The Belief Framework
Coherent Aim
The BELIEF Framework
Clarifying Your Coherent Aim
The first stage of Coherence is about creating enough spaciousness, presence and connection with yourself for something deeper to emerge.
A vision. An idea. A desire. A calling. A felt sense of what wants to be created, experienced or expressed through you.
At first, this may be subtle, formless or difficult to articulate. You may feel it before you can explain it. You may see glimpses of it without yet knowing exactly what it looks like or how you will get there.
The next step is to begin giving this vision form.
The BELIEF Framework is designed to help you clarify your Coherent Aim without disconnecting it from the inspiration that gave rise to it.
The intention is to take something that may currently exist as an intuitive feeling, energetic connection or emerging possibility and translate it into something increasingly clear, tangible, measurable, experiential and livable.
Your Coherent Aim becomes something you can believe in, experience, live into and organize your life around.
BELIEVABLE
Your Coherent Aim should exist beyond your current comfort zone, but within an expanding horizon of belief.
It should require something of you. It may challenge your existing beliefs about yourself, your circumstances and what is possible. It may require learning, development, growth and a new level of character.
At the same time, there needs to be enough genuine belief in its possibility that you can establish a relationship with this reality and begin moving toward it.
The question isn't necessarily:
Do I completely believe I can do this right now?
A more useful question may be:
Can I genuinely believe that I can become the person capable of creating and holding this reality?
The aim can stretch your current belief system while remaining close enough to possibility that you can begin expanding your belief to meet it.
Questions to Explore
Do I genuinely believe this reality is possible for me?
What about this aim already feels believable to me, and what stretches my current belief?
What would be required for me to move beyond my current comfort zone and grow into this reality?
What would need to change, develop or expand within me and within my life?Begin to consider: What would I need to believe about myself, my life and what is possible in order to fully believe in this aim?
You don't need to completely answer the final question yet. Simply begin noticing what arises. We will explore this much more deeply as we move into Character.
ENERGIZING
Your Coherent Aim should give you energy.
There is inspiration, excitement, passion, curiosity, desire or some other quality of aliveness when you connect with it.
This energy matters because the aim isn't simply somewhere you're trying to arrive. The process of moving toward it becomes part of what inspires you to create, grow, learn and act.
Pay attention to what genuinely moves you.
Notice the difference between what you think you should want and what actually comes alive within you.
Questions to Explore
What about this aim gives me the most energy?
What am I genuinely excited or inspired to create, experience or become?
If nobody expected anything from me, why would I still want this?
Which parts of this vision feel alive, and which parts feel like obligation, expectation or something I think I should want?
When I imagine pursuing this for the next year, does the pursuit itself energize me? Why?
The destination can inspire you, but so can the path itself.
LIVABLE
Your Coherent Aim isn't only a future destination.
It is something you can begin living into now.
You don't need to wait until your circumstances have completely changed before you begin establishing a relationship with this reality.
There are choices you can make today. Actions you can take. Ways of creating, working, relating and living that begin bringing the future into the present.
The question becomes:
If this is where I am going, how can I begin living in relationship with it now?
This begins collapsing the distance between the person you are today and the reality you are choosing to create.
Questions to Explore
How can I begin living this aim today?
What would someone living this reality consistently do that I can begin doing now?
As a thought experiment, what habits, practices or routines might naturally belong to this reality?
Imagine the lifestyle around the aim. How does this person spend their days? How do they use their time? What do they practice? How do they live?
You don't need to design the entire system yet. For now, simply begin seeing the life that surrounds the aim.
IDENTIFIABLE
Your Coherent Aim needs enough form that you can identify it in reality.
What exactly are you aiming toward?
How will you know when you're moving toward it?
How will you know when you've reached it?
This is where the emerging vision becomes increasingly tangible, measurable and trackable.
Some elements may be quantitative: money, audience, clients, hours, frequency, output, dates or other numbers.
Others may be observable conditions or experiences.
The purpose is to create enough clarity that you can identify progress, recognize what is working and understand what you're actually moving toward.
Questions to Explore
What specifically am I aiming to create, experience or accomplish?
How will I know when this aim has been realized?
What can I measure, track or observe that demonstrates movement toward it?
What timeframe gives this aim a meaningful container?
Give the vision enough form that you can recognize it.
EXPERIENTIAL
Your Coherent Aim isn't only something to think about.
It is something you can begin to experience.
Before all of the external evidence exists, you can establish an emotional, sensory and energetic relationship with the state of the aim fulfilled.
What does it feel like?
What is the emotional quality of this reality?
What happens within your body when you allow yourself to experience it?
The more familiar you become with the state, the more you can begin creating from it rather than merely moving toward it.
From that state, different ideas may arise. Different choices may become obvious. Inspiration, intuition and information that correspond with the aim may become available.
Questions to Explore
What does the fulfillment of this aim feel like?
What emotions, sensations and qualities of being belong to this reality?
What would a daily practice look like that allows me to experience this state now?
As a thought experiment: If I were creating from the state of the aim already fulfilled, what might I do differently today?
You don't need to force an answer.
Enter the experience and notice what arises.
FOCUSED
A Coherent Aim gives your attention a direction.
When you become clear about what you're choosing, you also become increasingly clear about what you are not choosing right now.
Not every opportunity, activity, relationship, thought, habit or commitment will be coherent with the reality you're creating.
Focus allows you to discern what belongs and what doesn't.
It allows you to concentrate your time, attention and energy around what matters most while releasing, reducing or temporarily deprioritizing what pulls you away from it.
Your Coherent Aim can gradually become an organizing principle for your life:
Is this coherent with my aim?
Questions to Explore
What is the essential focus of this aim?
What are the few things that matter most to its realization?
What am I currently giving time, attention or energy to that is not coherent with this aim?
What am I willing to say no to, release or temporarily deprioritize?
Focus doesn't require doing everything.
It asks you to become increasingly clear about what matters.
Bringing the BELIEF Together
Once you have explored each dimension, return to your Coherent Aim as a whole.
BELIEVABLE
Believe in the possibility.
ENERGIZING
Connect with the inspiration.
LIVABLE
Begin living it now.
IDENTIFIABLE
Give it tangible form.
EXPERIENTIAL
Experience its fulfillment now.
FOCUSED
Organize your life around it.
Your aim does not need to emerge perfectly formed.
Allow yourself to approximate it.
Give it greater definition. Feel into it. Write it down. Explore it. Test it against your experience. Notice what feels coherent and what doesn't. Adjust it as more information becomes available.
The intention is to gradually translate what began as a subtle inspiration into something you can see, feel, believe in, experience and live.
Eventually, you arrive somewhere much more tangible:
This is what I am choosing.
I believe in its possibility.
It gives me energy.
I can begin living it now.
I know what it looks like.
I can experience it internally.
I am willing to focus my time, attention and energy around it.
And from here, another question naturally begins to emerge…
Who must I become to manifest this?
This is where the exploration of the Coherent Aim begins to open into the next stage: