Purpose – This is about your Why, your Purpose, your reason for being. Why do you do what you do? Why have you got the goals and dreams that you have? What is the purpose behind what you do? It is essential that you have a clear understanding of your “Why” as this defines the reason behind what you do. It is the Core behind what we do; crucially it is also the core behind who we are: Our Identity.

We all know the “What “of what we do, and some know the “How”, however neither of these will be that powerful if we do not clearly know our ‘Why’. It needs to be the core and central to the ‘How’ and the ‘What’. This is because the ‘Why’ deals with your internal drivers, your value and belief system. If we do not consciously know this, then we are not only missing a trick in terms of how to communicate with the people around us; it could in fact, be argued that we do not know who we are. You need a reason to get out of bed in the morning, to apply your precious days and energy to whatever you are doing. If your ‘Why’ is not clear, then the ‘How’ and ‘What’ will also be affected.

Vision & Values - Your Vision and Values overlap with the ‘why’, but they go into the details of your identity.

Vision - Defining a clear vision is a critical aspect of your ability to drive your own success. A clear vision is critical in programming your destination and in turn will give you the motivation and momentum to drive your energy in the right direction and stay on your path. A clear and defined Vision is key for an Individual, a Team or an

Organisation. Without a vision there is no destination or direction of travel. As a navigator of a ship or the pilot of a plane we would think it crazy not to have a clear destination, yet often we as humans are very vague about where we are going. If we do not have clarity about our direction, then we cannot be surprised that our ship ends up in unexpected waters. Of course, we can know our vision and still need to be able to navigate through the unexpected as we do not know where our travels will take us as we are travelling towards our desired destination. That is why our values and beliefs are so important. They help us to create a framework of how we will behave as we are on our travels.

Values – Understanding Your Values as an Individual, a Team or a whole organisation is a paramount element of your Identity. Without clarity on our values and beliefs we are not on a conscious journey of travel. We will all have attitudes and thoughts and ideas that are unconscious and automatic, but any development journey is about raising the automatic to the conscious level. Once they are conscious, we can work with them, understand and reflect on them in order to instigate necessary change. In order to achieve that we need to develop conscious awareness and standards that we wish to set for ourselves. A common set of shared values in a team or organisation form a fundamental basis to how we guide our behaviours and can guide our communication and understanding on challenges and issues. It makes a solution-focused approach possible. Of course we also need honesty about the attitudes that underpin the individuals and whether people are committed and accountable to the cause. Our values are inextricably connected to our attitudes.

We have developed tools and techniques that analyse values and understand these in the context of beliefs and behaviours.

Communication - Everything we do verbally and non-verbally communicates who we are to others. Therefore Communication is central to our identity. Discovering our unique communication style empowers us to consciously make a fresh and new difference in our lives. The challenge of self-development is always to raise the unconscious to the conscious level and by understanding the psychology of communication this allows us to unleash new behaviours to create the impact we desire.

However, crucially the secret of success is to stay true to one’s integrity and to ensure that we are still communicating in line with our values and beliefs. Part of the human condition is that we wear several hats and therefore have to decide on the appropriate communication styles and behaviours in any given context. In the complexity of life and the challenges of competition and presenting our best selves to others, humans often present false selves to others. Some people are so practised at that they do not even know that they are doing it anymore. We need to honestly question ourselves what actually is our real self? Do we even know? We know from research around the world that the most respected leaders are those that have integrity. The most successful type of communication is therefore the one that is true to ourselves, and will present the real honest picture rather than one of superficiality and pretense. Human beings have an uncanny ability to see through lies and deceit. Therefore, the aim is to communicate with integrity and to be sure as we are communicating with true conscious intent, ensuring that our communication is in line with our Vision, Values and Purpose.