Plan the Next Chapter

On Sunday, we spent the entire day on action planning.  This is a typical thing to do toward the end of a personal development program.  The objective to produce a plan was typical, but the approach we took was unique. 

Each person first reviewed all the work she completed over the prior days, highlighting or taking notes on the specific actions to include in her plan.  She then created a set of specific goals, with deadline dates, and a short list of supporting tasks or milestones.  Some people had a few specific goals, and others had loads.  I ended up with ten goals.  It sounds like a lot, but they were clustered into four themes and they feel 100% do-able to me.

We used large sheets of cardstock to create a planning board.  Some people organized their goals into a timeline.  Others used a quadrant format.  Some had an arc.  One person created "books" to hold various goals in themes.  Some people used both sides of their board.  I created a mindmap.  Once we had the goals and steps articulated in words, we cut up magazines and added images and/or headlines to embroider our plans with more layers of meaning and beauty.  Unbelievably, we spent three solid hours on this activity and most of us would have taken more time.

After a quick lunch, we shared our plans with our small groups and got feedback from each other.  Then we rejoined the main group and shared a one minute version of our plans with everyone.  It was inspiring to see how everyone's personal visions came together.

We closed the day with some thoughts about how to take the work forward, how to keep in touch with our small group, and how to stay connected to our plans.  I already re-set the wallpaper on my cellphone as a picture of my plan.  My small group has a call scheduled for next month to reconnect.

Having now completed Life Launch, I'm ready to start the Coaching Certification phase.  That starts on Monday and I'm looking forward to it.

A Full Day of Life's Assignments

Life Launch started today with the same opening exercise: bouldering on the beach.  We are so lucky that the weather in Santa Barbara has been so beautiful these past few days, allowing us to enjoy not only bouldering but many other sessions outdoors.  Four members of our group experienced the bouldering exercise yesterday.  Today it was my turn to be one of the remaining three in our group to experience bouldering.  It was a workout in both a physical and a mental/emotional sense.  I will retain a strong memory of my bouldering for a long time to come. 

Balancing the roles and activities in life was the next thing we tackled.  We looked at six human systems: Work, Family, Couple Relationships, Friends, Personal, and Community.  Our task was to example how we have invested our time and energy into these six human systems in recent months and years, and how we want to schedule ourselves into these systems going forward.  In turn, each of us had a chance to experience our as-is and to-be systems map.  I assigned a member of the group to hold up a sign with the word "Friends" on it and told her where to stand in relation to me and what to say.  I did likewise with each of the six human systems.  The group then bombarded me with their messages until I called a timeout.  I then re-set their places and their messages and they bombarded me again.  We debriefed how that worked, what else to fine tune, etc.  It was fun and enlightening.  I enjoyed participating in this for myself and for each of the women in the group.  We all shared a commonality, in that involvement in community organizations was on the periphery compared to everything else.  Then we sat down and did some personal work on what to change, eliminate or start in order to realize the shift in the balance of our six systems.

Writing a letter from the "old sage" within me was the next activity.  Each of us projected ourselves 20-30 years into the future and wrote a letter from that point of view to the woman each of is today.  We had no idea while we were doing this that we would be asked to read our letter aloud.  When our facilitator showed up to let us know that time was up on letter writing, and she was holding a box of tissues, I had a feeling what was coming!  I'm looking forward to taking some of the advice that the "old sage" within me had to offer.

The afternoon sessions were intense.  We defined our purpose and found our richly detailed personal vision.  Doing this work allowed us to braid in all the insights we had developed up to this point.  Included in one group member's vision was a reunion next December.  I'll be looking forward to that.

It's break time now.  This has been a jam-packed, intense and very worthwhile day. I'm glad for the chance to reflect and regroup myself. 

Tonight we have a group dinner and parlor games.  It should be good fun.

Boulders, Renewal and Passion

We started a very full day in the Life Launch seminar with an exercise called "bouldering" that is designed to address resistance and help overcome resistance.  We worked on the beach in small groups.  One of us shared a goal, and then shared the voices and messages that inhibit pursuit of the goal....things like "You don't have the talent."  or "You'll never be successful at that."  Each member of the group took one of those messages and repeated it, while the group worked to block the goal-seeker's progress.  We were enacting the process of resistance.  Eventually, the goal-seeker broke through the resistance or told us it was time to let her go.  Then we shifted gears and the goal-seeker came up with messages of encouragement.  The rest of the group repeated the encouraging messages and helped the goal-seeker to move forward.  After we left the beach, we talked about how to take the process of boldering forward into real life (e.g., through writing about the voices).

The next segment focused on deepening our work on the Cycle of Renewal.  I settled on Quadrant Four "Getting Ready" as my current status, although I continue to feel that my life experience today is divided among all four quadrants.  I am already doing many activities that are appropriate for this phase.  One of my challenges is that I'm impatient with this phase.  I want to be done with getting ready and move into Quadrant One!  Meanwhile, I do need to continue the networking and learning and exploration that I've got underway.

After lunch we worked on passion and core values.  I've had the same passions and core values for many years:  achievement, relationship intimacy and creativity.  It was useful to revisit how these passions have shown up in my life, how they motivate me today, an dhow they inspire me for the future.  I gained a few insights about concrete things I will do to advance my values and passions.  We're referring to these as experiments.  The purpose of experiments is to gather data to prove or disprove a hypothesis...which means that experiments can't fail as long as you learn something.

The last exercise of the day involved creating a personal symbol.  I did an intricate drawing of a coil pot brimming with what's important to me:  My family, yarn, good food, flipcharts, etc.  I really like the way this drawing turned out.  This may need to end up in a frame on the wall of my office where I can look at it often.

Most of the group had happy hour and dinner together.  It was an enjoyable evening.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Life Launch

This week I took the first step towards becoming a certified coach.  I've done a fair amount of coaching over the years and have even taught John Whitmore's G.R.O.W. model of coaching.  I would like to enhance my coaching capabilities so I can 1) be even more effective in my current role and 2) expand my range of options for future roles.

After gathering recommendations from people I trust, I investigated a few coaching programs.  I settled on The Hudson Institute after talking with one of the faculty and reading a book by the institute's founder, Frederic Hudson.  The book, titled The Adult Years: Mastering the Art of Self-Renewal proposes a theory and model of adult development.  Unlike child development models which are premised on a linear increase in levels of capability, this model is a circle and is premised on a repeated cycle of renewal.  The theory resonated with me.

So here I am, in my hotel room in Santa Barbara, reflecting on my first day.  A pre-requisite for the coaching program is completion of a seminar called Life Launch.  This is a program to help adults who are in the midst of transition and change to reflect and envision a plan for their next steps.  Prospective coaches have to complete the Life Launch program before they can start the coaching certification program.

Today we did a lifeline exercise to summarize our personal history, plotting our peaks and valleys.  My biggest insight was that the peaks were generally things I chose or resulted from things I chose, while the valleys were generally things that happened to me or resulted from things that happened to me.

We also spent some time getting to know the others in the program.  There are 14 participants, 11 women and three men.  We are doing much of our work in two small groups of seven.  My small group is all women, and I'm intrigued by each of them.  I'm looking forward to spending more time with these ladies over the coming days and into the future.

We wrapped up the day with an overview of the cycle of renewal and some discussion on how it might apply to each of us.  I feel like I'm in all the stages at once.  Perhaps I'll have more clarity on where I really am after sleeping on it tonight.  We spoke about ways to "feed and water" the stage called cocooning.  The value of journalling came up.  I used to do a lot of journalling during my college years and early adulthood.  I found myself resisting - - and voicing my resistance - - during the discussion this evening.  I was thinking "I haven't even been blogging lately, how can I journal?!"  And that brought me to this moment.  For the next few days, I'll use my blog to keep a journal of the Life Launch experience.

We closed today's session with a "check out" activity in which each person shared a single word that summarized how they were feeling.  All I could think of was the word "minty" so that's what I said.  I was chewing gum, so of course, I did feel a minty taste, but there is something more to it.  Mint is invigorating, clean, awake, and a little edgy in a good way.  That's how I'm feeling after the first day.