What is a Script?

Yes, here’s another theory page to read on your journey to creating another remarkable life. You might have already read ‘What is LifeOS?‘ and ‘LifeOS Framework‘ and think you have a clear grasp of the theoretical foundations of LifeOS, but this one is critical.

Your Life Operating System is the underlying process your brain moves through every time you interact with the world, the LifeOS Framework is the core foundations that process is built upon, and your Script is the mechanism you use to take control of your Life Operating System.

If that’s confusing, another way to think of it is like a car. Your Life Operating System is the description of how a car works. The fuel enters the something and it moves and something happens and then you’re in the drive-through (in case you can’t tell, I know nothing about cars). The LifeOS Foundations are the underlying properties that allow that car to work as described (incredibly accurately) above. It describes the physical forces at play when your crankshaft or piston or whatever strikes the fuel, causing an explosion which creates kinetic energy that forces the spark plug towards the knee-bone and that causes the wheels to move (once again, I know nothing about cars). And finally, your Script will show you how to drive the car. It’ll show you how to point your car in the right direction, put your foot on the accelerator, and navigate the hazards on your journey. So, let’s start driving.

The 4 elements of your Script

There are four key elements of your Script you need to understand before you slip into the drivers seat and take control of the wheel.

Element 1: Your Desired Experience

At any moment, in any situation, at any point in time, there is something you desire. You are a desire driven creature with a constant set of needs and wants fueling your every thought, decision, and action. There is never a moment where you are desire-free and simply content with the moment. You always want something. There is always a desire lingering in the background so that even when you fulfil one desire, the next most important will emerge.

The outward appearance of your desire might appear to be an object (car, person, money, jewelry, etc…) or a person (partner, friend, mentor, father/mother-figure, etc…) or an outcome (promotion, win something, provoke a response, etc…) but at the core, you want something different. You want something deeper. All these external manifestations sound nice and fun, but they’re not an endpoint. They’re a means to an end. That end is an experience.

Experiences, in the way they’re used in LifeOS, are the physical sensation created by your perception of yourself in relation to the world around you. They’re how you feel based on how you see your relationship to the objects, people, and environment in your influencing vicinity.

The specific experience you learnt about in the LifeOS Framework was Certainty. Certainty, though, is a category of desires. It’s an overarching term used to describe any desire related to making sure you have the ability to live your life the way you want, now and in the future. But, there are subtle variations in the desire for Certainty based on many different elements, including your gender, your past experiences, and your current life situation.

A couple of common examples are:

  • If you perceive that you’re safe from the dangers in the world around you, you will experience safety
  • If you perceive you have the ability to shape your world in the way you want, you will experience power
  • If you perceive you have commonalities to those around you, you will experience connection
  • If you perceive that you have the ability to do what you want, when you want to, you will experience freedom
  • If you perceive that you play an important and meaningful role in the lives of others, you will experience significance

NOTE: If any of these names for the different experiences don’t tickle your funny-bone, that’s ok. They’re just words designed to convey an idea. If you have a different word that you believe more accurately conveys your how you feel when you’re in control of your world or have the ability to do what you want in any moment, use that one. These are just words people commonly use to help them articulate their desired experience.

Experiences are the core driving desire that fall under the category of Certainty, and at any moment, you want one. It could be power or connection or freedom or significance or safety, but there’s one there. And, as soon as you fulfil that desire, another will take its place. As soon as you perceive you’re 100% safe, the next desire to emerge might be connection or freedom. It might also be power or significance. Something will always be there because you are a desire driven being with a myriad of wants and needs just waiting to be fulfilled.

You constantly desire an experience and your desired experience is the first element of your Script.

Element 2: Your Current Experience

In any moment, you not only have a desired experience, but you also have a current experience. You not only want to feel something, but you currently feel something. It could be any of the desired experiences listed above and could be in any degree of strength of experience. Maybe you feel:

  • Completely powerful – capable of transforming the world
  • Reasonably powerful – able to create change in your life
  • Moderately powerful – working towards making real change
  • Neutral – able to make some changes, but struggling with others
  • Moderately powerless – able to make small changes but struggling with significant changes
  • Reasonably powerless – unable to make any significant change
  • Completely powerless – subject to the whims and wants of the world around you without any ability to consciously direct your life

Or maybe your current experience is related to connection. Or maybe significance. Or maybe freedom. Or maybe safety. Or maybe you have your own word to describe your current experience. Whatever it is, you are currently experiencing something.

While you have many different current experiences, there will be one that stands out more prominently than the others. And something that will probably come as no shock to you, whichever is the most prominent will determine your desired experience.

  • If your most prominent current experience is some degree of powerlessness, you’ll desire to feel more powerful
  • If your most prominent current experience is some degree of isolation, you’ll desire to feel more connected
  • If your most prominent current experience is some degree of insignificance, you’ll desire to feel more significant

You get the idea. Whatever you feel as though you’re lacking the most will be the experience you desire the most. It’s simple: you want the thing you don’t have.

You always have a current experience and this current experience is the second part of your Script.

Element 3: Your Target Outcome

Current and desired experiences don’t just come and go. They don’t just fade in and out of your psyche like a changing traffic light. They’re created by your perception of yourself in relation to the world and are therefore controlled by your perception of yourself in relation to the world. When your perceive things are going in your favour, your experience will become more positive. You’ll feel more connected or more powerful or more significant. When you perceive things are going against your best-laid plans, your experience will become more negative. You’ll feel more powerless or more isolated or more insignificant.

As a desire driven creature, your goal is to always be moving towards your desired experience and so this is why, at any point in time, whether consciously or completely unconsciously, you have an outcome you believe will move you closer to your desired experience. You believe there is something you can get or do or find or see or create that will move you towards your desired experience. You believe there is a result of, or response to, your actions that will fulfil your desired experience.

For example, you might consciously or unconsciously believe the best way to experience power is to:

  • Make other people do what you want
  • Become hyper-productive through intricate time-management techniques
  • Show people how strong or tough you are
  • Lift heavier and heavier weights
  • Become capable to beating others in a fight
  • Influencing the decisions and actions of others
  • Accumulating a large and impressive bank balance
  • Arming yourself with tools and weapons to impose your will on others

There are many different ways to develop the perception of power and control over your world and yours could be any of those or anything in between or even something completely unrelated. The only thing that’s certain is that somewhere in your mind, there’s an outcome you believe will move you closer to your desired experience.

The same goes for connection. Maybe your target outcome for connection is spending lots of time with people or receiving gifits or being complimented or having them agree with your beliefs or maybe it’s something completely unrelated to those.

The same goes for safety. Maybe your target outcome for safety is stacking on slabs of muscle or becoming a black belt at some obscure martial arts or maybe it’s having enough cash to hire bodyguards or maybe it’s something completely unrelated to those.

The same goes for freedom and significant and power. You always have a result of, or response to your actions you believe will fulfil your desired experience.

You may believe in this target outcome because of something that happened in your past. You might believe in it because of something you were told. You may have just made it up in your head at some point and run with it. Whatever it is, you believe it’s the gateway to the promised land.

But, the important point here isn’t the experience you desire, the word you use to describe it, how you locked in on that outcome, or even being able to specifically identify your target outcome. It’s understanding that somewhere in that beautiful mind of yours, regardless of whether or not you’re conscious of it, there is an outcome you believe will fulfil your desired experience.  

So, this is the third part of your Script: a target outcome you believe will take you from your current experience to your desired experience.

Element 4: Your Mechanism

You’re not just a passive entity that sits and desires without a plan. You’re cunning. You’re a schemer. You have buried somewhere in 6-inches between your ears, a plan for achieving your target outcome. It could be clear as day or lurking somewhere in the deep and mysterious folds of your subconscious, but you have a plan to get where you want to go.

This plan is called your mechanism. It’s your pathway for getting from point A to point B; for achieving the target outcome you believe will take you from your current experience to your desired experience. You might not know all the steps or even be consciously aware of it, but it’s there and you’re following it in every moment. It’s playing out in your relationships, it’s running in the background as you’re slaving away at work, it’s driving your decisions as you try and negotiate your weekend. It’s running in the background in every moment, pushing you towards your desired experience.

Just in the same way there are many different target outcomes that will help fulfill your desired experience, there are also many, many, many different mechanisms for achieving your target outcome and bridging the gap between your current and desired experience.

Continuing with the example above, if your current experience was powerlessness, your desired experience was power, and your outcome for feeling powerful was getting people to do what you want, there are many different mechanisms for achieving that. You could get people to do what you want by:

  • Employing them and paying them to do your bidding
  • Threatening them with physical violence
  • Brainwashing them with promises of spiritual salvation
  • Showing them how they’ll be learning a valuable skill
  • Emotionally blackmailing them
  • Physically blackmailing them
  • Threatening their loved ones with physical violence
  • Taking something they care about and only return it once they’ve done what you want them to
  • Showing them how they’ll financially gain from doing what you want

You could use any one of these, a combination of these, or even find a completely different way. The important thing isn’t identifying all the different possible ways to get people to do what you want, it’s understanding that there are many, many, many different mechanisms for achieving the vast array of available outcomes, to help you bridge the gap between you current and desired experience.

  • There are many different ways to become hyper-productive
  • There are many different ways to get stronger
  • There are many different ways to accumulate a significant bank balanc

I don’t need to go on here; you get the idea. The important part isn’t identifying all the different available mechanisms, the important part is understanding that you have a plan, in every moment, be it conscious or unconscious, to achieve your target outcome and fulfil your desired experience.

This mechanism for achieving your desired outcome (that you believe will fulfil your desired experience) is the fourth and final part of your Script.

The Impact of your Script

The way you drive your car determines how fast you get where you’re going and how easy and enjoyable that journey is. Just in the same way, your Script determines how quickly you get where you’re going and how easy and enjoyable that journey is. This is because it determines your Life Operating System.

It determines: what you choose to pay attention to and what you choose to ignore

In any second, in any situation, over 11 million bits of information are flooding into your brain through your senses. Your brain can only process roughly 50 bits of information per second so when you get that information, your brain has to filter through that giant mess and to work out which ones to pay attention to and which ones to ignore. Your brain chooses the bits of information it believes are important and ignores the rest. The criteria for determining which ones are important is: which elements are directly related to me getting what I want?

This is simple. Without the inherent selfish focus on fulfilling your desires, humans as a species wouldn’t have survived to reach a level where we’ve been able to destroy the planet this thoroughly. We would have died out long ago whilst tending to the cut leg of a T-Rex or performing root canal surgery on a Wooly Mammoth without anaesthetic. It’s this inherent selfish pursuit of what’s important at any given moment that’s driven our progress forward.

Your Script is a summarization of how you think you get what you want and therefore, it determines what you focus on.

You desire an experience, you have an outcome you believe will result in that experience, and you have a mechanism for achieving that outcome. Your desired experience is what you want and your outcome and mechanism determine what you believe needs to happen to get what you want. Therefore, your Script in any moment determines which 50 bits of information you filter out of the 11 million and which ones you ignore.

If your desired experience is connection, your target outcome is getting people to respond positively to you, and your mechanism is to make jokes about other peoples’ shortcomings, your brain will pay attention to the personal short-comings of other people and the reactions of those you deem important when you make jokes about these short-comings.

If your desired experience is power, your target outcome is to make people respect you, and your mechanism for achieving that outcome is to brag about achievements and make people respond positively, your brain will pay attention to moments in the conversation where you can slip in mention of your achievements (real or made up) and to the response it gets from those you’re interacting with.

If your desired experience is freedom, your target outcome is to remove all personal limiting beliefs and fears, and your mechanism for achieving that outcome is to constantly challenge your fears, your brain will pay attention to identifying any fears that arise and developing a plan to challenge those fears.

While other ideas, concepts, thoughts, and priorities will flow through your mind as you live your life, as soon as you have the time and space to focus back on what’s important to you, your attention will always wander to elements directly related to fulfilling your most significant desired experience at that point in time.

It determines: how you interpret the information you choose to pay attention to

The 50 bits of information you process every second don’t just hit your neurons and get filed away in the dark recesses of your mind as objective fact. You interpret those bits of information based on how they impact your life and your ability to get what you want (because that’s the basic drive of everything you do in life). In other words, based on your Script. It determines the meaning you create from any situation or outcome, with different interpretations possible of the same event based on different Scripts. 

For example: your friends have convinced you to join them at the gym for an introduction to lifting weights. You’ve never been before but have wanted to start and so is a perfect opportunity to get moving. After a few quick demonstrations, your friends sit you on a machine and take a few photos before bursting out laughing. They’ve shown you how to do it incorrectly, taken photos, and will now make fun of you over social media, for all your friends to see.

How do you interpret this situation? What is the meaning behind all this? It all depends on your Script.

  • If your most significant desire is connection and your target outcome for connection is being included in things with your friends, this might be a little embarrassing, but you could also interpret it as them wanting to include you in their jokes and fun
  • If your most significant desire is power and your target outcome for power is looking good in front of others, you might interpret this as your friends deliberately trying to make you look bad
  • If your most significant desire is significance and your target outcome for significance is to be the centre of attention, you might interpret this as your friends giving you an opportunity to shine
  • If your most significant desire is power and your target outcome for power is through making as much progress as possible in the limited life you have on this earth, you might interpret this as your friends disrespecting your time

You could interpret this situation in any number of different ways and the way you do will be determined by your Script.

It determines: your emotional and experiential response to that interpretation

Once you interpret those 50 bits you chose from amongst the mess of information that floods in through your senses, you will then experience an emotional and experiential response to that interpretation. Your response will be determined by how much of a positive or negative impact that interpretation has on your ability to get what you want from life. In other words, it will be determined by your Script.

Let’s go back to that same example above. Let’s say your friends are actually jerks and their intention was to actually embarrass you in front of everyone you knew. In fact, they didn’t want to just embarrass you in front of everyone you knew, they wanted to get the clip into a fail army video so you could be embarrassed in front of millions of different people.

What is your emotional response to that? How do you feel when that happens? Well, it depends on you Script.

  • If your most significant desire is connection and your target outcome for connection is having people approve of you, your decision, and your actions, then you will experience a significant reduction in the level of connection you experience
  • If your most significant desire is power and target outcome for power is displaying strength and superiority then you will experience a significant reduction in your experience of power
  • If your most significant desire is power and your target outcome for power is becoming the best version of yourself possible then you might experience a little embarrassment but as the incident has no impact on your ability to become the best version of yourself, your experience of power won’t shift significantly
  • If your most significant desire is significance and your target outcome for significance is being world famous, you will probably experience an increase in significance due to the massive exposure you will receive from the clip. You may actually ask your friends if you could setup and even more ridiculous situation with a higher chance of going viral!

Your Script determines your emotional and experiential response to your interpretation of information because it determines whether or not you were successful in fulfiling your desired experience.

It determines: the direction you move next

Once you’ve filtered through all the noise around you, interpreted that information, and responded emotionally and experientially, the next step is to react to the situation. You’ll make decisions, take actions, interpret the results, and experience another wave of emotion based on how it all works out for you.

There are many different factors that determine exactly how you react and how that reaction plays out for you, including your level of ownership, your talents and ability, your social, geographical, financial, (political, archaeological, spiritual, whatever) situation, and just about everything else in between, but the general direction you choose will be determined by your Script.

If your desired experience is connection, your outcome for experiencing connection is the approval of your friends, and this viral video has resulted in people you thought were friends making fun of you, depending on a whole raft of factors, you’re next step is could be:

  1. Pretend it doesn’t matter and continue to hang out with the same friends but secretly rage inside and explode at them at a later date over something completely unrelated
  2. Secretly complain that your friends are idiots and expect them to change without having the courage to say anything because ‘real friends would just know’
  3. Complain directly to your friends and demand they change because ‘I deserve better!’
  4. Hide in your bedroom and refuse to come out because you’re less likely to lose approval from your supposed friends by hiding out than if you hung out with them
  5. Get blackout drunk so you don’t have to think about the situation
  6. Work out better strategies to get the approval of your friends
  7. Find a new group of friends

Or anything in between. The important part is that if your mechanism fails, you’re either going to pretend it didn’t happen and continue with the same mechanism, find a more effective mechanism, or change mechanisms altogether.

Or, if you’re the 0.01% of people with enough insight and ownership to see that getting approval from your friends in an ineffective way to experience connection and the simplest and easiest way to create a rewarding and fulfilling life is to find a more effective way to experience connection, you might switch outcomes. But, you would either have to have an unusual amount of personal insight and ownership or you would have had to have read this article already.

You Can’t Escape Your Script

Your Script doesn’t just impact your actions whilst you’re in the moment of your Script playing out. Your Script for power doesn’t just turn on when you walk into the gym and wash away in the post-workout shower. Your Script for connection doesn’t appear as soon as you see your good friends name appear on your phone screen and finish as soon as you hang up. Your Script for your most prominent desired experience at running in the background in every moment in every situation at every point in time until you’ve satisfactorily fulfilled it.

This means that until the moment you’re able to satisfactorily experience freedom or significant or power, your decisions, actions and experiences will be driven by your target outcome and mechanism for achieving that outcome.

If your outcome and mechanism for power is impressing people you see as important whilst putting others down, then until you’re able to satisfactorily impress important people, this will be your primary focus, regardless of your situation or environment. Yes, your brain will naturally have to deal with the inevitable situations and circumstances that arise as you live your life, but somewhere in the background, you will always be screening every moment for ways to impress important people and put others down. You will look out for people’s mistakes at work. You’ll look for dumb things people do on TV. Your default reaction will be to criticize others when they trip up on something. This Script is constantly running in the background and you will use it in every chance you get.

If your outcome and mechanism for power is getting people to do what you want through threats and intimidation, then until you’re able to create a situation where you have people doing what you want all the time, you will always be on the lookout for peoples weakness that you can take advantage of. You’ll be on the lookout as you’re sitting with friends at the pub. You’ll be on the lookout as you walk to the bus stop. You’ll be on the lookout as you sit in front of the TV at night scrolling through your Instagram feed. Yes, you will have to find ways to drive to work and get lunch and make plans and complete tasks, but in the background, there will always be a filter running for potential weaknesses you can exploit to feel more powerful.

There will always be an underlying need to fulfil your Script through every situation in every moment of your day. And even when it’s not the primary factor driving your thoughts and decisions, it will always be sitting in the background.

How to Live a Rich, Rewarding, and Fulfilling Life

The quality of your life is determined by how consistently you can fulfill your desired experience. If you can fulfill your desired experience whenever you want, you’ll have a great time. If you can’t, then you won’t. You’ll be in a constant state of deficit, waiting and wanting and feeling miserable.

It’s not rocket surgery, it’s just plain logic. If you can get what you want, whenever you want it, you’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted and be pretty damn happy. If you can’t get what you want, when you want it, you won’t have everything you’ve ever wanted and you’ll be frustrated and disappointed.

This means the secret to living a rich, rewarding, and fulfilling life is to be able to execute your Scripts. If your mechanism consistently achieves your target outcome then you’ll fulfill your desired experience. The question is how? How do you make sure you can execute your Scripts in every moment?

The most obvious answer is to get better at executing your mechanism. If you can get better at executing your mechanism, you can achieve your desired outcome more often and if you’re achieving your desired outcome more often, you’ll fulfil your desired experience. This answer is obvious, but it also ignores the reality of existing in an uncaring reality with uncontrollable variables where some Scripts are inherently less effective than others.

Less Effective Scripts

If I told you that you had to impress your boss, could you guarantee that you could do it? Maybe yes, maybe no, depending on how well you knew them. What about a friend? Once again, maybe yes, maybe no, depending on how well you knew them. What about that weird old lady down the street with heaps of cats who you walk past but never say hello to? Getting tougher. What about the garbage man that you’ve seen but never ever made eye contact with? Getting much tougher. Then what about a stranger who you’d never met before, don’t know anything about, and have no idea what they find impressive? Doubtful.

Now, if your target outcome for power was impressing people by bragging about your achievements, how much control would you have over whether or not you experienced power? Can you walk out your door and guarantee you’re going to feel strong and in control? Sure, you might be able to with your friend or your boss, but there are still billions of people around the world you know nothing about that aren’t going to get hard hearing about how many points you scored in the pickup basketball match on the weekend. When you add in the fact that some people will not be impressed regardless of what you say, simply because they can tell you’re trying to impress them, you’re going to have a hard time. On top of this, the fact that how impressed someone is can depend on a whole raft of external factors outside your control means it’s a very tough way to live.

This isn’t because people are arseholes and purposely want to make you feel bad or your parents didn’t love you enough as a child. It’s got nothing to do with your socio-economic status or racial heritage. It’s because your Script is inherently dependent on something outside your control. You can’t don’t control other people’s thoughts, decisions, actions, or experiences and this means you will never have complete control of fulfilling your desired experience. Yes, you will be able to influence your ability to fulfill your desired experience to a certain extent, but unless you develop some mind-control technique, you will always be dependent on other people’s thoughts, decisions, and actions to live a rich, rewarding, and fulfilling life.

Any Script that is dependent on elements outside your control — whether it’s a Script for power or connection or freedom or whatever — is inherently ineffective because you’re not in control. You don’t have the ability to fulfill your desired experience. You can’t choose whether or not you have an enjoyable day or a miserable day. You’re Dependent on the world around you to give you what you want. Your life will be spent waiting and wondering if today is going to be a good day or today is going to be a bad day.

If that wasn’t enough, not only are Dependent Scripts an ineffective way to live your life, they’re also an unstable way to live your life. Even if you are able to get someone or something else to take responsibility for your happiness and fulfill your desired experience, they can take it away at any moment. Even if your friends do approve of your life choices or that groveling little weasel from accounting completes your report, they can snatch that fulfillment from your grasp without a moment’s notice, with a single decision — and you have no control over it. This means that even when you are able to fulfill your desired experience with a Dependent Script, you’re still going to need to pursue that same pathway over and over again because you just don’t know when that fulfillment and satisfaction is going to be taken from you.

Dependent Scripts, whether they’re for power or freedom or fulfillment or safety or significance, are inherently ineffective and unstable because you’re not in control.

More Effective Scripts

Now, let’s say you had a different Script for power. You currently feel less powerful than you want, you want to feel more powerful, your target outcome is creating your vision of your ideal world, and your mechanism is to become the kind of person you want to be in your One Perfect Day — focussed, directed, productive, honest, considerate, accountable, disciplined, and a person of integrity. Instead of the ineffective and unstable Script based on impressing people, this Script is based solely on elements inside your control — your decisions and actions.

This completely changes the situation because unlike the ineffective and unstable Script, you not only have complete control over whether or not you fulfill your desired experience, but you have complete control all the time. This means you can experience power and control and you can experience it whenever you want, independently of what’s happening around you or whether or not someone changes their mind.

This isn’t just true for Scripts related to power. It’s true for all desired experience. If your desired experience is freedom, your target outcome is doing what you want, when you want to, and your mechanism is giving yourself permission then you have complete control of when and where you experience freedom, regardless of what other people think, say, or do. If your desired experience is connection, your target outcome is sharing emotional commonalities with others, and your mechanism is opening yourself up to feeling the pain, joy, sorrow, and pleasure of others, then you can experience connection whenever you want, wherever you want, regardless of what’s going on around you.

Having an Independent Script doesn’t mean you will always experience power (or freedom or safety or significance) because it doesn’t guarantee you’ll always make productive decisions and take productive actions, but Independent Scripts are inherently more effective and more stable because you’re in complete control of whether or not you fulfill them. You don’t have to wait or beg or negotiate, you can simply identify your desired experience and fulfil your outcome.

The Dependence Spectrum

In an ideal world, Scripts would fall neatly into the Dependence or Independence column allowing you to pick and choose and move forward with your rewarding, exciting, and amazing life. Unfortunately, there’s very little in this world (especially in the area of life advice) that falls neatly into a box. This is also true for your Script.

Scripts aren’t black and white. They don’t conveniently fall into the Dependent or the Independent category. Each outcome and mechanism (and therefore, Script) is made up of many different elements and each of those can be either Dependent or Independent. Because of this, each Script isn’t either Dependent or Independent, but rather sits on a spectrum with complete Dependence on one end where you’re totally and wholly reliant on elements outside your control to fulfil your desired experience, and complete Independence on the other, where you’re the complete master of your life experience in every moment.

For example, if your target outcome for connection is to spend significant amounts of time with people, regardless of what you’re doing or if you’re even enjoying the activities, and your mechanism for achieving that target outcome is to sit in a pub or bar and try to strike up conversations with random people around you, even if those conversations are about meaningless and insignificant topics, there are many different elements involved, some of which are under your control and others which are outside your control. You need to:

  1. Find a pub or bar with people who look like they might be open to talking to you
  2. Observe the standard behaviour of those within the establishment to determine what is socially acceptable and not socially acceptable (to avoid being ostracised for breaking an unwritten rule)
  3. Find a suitable location to sit so that you’re able to converse with others in your general vicinity without appearing to be too needy or creepy
  4. Wait for someone to make eye contact with you
  5. Wait for that person to offer small, innocuous, and safe comments on mutually agreeable topics
  6. Once a basic connection is established with a seemingly agreeable and open person, wait for them to make a followup comment, often in the form of a question, to further engage you in conversation and establish a stronger connection
  7. When you’ve established a stronger connection, ask open-ended questions about any topic that the person appears interested in to entice them to open up deepen your connection whilst offering small insights on their life and your life until you have solidified the connection

There are some Independent elements in this Script. You can find a bar, observe behaviour, and try to make eye contact with people, and then once you feel safe and secure,  pursue a stronger connection, all on your own. But, not all are Independent. Unfortunately, the important ones are Dependent. You can’t guarantee whether or not people are open to making eye contact. And even if they are, you can’t guarantee whether or not they offer comments and commentary. And even if they do, you can’t guarantee whether or not people are willing to chat more with you to solidify your connection.

So whilst there are Independent elements of this Script, the Dependent elements are significant barriers to experiencing connection meaning this Script would sit on the Dependent end of the Spectrum.

Changing Scripts would result in a different position on the spectrum.

For example, if your target outcome for connection is to establish emotionally significant commonalities with open, like-minded people, and your mechanism is to find where open, like-minded people gather, share your emotionally significant life events and see if anyone else has been through a similar event. To do this, you need to:

  1. Identify emotionally significant life events you wish to connect on
  2. Find where people who have had similar life events might congregate (such as support groups)
  3. Attend an event
  4. Find an opportunity to share your emotionally significant life events
  5. Listen to others as they share their emotionally significant life events to see if you can identify a commonality

Whilst you are Dependent on others to share their emotionally significant life events, the fact that you’re attending an event where sharing your life events is an established norm and you’re creating a safe space for others to share their life events by first opening up and sharing yours means the this Script is far closer to the Independent end of the spectrum than the previous Script.

The Dependence Fallacy

The common objection to the idea of finding more Independent pathways to fulfil your desired experience is: “You can never be 100% Independent!” And yes, for 99% of people living in any kind of society, you can never be 100% Independent. Societies have developed specialisation where different people provide different elements necessary to experience a basic level of safety. Farmers grow the food sold in the supermarkets and police ensure the social contract of generally polite and considerate action is upheld.

But this argument is pointless for two reasons.

Reason 1: The Dependent barriers aren’t significant

If you’ve thought “You can never be 100% Independent!” then I’m guessing you’re not a primary producer of basic life survival essentials with crystal clear waters of a pristine mountain stream flowing freely past your water tanks. I’m guessing you live in some form of society where you’re reliant on others to provide your life essentials and therefore feel dependent on them for your basic survival.

Consider this question: if for some reason, your local supplier of groceries closed their doors, would that be the end of your ability to get food? Or would you be able to find a source of food somewhere within a reasonable distance? And even if your water supply was tainted and undrinkable, would you be able to find an alternative source of drinking water?

Yes, you are Dependent on others for your basic life essentials, but the barriers to obtaining those life essentials aren’t significant. There isn’t just one source of food in your entire city. There are many. In fact, there are so many, that even if half of them shut their doors today, you’d still be able to get your essential life supplies without having to sacrifice your basic well-being.

Reason 2: You can always be more Independent

The second common objection is “If I can never be 100% Independent then what’s the point in even trying???” The good news is that while you can actually be 100% Independent if you so choose, you don’t need to. You can simply become more Independent. Instead of finding power through controlling others, find it through controlling yourself. Instead of waiting for others to establish connections with you, open up to them and start the process of connecting. Instead of waiting for others to give you the permission you want to live your life on your terms, give yourself permission.

Regardless of whether or not you’re 100% Independent, you can always be working to live a richer, fuller, and more rewarding life by stripping away the barriers and becoming more and more Independent.

Developing a more Indepedent Script

Now you know the foundations of a Script and how it’s responsible for every barrier, issue, challenge, and frustration in your life, the next step is to start the process of transforming your Script from Dependent to Independent.

Despite the simplicity of these ideas, there are subtle nuances involved in the transformation process that make it challenging for the uninitiated (which is why the LifeOS Life Coach Certification courses take 13 weeks each). But, there is one simple thing you can do that will help you shift to a more Independent Script regardless of your familiarity with the transformation process: create your vision of your ideal life.

The power of creating your vision

Creating your vision of your ideal life is the single most powerful step in shifting from a frustrating, difficult, and challenging world to one of ease, simplicity and fulfilment because it gives you a more Independent pathway for fulfiling your desired experience.

  • When you know what your vision of your ideal life looks like, you can experience power by moving towards that vision
  • When you know what your vision of your ideal life looks like, you can share that emotionally significant vision with others and connect with those who have similarities to that vision
  • When you know what your vision of your ideal life looks like, you can experience freedom by living your life as you want to in your vision
  • When you know what your vision of your ideal life is, you can experience significance by helping others find theirs

When you have a complete vision of the life you want to live, it allows you to start to fulfil your desired experience in a way frees you from needing the world to bend to your wishes.

How to create a vision of your ideal life

The process of creating your vision of your ideal life is surprisingly simple when you know what you’re doing.

If you’re already aware of your desires

If you’re already aware of some of your core desires and have a rough idea of what you want your ideal life to look like, this article will give you a breakdown of the basics of forming them into a complete vision: This is what you should do with your life.

It’ll walk you through some of the common challenges most people face as well as giving you a simple solution to making sure they don’t derail your efforts.

If you’re struggling to find your vision

The process of creating your vision of your ideal life can present a lot of challenges, especially if you’ve never attempted it before. Determining what you actually want, working out if those desires are actually your desires or the product of growing up in a media-driven, capitalist society that constantly bombards you with evocative advertising, and then crafting those into a vision that excites you, presents a number of big challenges.

After walking hundreds of people through the process and seeing the consistent issues and problems they ran into, I discovered that it could be made significantly simpler, faster, and easier by breaking it down into six steps that gradually led people towards their vision. I then also realised that helping people find their vision is an incredible first step but is 100 times more powerful if you also help them develop a plan to create that vision. Oh, and helping them find their life’s deepest purpose is just a cherry on the cake.

That’s why I developed Insight. It’s a 10-day, deep dive into discovering your core drives and desires that leaves you intimately connected to your complete vision of your ideal life and a plan to turn it into reality.

If you’re struggling to find your vision of your ideal life and want the expert support and guidance through the process that also helps you develop a plan for creating your vision and discover your life’s deepest purpose, then check out Insight.

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Although you might find the concepts, ideas, and theories on this website useful, this website and its contents do not take your personal circumstances into account and are therefore, should not be taken as personal financial, political, mechanical, hypocritical, aeronautical, physical, mental, or hypothetical advice. Treating your specific situation and condtions requires an intimate knowledge of your personal challenges, history, and desires and can only be done by a trained professional. If you require specific advice regarding your personal challenges, always consult a registered practitioner.

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