How do you use your answer to guide what you choose?
Use your standard to assess your current situation, evaluate your options, and explore other possibilities when your current options don’t meet the mark.
You may be able to name them. Or you may know what you want to change, what you want more of, or what you no longer want to accept.
When describing what you want, you might be inclined to get specific. Or you might use broad terms that capture the general idea without defining the details.
Both approaches share a common problem.
Specificity is often recommended to support clarity. The problem is making details mandatory when an outcome could work for you without them.
For example, if you specify $300,000 in annual net income as one of your aspirations, would earning $299,999 really make the outcome unacceptable? What about $299,000? Or $275,497?
Broad terms can help you express a general idea without defining every detail. The problem is that they leave their meaning open to interpretation.
For example, if you name “more freedom” or “financial security” as one of your aspirations, what do those words really mean to you? If you asked another person what they mean to them, would you both provide the same description?
These approaches seem like opposites, but they leave you with the same problem: neither description faithfully captures what you mean.
Both vague descriptions and specific details can be shorthand for the life you would like to enjoy after you decide.
In one case, you have specified a detail without establishing that it is necessary. In the other, you have not provided enough information to describe what is necessary for you.
Your aspirations, hopes, and dreams describe where you want to go. To use them to guide a decision, you need a description that makes that destination clear.
In many ways, it is similar to describing a place you want to visit on a map.
Let's illustrate this with an example. Think about a particular restaurant you know, enjoy, and want to visit.
“A nice restaurant” gives a general idea, but it does not point to a particular place. Where do you mean?
The description conveys a general idea without establishing where you want to go.
Similarly, “financial security” and “more freedom” express aspirations without establishing what you mean by it.
“A restaurant where dinner costs $65 per person” adds a precise detail, but it still does not establish where you mean.
There is more information, but it still does not point to a clear destination.
Similarly, specifying $300,000 in annual net income adds precision without describing what you want that income to provide.
There is no single level of detail that makes a description useful. Different descriptions can point to the same destination. What matters is whether the information establishes the place you mean.
When it comes to identifying a restaurant on a map, you could use its address or its coordinates.
With a clearly identified destination, you can:
▪️communicate that destination to someone else.
▪️assess your current location in relation to the destination.
▪️identify possible routes to take you from where you are to the destination.
▪️evaluate routes that could get you there.
For your aspirations to guide your life-changing decisions, you need a description you can use in these same ways.
The ORS™ is a guided framework that translates your hopes, dreams and aspirations for your decision into a personalized decision standard — one you can use to assess your current situation, identify gaps, evaluate options, and explore alternatives.
The first part of applying the ORS™ is developing your personalized decision standard.
Just as property lines collectively define the boundaries of a place, your ORS™ necessary conditions collectively define the boundaries of the destination your aspirations point toward.
Within the ORS™ “necessary” does not mean the bare minimum or what you would reluctantly tolerate.
ORS™ necessary conditions capture what your decision must deliver for you to be genuinely satisfied with the outcome. It is perfectly acceptable for your standard to be demanding.
You'll move on to the next part of the ORS™ once you have described your desired destination by defining your standard so that it captures what you want by clarifying that matters, what is genuinely necessary, in a way that captures the outcomes you require rather than one possible ways to achieve them.
Once you have developed your standard, you will receive resources to help you apply it to your current situation and the possibilities you are considering
The templates and instructions you receive will enable you to:
▪️Give others a clear picture of what you require: Enable others to identify what meets your standard and what does not.
▪️Assess your current situation: Compare your current situation with your standard.
▪️Generate alternatives: Brainstorm different ways to meet your standard.
▪️Evaluate opportunities: Assess options against your standard.
Use what you need from ownership to guide which business you buy.
Use what you need from ownership to guide what you do next with your business.
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The Operational Reality Standard™ and ORS™ are trademarks of Happy Mindset Inc.