The Holistic Goal: A tool for creating your life

Build Your Holistic Goal

The Holistic Goal becomes poetry as the meanings in the words become more dense. It evolves, and the separate statements begin to represent meanings by their relationships. Eventually, the meanings in the holistic goal become the relationships. The words become reminders of the relationships. That is the essence of difference between a "holistic" goal and multiple goals.

In short, no pattern (goal) is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world, only to the extent that is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it.

This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole; and the thing which you make takes its place in the web of nature, as you make it.

The Holistic Goal has three aspects, all of which are interdependent.

The first aspect of the goal represents your values and the fulfillment of your Quality of Life. You can begin to identify your values by examining your feelings. Values often are symbolized by material things, actions and their context. Different people may have similar values but they may be represented by different symbols. Your symbols are also subject to change, as you probably already know.
The second aspect of the goal contains actions -- all of your actions -- the things you do for money as well as the things we do without earning money. Actions that are consistent with your values give a sense of fulfillment, satisfaction and purpose in your life. This condition may be called "congruency between actions and values" – or having a high quality of life.
The third aspect of the holistic goal is the list of resources that are necessary for your actions, and the ability to continue them indefinitely. Resources can be categorized into natural resources (food, air, water, place to live), social resources (security, community, country and government, access to human services, etc.), and economic resources (a special kind of social resource, since money is only traded among people for one of the other categories).

Each of us constructs our holistic goal to help us recognize more clearly what we desire (feelings), how we wish to act to experience these feelings, and what resources or conditions we need to act accordingly. We cannot sacrifice one of these aspects of our goal to achieve the others since they are inextricably connected. This is why there is only ONE holistic goal for for each of us, rather than multiple goals focused on parts of different aspects. However, we can create an inclusive holistic goal for a group of us – our family, our neighbors, our colleagues, etc. The inclusive holistic goal necessarily will allow for the differences in the group, but will be further crafted so that conflicts that arise are negotiated. This would be an ongoing adaptive process, based on such conditions as "Win – Win, or No Deal". Success of this form of negotiation requires clear communication. Debate, or rhetoric (seeking to convince) is usually antagonistic in this process. Instead, empathy and respect development involve dialog (seeking to understand).

The smaller steps in your life we might call "objectives" which are reached by performing a series of "tasks." Planning your path that leads toward your holistic goal is composed of objectives and tasks. This is another discussion with some procedures and social tools. Key in this process of moving along your conceptual path toward your holistic goal is monitoring what happens, and adjusting the next steps to continue the path. Metaphorically, each step we take is momentarily unbalanced, and then we recover – or stumble and maybe fall.

Once you construct your goal and begin using it, there will be many revisions as you discover omissions, contradictions, and better ways to represent what it needs or what you want. It becomes a tool for Life-Long Improvement.

There are many faces of holistic management. I have selected some examples to illustrate the diversity of contexts, and uses.

You use your holistic goal in deciding what actions to take by comparing alternative actions to find the one or more likely to move you toward your goal. In general, we find any alternatives seems likely to move us toward some aspects of our goal, but not necessarily so for all aspects. We can select the best alternative with some balance we select, or search for still better alternatives. Often we balance progressive steps against regressive steps by selecting those with rapidly responding progress and anticipate changing with another action to offset regressive effects before they begin to appear. There are several "tests" that one can use to sort out the "best" option to take. One of our poorly managed resources is money! Another of our poorly managed resources is time! Time is measured in "heart beats" and is the ultimate "nonrenewable resource." Money has value only to the extent that other people agree. It is the most "volatile" resource, having only symbolic value.

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