Self-awareness, Self-control, Self-discipline, Focus, Curiosity, Motivation

I have long been noodling around what are the constituent elements that support beneficial life outcomes (health, income, wealth accumulation, education attainment, etc.) In a post a while ago I identified what seemed like five critical elements towards beneficial outcomes: knowledge, experience, skills, values, behaviors.

Knowledge
Experience
Skills
Values
Behaviors

In a particular circumstance, if you have the right portfolio of these elements, you are likely to achieve a desirable outcome. The challenge of course is that is a rather static condition. Life is a dynamic experience which is hard to predict. So what are the behaviors or personal attributes which shape one's response to exogenous events in such a way as to build that portfolio of KESVB that is most likely to be beneficial in the broadest array of likely circumstances?

My speculation is that it is likely some combination of

Self-awareness
Self-control
Self-discipline
Focus
Curiosity
Motivation

Self-awareness - the capacity to honestly assess one's own strengths and weaknesses and adopt appropriate coping mechanisms or strategies of adaptation.

Self-control - the capacity to stop oneself from doing what is known or likely to be detrimental.

Self-discipline - the capacity to do what one knows needs to be done.

Focus - the capacity to prioritize one or two goals above all other desirable objectives and the corresponding capacity to then martial one's scarce resources (time, money, attention, etc.) on those one or two goals. Not to the dismissal of the other good objectives but with the proper prioritizing around the major goal.

Curiosity - the willingness and desire to explore and discover, to learn.

Motivation - the motif force behind any action; ambition, desire, greed, love, etc. There are normative judgments about the nature of the motivation but the fundamental issue is whether there is sufficient motivation to act, whatever the source.

When I look around at executives that I know and other colleagues and acquaintances who operate at the top of their professions, I see all of these attributes. When I look at people operating significantly below par, I see usually 2-3 or three of these attributes significantly missing.

Curiosity and Focus are interesting bedfellows in a dynamic tension with one another. Curiosity leads you afield in exploring new domains of knowledge and capacity. On the other hand, it distracts you from priorities as well, diffuses your focus. We see this in one form right now with young people having been raised in an environment of open, always on, access to information (internet, google, social media, etc.) who are in a constant state of distraction. Focus is the counterbalance to curiosity. Explore, but explore in the context of what you are trying to achieve.

These two models KESVB and SASCSDFCM are interesting to consider from the partisan angle. I suspect partisan liberals would focus on KESVB, and particularly on the KES component. The extent to which you have been educated, accumulated knowledge, developed skills, and enjoyed a wide range of experiences creates a huge inequality based on class, income, and parental capacity. And that is right.

I suspect partisan conservatives are more interested in the VB of KESVB and more particularly in the SASCSDFCM which are substantially self-determined. And SASCSDFCM seems likely to dominate KESVB in terms of predictability of outcomes. Both are critical and both are necessary.