Ability versus Willingness

When we engage in any task there are two questions we either consciously or sub-consciously ask ourselves.  The first, and not necessarily in order, is: Can I perform this task?  Am I able to do what is necessary to complete my part (of the whole)?  The second: Am I willing to do this task?  Do I have the time, desire, etc., to perform this task in part (or in whole)?

While it is easy to facilitate objections to this premise, the conclusion always reduces down to either or both of these constructs.  I was introduced to the following concept in graphical representation some time ago.  While the graph is not original to the discussion, the relative experience we bring to executing the graph is.  Here, we will look at:

What is ability?

What is willingness?

Ability versus Willingness.

A methodology for consistent execution.

What Is Ability?

Ability is the power capacity to do or act; or, competency in an activity or occupation based on knowledge.  It is the physical, mental, emotional, etc., premise we carry when faced with a task.  While each is an independent construct, in terms of ability, and particularly in terms of successful execution, all are dependent. 

Consider this (and other examples in your own life may be more applicable): I may be able to physically drive a car, understand and recall the mental exercises involved, but may be having an otherwise emotional day.  Depending on the context of my emotion, my ability to drive the car as prescribed by law and in a safe manner for me and others on the road, I may not be able to drive due to my temporary emotional state.

We often construe our abilities in terms of being able, when in fact we are implying willingness.  We may “talk tough” about executing a strategic point using such language as: “I’ll do it;” or, “I can do it.”  Both of these sentences are explicitly stating willingness and implying ability.  This is important.  Being able to do something does not mean that we are able to do it at a given moment.  We may be able to drive a car, but we may not be able to drive at a given moment.

What is Willingness?

Willingness is being inclined to do something; disposed or consenting.  While ability will imply execution, willingness is the adjective that defines our mental condition.  There are, of course, opportunities where I may not want to do something, or feel otherwise forced to do it, but when I perform them in the end I am doing so at some level or degree of willingness.  This is piece that we talk about when we say to each other, “Stay positive, you can do it;” or, “It’s mind over matter;” etc.

Willingness is an interesting and often overlooked construct.  It is a key in the toolbox of life.  Maintaining a positive execution position in terms of willingness is crucial to living a meaningful and well-balanced life.  How often do you hear how unhappy or unsatisfied someone is only to learn that they are willing participants in the misery?  It’s our job to help them see their complicit behavior and encourage them to either: change their geography away from and/or mental disposition towards the subject.

Ability versus Willingness

          Considering the language and definitions of given understandings, it is important to give proper discernment to everything (especially values we already believe we understand).  As such, being able to perform a task is not the same thing as being willing to perform a task.  Ability, while holding internal necessities, is an external construct.  It is what we have learned, coupled with our own interpretations and understandings, resulting in an execution strategy to perform a task.  E.g., many of us are able to write a sentence long-hand, performing a large percentage of the mechanical operations in the same manner, but using a varied ‘style’ of writing that is unique to the individual; some of us scribble-print, and others of us scribble-cursive, perfect-print, or even perfect-cursive.

          Considering able externally, willingness is the internal construct.  It is the degree of happiness, or utility satisfaction, we perceive to receive, or do receive, from performing a task.  Often, this willingness is to perform is balanced against our experiences, heuristics, and biases.

          Drilling down, we represent each as a part of the larger whole in the decision-making model.  Focusing singularly on these two, we are able to appreciate meaningful information concerning our future decision-making selves.  Looking at the model, you will see that each of the four possibilities fit neatly on the graph below.

           Considering the four quadrants above, allow everything in the top left to represent “+ Ability,” everything in the top right “+ Willingness,” everything in the bottom left to represent “- Ability,” and, everything in the bottom right to represent “- Willingness.”  Another way, think of Able as ‘X’ and Willingness as ‘Y;’ thus, we have: (X,Y), (-X,Y), (X,-Y), and (-X,-Y).  Written out in more applicable terms:

(Able, Willing)                  à           I am able, I am willing.

(Not Able, Willing)            à           I am not able, I am willing.

(Able, Not Willing)            à           I am able, I am not willing.

(Not Able, Not Willing)     à           I am not able, I am not willing.

At any given moment, during any point of execution, we are representing one of these above sets and may move from set to set through the duration of a task.

Methodology for Consistent Execution

It is imperative to execute with consistency.  Understanding how the above sets are defined in your own terms is imperative to long-term success and happiness.  Below, we list out each and briefly note our thoughts.  (Make sure you do the same.)

I am able, I am willing.

          Here we are able to perform a task and have the mental willingness to perform.  Most of us, most of the time, live in this model; however, and with reservation, we initiate performance from the (Able, Not Willing) set.  This is where mental preparation, positive thinking, and positive action come into play.

I am not able, I am willing.

          This is a humbling set within the four quadrants.  How many times have you found yourself in a position to want to do something (willing) but lacked necessary resource(s) to perform the task?  Often, when faced with such a dilemma we move the question to someone who is able and either willing to perform for us, or instruct us (thus giving us ability) on how to perform the task.

I am able, I am not willing.

          In the leadership model, many leaders will tell you this is where their employees are a great deal of the time.  Their purpose, they say, is to move the employees into a willingness model.  We don’t disagree.  If this were not true, there would be fewer books about management and leadership.

          If you find yourself in this model, work to move yourself out of it by first reaffirming yourself and then the task.  Do this by focusing on controllables, such as your mindset.  E.g., Am I focused?  Do I have everything I need to get started/continue on?  When balanced, take a deep breath and begin—remember every step towards the goal is a step closer to finishing!

I am not able, I am not willing.

          This is a rather disappointing reality.  Many of us are apathetic to a cause or a purpose.  We believe we cannot do anything so we do nothing.  The world was built by wonderfully bright and articulate men and women who re-defined ability and willingness and found ways to move out of this set.  If you have something that is important and you want to affect even the slightest change, then you have a degree greater than zero of willingness (so, move to the other set!).

Follow-up Action Item

          Look at a current task or purpose you are working on.  Take time to figure out what set you started in and what set you need to spend the most time in to successfully complete the project.  A reason for your individual performance is the ability to move someone into and out of the above sets.  In our experience, you master subjects when you teach them, but it is harder to teach them if you have never tried them!  Let us know how it goes for you.  Let us know who you are implementing this in your own leadership models and paradigms.

Takeaway

          Understand the difference between ability and willingness and how this impacts our emotional and mental well-being.  Also, it is important to understand where people are coming from when we want them to accomplish a task.  The above model will help you in your evaluation steps.

Delivering Your Best

Mental Resilience

In this four-part discussion on mental resilience, we will briefly touch the surface of this topic.  Our purpose here is to provide solid access points from which the reader can contemplate their understanding of and execute their path to sustainable mental resilience.  In this first installment, we will generally look into a few general questions:

What is Mental Resilience?
What does it mean to have Mental Resilience?
Why is Mental Resilience important?
How do I develop sustainable Mental Resilience?

What Is Mental Resilience?

Considering terminology, resilience is a functioning word for flexibility, elasticity, and toughness, and serves as an improvement over the three as its definition implies all of the above and is not singularly exclusive.  Mental agility and objectiveness is important, if not imperative, to long-term success and happiness.  The levels of failure and disappointments we will endure during a lifetime are less remarkable in quantity than they are for defining how we choose to respond to each of them.  

Countless entries empirical and written evidence as well as allegorical stories speak of remarkable feats made by individuals over the course of time describing the degree of focus required to succeed, or be successful, at given tasks.  This degree of focus is taken with our ability to positively face adversity, grow from its experience, and apply our own growth knowledge to future situations is mental resilience. 

What Does It Mean To Have Mental Resilience?

Having mental resilience means that we have prepared ourselves to learn from every experience and not allow any one experience to control us or our future experiences.  While mental resilience is not complicated, it is very hard to maintain with consistence.  It is the ability to develop positive constructs, while discarding the negatives (but learning from them) consistently. 

Having healthy mental resilience includes knowing that sometimes we will not exercise positive mental resilience in every experience but are flexible enough to know this about ourselves.

Why Is Mental Resilience Important?

          Human beings are both linear and spatial creatures.  We build our fact sets one after another.  We then spatially refer to various fact sets and apply them to other experiences thus allowing us to define our understanding in terms of our history.  If we continue to develop negative stereotypes, myths, or foster mis-/dis-understanding, we are destined to repeat various cycles of behavior and thought.  Having mental resilience allows the ability to elastically accept failure as a positive and not have to repeat the negative loops.  When we are able to control the projections of our minds, we are exercising mental resilience.

          As failure is an important part of life’s cycles, it is important that we understand how to not live in the failure but rather live in the experience of how that failure helps us today and will in the future. 

How Do I Develop Sustainable Mental Resilience?

Proper understanding and preparation are the primary control factors in consistent execution of anything.  Controllables are those things everyone can improve upon to increase their mental resilience.  It is important to note here that everyone can improve their mental resilience.  It is not our experience that otherwise higher or lower Intelligence Quotas (IQs) have increased or decreased mental resilience.  What may be taken into account by this measure may be the more predictably general responses at given levels of failures and disappointments.  Mental resilience does have neurological fact sets, but again, here, we are only focusing on controllables.

          A key to understanding how to become mentally resilient is the degree of preparation.  Being prepared is mental resilience.  Since various levels of failures and disappointments occur largely against our greater desires, being prepared for them is paramount to overcoming them in a healthy, swift manner, and without creating inner emotional turmoil.  [It should be mentioned here that all decisions we make are internalized by our own definitions, understandings, heuristics, and psychological constructs.  I.e., two people of relative age, temperament, education, etc., while statistically employing similar characteristics, are likely to internalize resolution differently.]

          In the argument, mental resilience as a conclusion relies on the undeniable premise of preparation.  E.g.: 

• An applicable maxim: Y = F(X)

• ‘Y equals a function of X.’

• If the value of Y is dependent upon the value of X and changes as the value of X changes, allow Y to be healthy mental resilience and X to be preparation. 

• Read: Mental resilience is a function of preparation.

A note worth considering is that preparation, in terms of mental resilience, is a uniquely solitary and subjective construct that only the individual has control over.  Mental resilience demands honest preparation.  While I concur that the inclusion of subjective honesty clouds the objective nature of the discussion, it is nonetheless important.  Human beings define honesty in terms that are individually understood, as they relate and co-exist with societal definitions and norms.  Accepting this as plausibly true, how often have we failed or been disappointed at some level because of our own inadequate inputs during preparation?  Yes, we may have acknowledged a different response to the outcome but when alone and with our thoughts we privately acknowledge to ourselves we simply did not put forth the requisite effort needed for a more successful outcome. 

True preparation occurs in three steps.  Although there are serially more steps, these basic cornerstones are the foundation.  They are: clarity of purpose; understanding the question; and, positive execution.  This CUP method ensures adequate preparation.

          In upcoming discussions about mental resilience we will: highlight the CUP method in language that is applicable; discuss the power of making good choices; and, discuss how to overcome mental ‘personal objections’ that derail us from being mentally resilient.

Follow-up Action Item

          What self-defeating thoughts keep you from delivering your best?  Make a list of 3 things (real or imagined) that are holding you back from delivering your best.  List each “Personal Objection” out and beside each write down specifically how it holds you back.  Then, write down what it would feel like if this no longer held you back.  The idea here is write these out on a single index card (if possible), or a piece of paper (even stored inside your smart phone or other device you keep with you most of the time) that you can keep with you at all times and refer to it whenever you encounter a personal objection, remind yourself what it would feel like to successfully overcome the objection and execute your purpose points.  [We will refer to this in later discussions.]

Takeaway

Mental resilience is a subjective frame of mind that is unique to each person; however, there are positive execution constructs that everyone can follow, adapt to, and re-engineer to their own needs.

Delivering Your Best

Delivering Your Best

Delivering your best in everything you do is a goal, objective, desire, purpose, etc., everyone should have.  Research tells us that productive people are happy people and that happy people are productive!  This is the core of Delivering Your Best.

We are starting this blog in hopes of reaching, teaching, and encouraging everyone to deliver their best every time.  We want to highlight the trials and tribulations of winning and losing in addition to exploring the hidden characteristics and heuristics that otherwise hold us back from being the best we can be at all times.

This is not a social, economical, political, nor any combination of the three, argument.  We believe that all people, from all walks of life can deliver their best every time.  We are also not lost on the reality that the above also keep or hinder some of of us from breaking through to being that person we are destined to be.

This discussion will have a frame of anecdotal evidence, research, first-hand experience, observation, contemplation, and open dialogue.  We are not presenting a three step method to success, or a success in ten days program; rather, we are presenting an avenue for creating sustainable relationships, healthier living, increased work productivity, and otherwise happier and more productive lives.

We will always welcome your comments and constructive criticisms that further the dialogue of our purpose.

Welcome to Delivering Your Best.