by Prasad Kaipa

In over 15 years of work with organizations and senior executives, I found the following six principles, derived from spiritual literature to be quite helpful in coaching executives to become successful in these times of great change. The six principles are: Clarity of intention; Awareness of self and what is going on around you; Empathy for one another; Appreciation of others and for what you received; Stretching beyond your own limits; Letting go of what does not work and old mindsets.

These six principles are interdependent and describe a cycle. When you follow this cycle, you develop new competencies and achieve higher levels of success. The essence of these principles is self-knowledge. The more you practice the six principles, the better you begin to know yourself.

1) Clarity of Intention: Intention is critical to achieving success. When the intention is not clear, attention shifts from one thing (one desire) to another and leads to confusion. In such circumstances, we often end up compromising our own efforts and receive less than what we desired or even deserved. Without a crystal clear intention, we rarely experience a sense of accomplishment even if our more general intentions are fulfilled.

How do we increase the clarity of our own intention? Ask yourself the following questions:

What is it that I really want? What evokes passion and joy in my heart? How passionately do I feel about it? What am I willing to give up (sacrifice) to achieve the desired goal? If I have more than one intention, which one should I first attempt?

These questions bring to the surface some of our assumptions and passion and help us to prioritize our intentions (and hence our actions). Finally, exploring your intention creates a pathway to discovering your unique purpose in life!

2) Awareness: The key message is stay awake and be aware while you are focusing on accomplishing something and not stop not until you reach your goal. Awareness is of two kinds: self-awareness and the awareness of the world around you. They go together and are like front of the hand and the back of the hand.

How does awareness help us become successful? Let us say that my dream is to start a software company and take it public in three years. While my success criterion is pretty sharply defined, there is a lot of work that I need to do such as understand the customer, the competitors, the market and world realities, and my personal realities. I need to assess my own key personal competencies and find others whose competencies compliment my own to create a strong management team. Of course, creating a successful product and a strategy to market it successfully requires hard work, and there is no substitute for that. If all goes well, my dream may come true. In that respect, my self awareness (of my competencies and weaknesses) and my awareness of the world around me (the possibilities in the market place and offerings from competition) help me to make what is possible to be real.

What blocks our awareness? There are five mental processes that act as enemies to awareness. They are: our own expectations and standards, false/incorrect knowledge, our wild imagination (and attachment to it), sleepwalking through our life, and memory of past successes and failures. It is a challenge for many of us accept the fact that our own standards, our knowledge, and our imagination can take over our mind and make us proud, sloppy or negligent. Laziness is the biggest enemy of success.

How do you develop and practice awareness? You can begin with becoming aware of what you eat and what you drink. Becoming mindful of what goes in your body can make you stop eating mindlessly and give you choice about what you eat. You can also begin to pay attention to your own thoughts/feelings and body sensations. They give you early warning signals if you pay attention.

You can become aware of your own thought processes by using reflective or contemplative practices, writing a journal regularly and continual examination of your intentions. Most awareness is tacit, but you can learn to pay better attention to your body signals, pains and pleasures, and energy shifts. All these are key to developing a higher awareness and acute sensitivity to your own body and mind. The more aware you are of yourself, the sharper your senses become to observe your surroundings. To summarize, the more aware you are, the more you increase your capability (and capacity) as well as your intelligence.

3) Empathy: While clarity of intention and awareness get us onto the path to success, empathy and compassion helps us to gain the support of others. When you begin to see yourself in others and genuinely feel compassion for them, you will find that others reciprocate these feelings.

What is empathy? It is like walking in another's shoes. It implies the imaginative act of being the other person. Empathy is the foundation for emotional intelligence. By being kind and empathetic when you could be harsh, you allow yourself to build lasting relationships with your colleagues, employees and customers. Relationship building (a deeper approach than networking) is a key skill that ensures success in the turbulent time in which we live.

The practice of empathy requires demonstrating openness, mutual respect, and trust in our relationships. Deep listening, not just to the words but the meaning behind the words, is the foundation for an empathetic relationship. Sharing from the heart and feeling the pain of the other nurtures relationships. Empathy begets more empathy and is the source of a creative partnership. Of course 'loving kindness' goes a long way to build deep and meaningful friendships and partnerships.

4) Appreciation: While empathy opens the door, appreciation welcomes you in. However empathetic we may be with each other, we are naturally more attuned to finding fault with one other than to appreciating one another as 'gifts.' It may be best to tell the truth that is pleasing to others and withhold what is disliked even if it is the truth. It does not mean that we should lie to please others, but that it may be better for people to find out such truth for themselves. By appreciating and acknowledging others, we increase their state of happiness. Many times they, in turn, reciprocate and contribute happiness back to us and others they touch..

You can only appreciate others to the extent that you can appreciate yourself. So appreciation is also about self- acceptance. Most of us rarely appreciate who we are and what we receive. Self-acceptance accelerates the process of self-development.

How do you practice self-acceptance? Make it a ritual every day to find something positive that you have done or some contribution that you have made to others. Even if the work you have done has not yet produced the desired result, appreciate the steps you have taken so far. Similarly, appreciate what others do in their struggle to achieve the results they want. Be authentic when you give such feedback, then you and the other person can discuss how to improve the efforts and get the desired results later on.

Appreciation is not flattery but genuine acknowledgment of a person's contribution. Find something nice to say to every person you come across. (Don't make it up--look for what is nice about them). Look into the others person's eyes and when you do, watch what happens!

5) Stretching beyond your own limits: Success comes to those who are passionate, intentional, aware of themselves and others, can work with others empathetically, and appreciate who they are. Their willingness to stretch beyond their own perceived limits, of course, requires risk taking.

People are naturally uncomfortable about taking risks and failing because we have a habit of focusing only on the end result. We don't accept or appreciate failure very well. So called 'failures' often create mental blocks in us and boundaries around us. Most of these boundaries are self- imposed. By learning to stretch even though we don't want to, we begin to break through these mental barriers and discover our untapped potential.

Curiosity, genuine inquiry (not inquisition), empathy, and appreciation provide the impetus and support for people to stretch beyond their own self-imposed limits and to discover new possibilities. Aspiration and desperation are two good motivators for stretching beyond our limits.

To practice the principle of stretching the limits, find opportunities to learn and be vulnerable. Vulnerability does not mean being weak. It is about being in the state of not knowing and hence being open to learning. Your ability to learn is directly proportional to your ability to be vulnerable.

In other words, be willing to fail, look stupid, and ask questions instead of making assumptions. Practice telling the truth when you are not sure of what the implications may be. Interestingly, you will find out that you are modeling a behavior that leads to stretching the limits. You are creating an environment of nurturing and caring in which other people can also let their guard down and discover themselves to be bigger than they ever imagined.

6) Letting go of what does not work: While the first five principles can get you to the edge of success, success eludes those who do not know when to let go and move on. Habits are difficult to change because we continue to do what we have always done by default and expect different results. By learning to let go of our old mindsets, we can begin to discover new possibilities and new approaches. Letting go does not mean giving up. It means not worrying about the result while continuing to perform the action. That posture gives us the freedom to act in a relaxed, yet focused manner. Many top athletes I interviewed talked about setting high goals and then letting go of their attachment to those goals. This strategy makes them freer to play their natural game and to bring out the best in them.

The cycle of the six principles:

Intention provides the direction and focus for our actions. Awareness gives us the capacity and intelligence to go after our goal. Empathy helps us to build partnerships with others, and appreciation is the key to motivation and productivity. Stretching beyond our perceived limits helps us to grow and meet challenges, and letting go of our attachments assures not only success but accomplishment. Obviously, when we succeed in what we have undertaken, it is time to go back and clarify our intentions all over again as we set new goals.

Practicing these six principles with self-awareness should lead not only to success, but also self-discovery.