When I was 16 years old, I went to Catholic school for a year. Interestingly, right in the middle of this drop in Catholic period, I began reading about Buddhism. In the 24 years since then, I have continued to find these teachings helpful.

In Buddhism there is something called the 8 fold path. The components of the path can roughly be described as complete vision, perfected emotion, whole speech, integral action, proper livelihood, full effort, complete awareness, and one-pointedness of mind.

When I read about the eightfold path, something really clicked for me. It was like reading about the path to fulfillment. I had realized at this point that much of my pain was self inflicted and was looking for ways to change how I lived.

The principles of the 8 fold path and similar ones from other religions and philosophies guide my work and my life.

For example, when I am working with my Business Development people, they often ask about different high level, often expensive methods that can be used to grow their businesses. They will feel like they need advanced strategies to be successful.

In response, what I always say to them is, “What ultimately do you want for your business?” You don’t employ top level methods for a 100k a year business. If you do, you will always be spending more money that you make. Not a good business strategy.

This is a very long way to say that things are not useful or not useful; good or bad, it is all about what they are intended for if they are the right fit for the situation.

When we start using a method or anything else for that matter without thinking, we create unintended results. These results are sometimes good and sometimes bad.

So, my question for you today is what are you trying to create? And, is what you are using going to get you there? To me this is related to the \”complete vision\” step of the 8 fold path. The clearer you are on both of these questions, the faster and farther you will move toward your desired goal.

by Dr. Kate Siner