Over the last seven weeks we have examined various aspects of Your Current Circumstances, within the context of the CAR formula to produce Your Best Life. The CAR formula is C + A = R or Current Circumstances + Action = Results, where the results we are after is Your Best Life.

Today I want to bring the discussion about Your Current Circumstances to a close by using what I have called Your Six S’s to summarise and consolidate our deliberations. You will have seen all of these topics except for one. Can you pick it? Hopefully, Your Six S’s is a helpful way to remember all of these important elements of Your Current Circumstances. 

Remember that what we are aiming for here is a concise, yet comprehensive indication/description of Your Current Circumstances – one that you can use as a template to later describe Your Best Life, and the changes that need to happen to Your Current Circumstances to produce Your Best Life.

So here are Your Six S’s.

1. Your Season(s)

Your Season is related to your age. Spring = 0-25 years, Summer 25-50 years, Autumn 50-75 years and Winter 75-100 years. What age are you and what season are you in? 

2. Your Settings

Imagine your life as a circus – a three-ringed circus – as they used to be. And further, imagine that the three rings represent the three different departments (or Your Settings) of life. I am suggesting that everyone can relate to these three. They are:

• Your home or private life
• Your education/work/retirement life
• Your worthy causes or public life

How would you describe each of these now and what changes do you expect (if any) as you move to the next season of your life?

3. Your Surroundings

No matter which of Your Settings you are considering, (Home, Work or Charity), that setting contains the following elements:

• Environment – Natural and man-made
• People – individual peers, or teammates
• Organisations – business or not for profit, formal or informal
• Communities – towns/suburbs or virtual
• Kingdoms/Nations – Different countries or God’s kingdom

You need to know how to work with or manage all of these.

4. Your Self

At the heart of Your Life is you. You are managing and participating in all three rings in your life (Home, Work, Charity). The elements of you are:

• Your physical body
• Your subconscious mind
• Your conscious mind
• Your will/spirit/driver/decider
• Your clothes and behaviour

Again, you need to know how to work with or manage all of these. 

5. Your Strengths

Whatever task, action or project you undertake in any one of Your Settings (Home, Work, Charity), you need the KASH to manage Your Surroundings and Your Self. KASH is the mnemonic meaning:

• Knowledge and understanding
• Attitude – What does it mean? What can you do with it? What is its relevance?
• Skills – to lead/manage/work with tasks, self, environment, others, organisations, communities and kingdoms
• Habits – of thought and action

6. Your States 

I invite you to contemplate and evaluate Your Strengths, Your Self, Your Surroundings and Your Settings. How do you feel about them? In essence, there are three categories you can put them into: Good, Ok and Bad, or three emotions you can have about them: Happy, Neutral, Sad. Another way of describing the three possible states is: Optimal, Normal, Subnormal, or you can give them one of three colours: Green (best), White (average), Red (worst). As we move to consider your Best Life over the next few weeks we will be moving from Normal – describing Your Current Circumstances to Optimal – describing Your Best Life.

Points to Ponder

• What Season are you in?
• What are Your Settings and their subparts?
• How do Your Surroundings and Your Self work in each part of Your Settings?
• How do/did/will you handle any crisis? 
• How do you evaluate Your Current Circumstances?

Copyright © 2021 John Harris