The Human Alignment Framework: Identity, Design, and Calling
A fresh way to understand your life and purpose.
I keep obsessing over this quote by the 14th century mystic, Saint Catherine of Siena:
“Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.”
This gets my blood roaring! It’s what I think about all the time. It’s what I’m doing all the time. Seeking to be who I am, in fullness, without apology. Seeking to help others find their own excellence, found in their true identity, design, and calling.
Let's keep angling the magnifying glass of your life.
HUMAN ALIGNMENT FRAMEWORK
Here is the framework that helps me understand myself and others. This comes from years of wrestling with the big questions of life:
Who am I beneath all appearances?
How am I uniquely formed?
Why am I here above all? What is my mission?
IDENTITY
Who am I beneath all appearances?
Identity is who you are beneath all appearances. It’s the foundational truth that trickles down into all aspects of your life.
We are all living out the fundamental things we believe about reality. The tricky thing is, we might not have put language to those beliefs.
For most of my life, I believed I was a coward and a failure. I believed this deeper than my conscious mind could reach. It was a name that I had accepted as truth. But it was never true.
But I couldn’t consciously disagree until it was revealed to me.
I did some house cleaning in my late forties, and swept out some old names and sought out my true names.
Today, the name that I hold at the core of my being is BELOVED.
My worldview, informed by my Christian faith, gives me the emotional, mental, and spiritual foundation to hold this Belovedness as the fundamental truth of my life.
We all have a fundamental belief that we are living out. Many of us have not named it.
Who are you beneath all appearances?
This is the Identity question.
My favorite book on the topic of Identity is Living Fearless by Jamie Winship. His definition of identity is slightly different from mine, but we our ideas are definitely aligned and compatible if you zoom out.
DESIGN
How am I uniquely formed?
Once you know who you are beneath appearances, then you can add onto that. You can know how you are uniquely formed. A hammer is different from a saw. They have distinct applications. Both are essential, but they are totally distinct from one another.
I am a uniquely formed human with strengths and weaknesses that are indicative of my roles in life.
Knowing who you are and how you work is the difference between a life of joy and effectiveness and a life of frustration and friction.
There are things I used to hate about myself, but now I love them.
I am great at generating ideas, but I struggle to bring them to completion.
I have low conscientiousness, which means I naturally have trouble with consistent and sustained action over time. I have trouble with consistent awareness and execution of the details.
These are weaknesses that exist because of my strengths. I am emotional, passionate, enthusiastic, creative. I love big ideas. I get bored easily because I long for newness and variety.
If I didn’t have these weaknesses, I wouldn’t have formed some of the incredible alliances and systems that I have in my life. These have multiplied my effectiveness. And so, I’m grateful for my Kryptonite.
Your design is indicative of your calling. You need to be familiar with your design so that you can accurately understand your calling.
Your Superpower and your Kryptonite are a subset of your design. They represent your design strengths and weaknesses.
Experience also fits in this design bucket; the experiences that have formed you are a part of your ongoing design.
Passions, dispositions, and key interests also fit here.
Self discovery and personality frameworks like Enneagram, Ikigai, Working Genius, Clifton Strengths, and Big Five are all created to surface and name different elements of design.
Any handful of these frameworks, taken seriously, can yield important information about how you work so you can focus your effort for greater joy and effectiveness.
That’s the work that we can commit ourselves to. Focusing, narrowing, harnessing sunlight into a laser beam.
I spend a lot of time helping people inside the Design layer of the Human Alignment Framework.
My book, The Superpower Quest, plays in this sandbox.
CALLING
Why am I here above all? What is my mission?
If your Design is your form, then your Calling is your function. It’s the work that provides purpose and meaning.
Calling is the groan of your heart -- what you long to bring about in the world.
Here’s mine:
“I imagine a world in which all people experience the joy and effectiveness of serving others in alignment with their unique Identity, Design, and Calling.”
That’s my calling: To draw people closer to their calling, and to connect people so they can serve and amplify each other.
I’m uniquely formed to carry out this calling, and I’m empowered by my identity of Belovedness to offer this gift to the world.
You are uniquely formed to carry out your own calling in the world.
An aligned human takes the time to answer the big questions. We are all in different stages of alignment. So much of life is just the process of coming into greater alignment; sharpening the beam.
An aligned human knows who they are, how they work, and why they’re here.
It is a breathtaking thing to see an aligned human.
Aligned humans set the world on fire.
The closer you come to this alignment, the more your life will make sense and create impact.
ACTION ITEMS
Take 15 minutes to mediate on these questions, and joy down notes:
Who am I beneath all appearances?
How am I uniquely formed?
Why am I here above all? What is my mission?
Take my Superpower Quest assessment at SuperpowerQuest.com/survey.
If you are a leader, take my Leadership Scorecard Assessment to understand how your design relates to your leadership. Leader.SuperpowerQuest.com.