Course correction is made up of a few moving parts:

• A course
• A desire to stay on the course
• A way to monitor your position in relation to the course
• Skills to get back on course when you find yourself off it

Course correction is the immune system of the will, of our conscious.  An immune system on the other hand lives in the subconscious, but could serve as a great model for what course correction should strive to be. The immune system is an amazing invention of biology.  It is a system designed to protect you from the billions of bacteria, microbes, viruses, toxins, and parasites that would love to invade your body and make their new home.

Rather than try to know every single possible thing that might go wrong, an immune system tries to determine when something’s simply “not normal”.  Rather than know everything that might go wrong, it just needs to know what normal, or optimal, looks like.  The strength of the immune system is obvious from the fact that, when we die, all of the things that it was keeping in check will basically take over and dismantle our bodies in a matter of weeks.

Think about this in terms of our own goals, and our own course correction systems as it relates to achieving our goals.  How many of us give up on a goal (see New Years Resolutions) the moment we have a single set-back?  That’s evidence of no course correction system at all… as if the first virus to make its way into our system was given full reign upon arrival.

The right course

But let’s step back a bit further. The body has a very complicated and balanced view of “health” that it’s protecting.  It’s almost always true that our immune systems are protecting us and trying to keep our bodies in an optimal state.  When it doesn’t, though, some of the most insidious problems result.

How close are our goals aligned with our optimal selves? A strong immune system that strove to keep us on the wrong path would be just as dangerous as no course correction system at all.  So, it’s obviously important to first have the right course (set of goals) mapped out.  That’s a whole problem in itself. For the purpose of this entry, let’s assume you have the right goals.

Desire to stay on course

Obviously, having a goal isn’t enough to get it done. You need to want to complete the goal as well. This is a matter of building motivation, interest, desire. Another mysterious animal in itself. A good course correction problem is intertwined in the desire to stay on course, mostly in the sense that it should help constantly renew the desire and not let it deplete entirely.  But to begin, there needs to be a pretty strong desire to start with. Every engine needs fuel, and that’s what this is.  The course correction system is more of a gas station along the way.

Components of desire:

• Passion / motivation
• Opportunity
• Momentum
• Positive feedback

Course correction

What happens when you slip from your goal?  Do you hate yourself?  Tell yourself that you aren’t able to do it?  Maybe next time?  Or do you start back up?  And if you start back up, do you have the same amount of motivation and momentum as you did before the setback?  How many restarts do you have in you before the restarts start taking longer to start back up, and before momentum has dwindled to zero?

Course correction not only needs to start you back up, but it needs to re-fill motivation, momentum, and avenues for positive feedback to pre-setback levels.  It needs to pretty much erase the setback from ever happening.  This requires, obviously, a pretty amazing system.  Isn’t it insane that our bodies are able to rebound to 100% health even after a flu or cold that had us on our backs for days?  Isn’t it amazing that we usually don’t have any permanent damage or lack of health after every illness?  Our course correction systems need to strive for this same level of competence.

Our immune systems don’t get demoralized because perfect health hasn’t been 100% achieved. They have almost no emotional response to failure at all, something that we as goal strivers don’t have the luxury of having.

What you need to course correct effectively

You need a lot of energy. The energy needs to come from a calm, strong place, and not leave resentment or martyr syndrome in its wake.  You need to be healthy, and have ways to motivate yourself that are sustainable over long periods of time.  You need to be easy on yourself, able to forgive yourself quickly for slip-ups–the best way to do this is to be sure that your motivations are good and pure, and that you aren’t selling yourself, or anyone else, short.  You need to find ways of getting positive feedback for your work, as that helps generate more motivation and energy to replenish what has been spent.  On top of it all, you need to enjoy the ride.

In some ways, it feels like we need to be superhuman.  But remember this, even our immune systems will eventually fail.  We don’t live in a perfectly sealed container where energy is endlessly replenishable and nothing ever takes on any wear.  We are finite creatures of motivation, will, and health, and all we can do is our best, and that will need to be enough.

Components of a healthy course correction system:

• Energy from positive feedback, enjoyment
• Well-balanced so nothing is needlessly drained to the point of burning out or poisoning you
• No guilt or self-beating-up over mistakes and setbacks
• Embrace that it’s all in flux, constantly changing, and ultimately its own reward and nothing more
• Easy on yourself, quick to forgive

Thoughts?

This entry was posted by Buster on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 11:37 pm. It is filed under Defining enjoyment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.