up into happiness, and yet waking up in happiness
produces sub-optimal success requirements, then the resulting
tension...when it is fed into and through the right data
becomes powerful tension with which to use for design.
Remember, our MEANS and ENDS environment has a LOT of
flexibility, and as we all know tension, may be the mother of
invention, said another way.
If I'm living as happy as I've ever
been, if I feel better than I've ever felt, and in doing so,
I'm continuing to sub-optimize my long-term success, with the
right tension, my system can be scaffolded in a way that not
only preserves the happiness, but finds ways to create
behavior that may also not sub-optimize my success and FLOW is
produced, but the advantage is, I get to remain in FLOW, while
producing FLOW, which means the amount of time I'm in
alignment, actually producing a compounding effect, in that
happiness and success both rise, in the presence of the
tension.
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Helpful Hint: Something to
be remember will be HOW to create tension that is leveraging,
versus that which is deleveraging--although ONCE in awhile,
deleveraging tension may be present, helpful or design-worthy.
Remember, tension means different things to different people,
you have to KNOW YOURSELF and be able to disclose, as
well as use an acceptance process, to be able to design
surgically, as you often will have to because of resource
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Action Step: In order to
make the use of tension, real and easy for you, you'll have to
come up with an example of something that you are doing that
is working for you in happiness, but creating less than
optimal results in your success. Then what you do is to try to
understand where your trigger points are, and what the doors
into those triggers are in reality. For instance in my
example, it works like this...want to live longer (success
requirements, especially at a time when you are OPEN,
birthdays, new years, holidays, etc.), then the tension can be
manufactured in ways that one--you are already open too--like
getting a check-up; two, allowing you to be convinced in
multiple ways that if you continue, success requirements may
have diminishing returns.
Next, you have to make sure you
have a high-leverage situation, in other words, usually
finding a way to transcend several of these sensitive need or
trigger areas, you place the tension, as a coach (self, or
otherwise...yes you can do self-coaching, if you know how to
do it! Almost all development occurs in that form
anyway<G>.)...into the gap.
Finally, to be successful, the new
MEANS have to be equal to the old means, at least in terms of
what leads to your happiness ENDS, and the scaffolding for the
new means has to be better than the old means, otherwise, the
prior means will assert themselves over the new means, which
are not scaffolded as well-->in other words, the density of
the scaffold has to be able to hold up under the tension, and
tension environment, this is key.
IF your new design is not as dense,
your little robot brain will just subvert it and find new ways
to the old means, as they are more EES (YES, really)
than the new ones! Remember EES is not a judgment, it's just a
set of conditions. If it is more EES for the old means to run
to the ENDS, then of course they will. THIS IS THE PROBLEM
WITH WEAK Scaffolding, inefficient DESIGN, and
poor use of tensions.
Using the example above:
If you need the person to
consume/participate differently, then make it EES to using the
different means, with the new tension.
TENSION has to be in place, to hold
the scaffolding in place, and mostly, it's identified through
the WHY notions, or ENDS, reasons why we be, do, have and
become..the way we do.
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