The First Essential For Creating The Life You Want

The Three Ps of Life. To change our lives we must have three things… a purpose, a place, and a practice.”

As a psychologist, seminar leader, and coach, I’m often asked to speak to organizations and/or counsel individuals on how to become more effective, or more specifically how to deal with the difficult people and situations that seem to get in the way of our happiness and success. The good news is that I have a system that gives people new information on the science of dealing with stress, people, and life that I call, “Life from the Top of the Mind,” and people report that learning how the brain works and how to influence this process is very helpful in understanding how and why we find ourselves reacting the way we do.

For many, however, just having new information isn’t enough to make the kind of changes that they want. Therefore, in addition to my C3 (cubed) model of clarity, confidence, and creativity, I would like to add a second model that I’m calling the Three Ps of Success, or P3 (P cubed). I call these Purpose, Place, and Practice. In other words, in addition to understanding how the limbic system, brainstem, and neocortex shape our experience of life, we must also have clarity about our reason for change (purpose), a clear picture of the places that we are going to show up differently (place), and a practice to practice, or a discipline that supports this process.

Unfortunately, many people find the first of the three P’s the most difficult. In my seminars, I describe this as our “highest purpose,” which is designed to indicate how important it is. This aspect involves identifying who we are at our best, and making bringing these qualities to life the most important thing that we do. The reason this is challenging for many is that their initial motivation for change was more around the problems that difficult people and/or difficult situations have created in their lives.

This is understandable, however, what we have learned about the brain is that our concerns about, or our desire to avoid the problem, can’t be the motivation for positive change, because this worry or fear engages parts of the brain (the limbic system and brainstem) that are actually responsible for the negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in the first place. In other words, just trying to stop being stressed, angry, anxious or depressed won’t make us confident, compassionate, and wise.

No, in order to create the life we want, we must have a vision of what we want to start versus what we are trying to stop, and our reason or motivation for change must be congruent with the part of the brain we want to engage. Or, put another, way, we must have clarity about the qualities and characteristics we want to bring to life, and we must find a positive motivation to engage the positive/purposeful brain. This could be our sense of what our life could be like when we are more clear, confident, and creative, or it could be our motivation to teach those we love how to live this way. The key is for this new “purpose” to be strong enough to motivate us to practice this new way of being until it becomes a habit.

Therefore, I suggest you begin this process by making a list of how you want to be and who you want to be (or the qualities and characteristics you want to bring to life), and the reason why this is so important to you. And, of course, if you would like my help with this, or if you would like me to come and share my “Life from the Top of the Mind” method with those in your organization so that everyone is bringing their best to life, feel free to contact me at 832-722-6147 or drbill@billcphd.com.

(Also, watch for a new video and quote next week on the second of the three P’s)