How do you use your answer to guide what you choose?
Use your standard to assess your current situation, evaluate your options, and explore other possibilities when your current options don’t meet the mark.
You may be able to name them. Or you may know what you want to change, what you want more of, or what you no longer want to accept.
When describing what you want, you might be inclined to get specific. Or you might use broad terms that capture the general idea without defining the details.
Both approaches share a common problem.
Specificity is often recommended to support clarity. The problem is making details mandatory when an outcome could work for you without them.
If you specify $300,000 in annual net income as one of your aspirations, would earning $299,999 really make the outcome unacceptable? What about $299,000? Or $275,497? Or $503,143?
If you name “more freedom” or “financial security” as one of your aspirations, what do those words really mean to you? If you asked another person what they mean to them, would you both provide the same description?
These approaches seem like opposites, but they can leave you with the same problem: neither description faithfully captures what you mean.
In one case, you have specified a detail without establishing that it is necessary. In the other, you have not provided enough information to describe what is necessary for you.
Your aspirations, hopes, and dreams describe where you want to go. To use them to guide a decision, you need a description that makes that destination clear.
In many ways, it is similar to describing a place you want to visit on a map.
Let's illustrate this with an example. Think about describing a restaurant you want to visit.
“A nice restaurant” gives a general idea, but it does not point to a particular place. Where do you mean? What does “nice” mean to you?
The description conveys a general idea without establishing where you want to go.
Similarly, “financial security” or “more freedom” express an aspiration without establishing what you mean by it.
“A restaurant where dinner is $65 per person” adds a precise detail, but it still does not establish where you mean.
There is more information, but it still does not point to a clear destination. Does dinner need to cost that amount, would a few dollars more or less be unacceptable?
Similarly, specifying $300,000 in annual net income adds precision without describing what you want that income to provide.
When it comes to using our hopes and wishes to guide our decision-making, the key is describing what you want accurately enough that the results reflect what you're actually looking for.
A useful description includes enough detail to distinguish what fits from what doesn't, without introducing details that aren't necessary.
Useful descriptions can have different levels of detail. The important thing is that the details serve a purpose. For example, in Google Maps, you can find a restaurant via name, address, or coordinates.
There are multiple ways to describe your aspirations in order to use them in your decision-making, but you'll know you've arrived at a useful description when it can do six things.
▪️Clarify what you mean: Understand what you're actually looking for, rather than relying on broad terms or unnecessary details.
▪️Communicate it to others: Describe what you want clearly enough that someone else understands what you mean.
▪️ Assess your current situation: Determine how your circumstances measure up against what you want.
▪️Identify the gaps: Understand what is missing or would need to change to achieve the outcome you want.
▪️Evaluate possibilities: Assess existing options that could meet your requirements.
▪️Generate alternatives: Identify other ways to meet your requirements when existing options don't meet the mark.
By applying the ORS™ you define what your aspirations require and get to use that information to guide your decisions.
It allows you to:
▪️Clarify what you require: Put your requirements into words that faithfully capture what you mean.
▪️Give others a clear picture of what you require: Enable others to identify what fits your requirements and what does not.
▪️Understand any gaps: Compare your current situation with your requirements to identify what is already satisfied and what remains unmet.
▪️Evaluate opportunities: Assess options against your requirements—not just against what makes each option appealing.
▪️Generate alternatives: Explore different ways to meet your requirements without treating the first plausible solution as the only one.
Use what you need from ownership to guide which business you buy.
Use what you need from ownership to guide what you do next with your business.
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The Operational Reality Standard™ and ORS™ are trademarks of Happy Mindset Inc.