Structure Creates Your Outcome

Whether mineral, vegetable or animal, everything has structure. That structure determines what it is and how it functions in the world. Some structure can be easily seen, such as a crystal, a leaf or a running horse. Other structure is harder to see, until you look for it, and then you can see the structure in everything.

The most productive model for creating comes from the traditional arts: acting, architecture, music, painting, sculpture, etc. They are all based on structure. Even a novice can hear the structure of a piece of music. Change the structure of that music and you change what it sounds like.

Just as in the arts, structure in your life creates your outcome. This is an absolute. If even part of your structure is inaccurate, ineffective or counterproductive, it will be much more difficult or impossible to achieve and maintain your goals. If your structure is fatally flawed, it won’t matter how much you want your goal, how much effort you make, how much you deserve it or what a nice person you are. It won’t happen.

Your structure is the total approach of how you achieve your goals and dreams. It is the frame around your approach, strategies, tools, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. At the most basic level, your structure is your goal and current reality and together they create structural tension. Keep it that simple and the structural tension will pull you towards your goal.

Thus you may need to clarify your goal and it is very likely that you will need to clarify your current reality in relationship to that goal. For many people, being totally honest about where they are is emotionally difficult. Your natural response to the tension of the structure is to want to reduce it, thus moving you towards your goal. To understand this tension, picture yourself are standing outside of your favorite restaurant and you are hungry. If you only focus on these two, how long before you will go in and eat? Not long unless you start bringing into your structure, concepts that are in opposition to your goal. Beliefs such as “I don’t deserve to eat there” or “I should be exercising,” will move you away from your goal and back towards your current reality, i.e. unresolved hunger.

Keep concepts that are in opposition to the achievement of your goal, out of your structure. A common example of an oppositional concept is: The goal of making a lot of money. Suppose you are thinking about the concept that more money will give you more options, yet if you have an unconscious concept that money is the root of evil your goal is less likely to be met. Therefore, you must keep this concept out of your structure. If you have an accurate and effective structure, the structural tension will allow you to use the least amount of effort to create what you want.

This structure is disarmingly simply and effective. It can be applied to the creating of any goal. In The Managerial Moments of Truth, Robert Fritz and Bruce Bodaken write about how to use structural thinking in the business arena.

print this page