Be the Designer of Your Life
Key Practice #4 - Experiential Behaviors
Explore Experiential Behaviors and new ways of being and doing; discover more about what you love about life.
Curiosity is the movement of the Universe itself, through you, to experience life. |
Continuing from the previous exercise, we can further reinforce the development and practicing of healthy and sustainable beliefs and ways of living through new experiential behaviors. There are many planning and learning styles we can explore to help us get started. In trying new things it is not definitively necessary to uproot our lives and head down a new path. Gentle new choices can create a world of new possibilities. Again, the idea here is to create a trusting relationship between our minds and our hearts. Before we get moving, however, it is important to revisit our compass settings to ensure we are traveling in the direction we truly wish.
Emotional Qualities of Our Visioning List
Looking back at your scored Visioning List from Key Practice #2, the next step is to rank order your visions that scored 8 or in each category of desire and belief. This is also a good time to modify and rescore the list if necessary, recognizing your value and values. Then you can begin to explore the top 10 items from a perspective of your own emotional intelligence. In this journal exercise, as you review each item, it is essential to relax the mind and body and allow tension, control and judgement to fall away. Focus on ease, flow and authenticity. Welcome in any and all expansive and contractive emotions about each item.
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Life Really Is About the Journey
Contractive emotions about a vision are entry points for introspective journey work. In this way we can uncover and open into any mental-emotional blocks or limiting beliefs that may hold back our success. With these feelings we can revisit the two exercises in the previous Key Practice: “Replacing Limiting Beliefs” and “Sustaining Healthy Beliefs”. Our Practices for becoming the designers of our lives are just a small part of our whole-life potential and possibilities. When we hone in on blocks or limitations associated with our desires, and unravel them at their core, we open the doors for entirely new possibilities in all areas of our lives.
The expansive emotions associated with a vision have an entirely different use in Intentional Journey Coaching. The reality of our visions is that our desires do not rest in some end goal or thing. What we really desire is the emotional qualities we believe that thing will bring into our lives. It is not the new car or job or relationship we desire. What we are seeking is the feeling we believe we will have once we have those things in our lives. From this awareness we can begin to realize that life, and our joyful experience of it, really is not about the destination. Life really is about the experience of the emotional journey along the way.
Having this appreciation for the underbelly of what drives us in life is vital element in planning and practicing new experiential behaviors. We can begin to appreciate what being non-attached to our Goals feels like. The next step is to hone in our compass setting by crafting personal Vision and Mission Statements.
The expansive emotions associated with a vision have an entirely different use in Intentional Journey Coaching. The reality of our visions is that our desires do not rest in some end goal or thing. What we really desire is the emotional qualities we believe that thing will bring into our lives. It is not the new car or job or relationship we desire. What we are seeking is the feeling we believe we will have once we have those things in our lives. From this awareness we can begin to realize that life, and our joyful experience of it, really is not about the destination. Life really is about the experience of the emotional journey along the way.
Having this appreciation for the underbelly of what drives us in life is vital element in planning and practicing new experiential behaviors. We can begin to appreciate what being non-attached to our Goals feels like. The next step is to hone in our compass setting by crafting personal Vision and Mission Statements.
Crafting Our Vision & Mission Statements
The number one main ingredient in crafting personal Vision and Mission Statements for your journal is that they evoke powerful, drawing emotion. We want to deeply feel into our vision and mission so our lives become a living expression of our desires. These statements will cause us to bounce out of bed in the morning to greet the day with energy and excitement, and bring us to a restful sleep at night.
A Vision Statement is a simple, succinct and powerful sentence. We might consider it our personal mantra. It is a phrase that will guide our inner compass and focus the light of our inner being. It is something that does not change often. It gives us clear direction for years or decades. Recall the “Tell Me My Heart’s Desire” exercise earlier from Key Practice #1. This type of meditation or introspective journey work is very helpful for accessing within us the simplicity and powerfulness of a guiding message for ourselves. We can also use our journaled Value and Values notes to help us here.
A Mission Statement is longer but still concise, about a paragraph. It gives details about the Vision we want for our life and our future. It is something that will provide us direction for months or years. Our Top-10 Visioning List, and the expansive emotions we feel about them, are good reference points. We can consider our Mission Statement an elevator speech or personal marketing pitch. It is what we will use in Key Practice #5 to enroll trusting relationships that support our Vision and new ways of being. A Mission Statement is clear and concise enough to keep the attention of others focused and energized.
In summary, a Vision is who we desire to be and a Mission is what we desire to do within that beingness. My Vision Statement might be to be a great world leader, and part of my Mission Statement might be to conquer all with love.
A Vision Statement is a simple, succinct and powerful sentence. We might consider it our personal mantra. It is a phrase that will guide our inner compass and focus the light of our inner being. It is something that does not change often. It gives us clear direction for years or decades. Recall the “Tell Me My Heart’s Desire” exercise earlier from Key Practice #1. This type of meditation or introspective journey work is very helpful for accessing within us the simplicity and powerfulness of a guiding message for ourselves. We can also use our journaled Value and Values notes to help us here.
A Mission Statement is longer but still concise, about a paragraph. It gives details about the Vision we want for our life and our future. It is something that will provide us direction for months or years. Our Top-10 Visioning List, and the expansive emotions we feel about them, are good reference points. We can consider our Mission Statement an elevator speech or personal marketing pitch. It is what we will use in Key Practice #5 to enroll trusting relationships that support our Vision and new ways of being. A Mission Statement is clear and concise enough to keep the attention of others focused and energized.
In summary, a Vision is who we desire to be and a Mission is what we desire to do within that beingness. My Vision Statement might be to be a great world leader, and part of my Mission Statement might be to conquer all with love.
Experiential Learning Plan
Experiential learning is a way to begin exploring our hearts’ desires and new ways of being. It takes us out into the world and begins to shift our everyday life. For each Goal we can look toward our Mission Statement to create Subgoals and Actions that allow us to test out and feel into new experiential behaviors. Looking back at our Top-10 Visioning List, the next step is to pick one to three Goals that we feel have the biggest emotional bang for us, and we believe we can accomplish. Completing this journal exercise for one goal might look like the example provided below.
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As we do this, it is important to pay close attention to the emotional qualities we are desiring to achieve with our Subgoals and Actions. If we set up experiential learning steps that evoke the expansive emotions of our Visioning List, we will begin to train and reinforce in our brains that it really is about the journey and not the destination. An experienced mentor or Intentional Journey Coach can help us to find the passion in our Actions in ways that remain non-attached to our Goals. Then we can fully enjoy our experiential learning steps and vibrate in new ways of being that will attract our Goals or something even better.
Planning & Learning Styles
As we begin to make plans and take action it is helpful to be aware of different planning styles. We can talk with a mentor or coach about our favorite planning styles and how those can be leveraged. We can also consider other planning styles that might be helpful for structuring a path towards our goals.
As we engage in learning new things it is helpful to also be aware of different learning styles. Again, we can talk with a mentor or coach about what is most comfortable, and what has been our most enjoyable ways of learning. We can also consider other ways of learning that might work well. Be most aware of how you feel about your plans. Expansive emotions mean you are on track. Contractive emotions can mean something to avoid. Contractive emotions can also be something useful to explore with introspective journey work, to get to the core of any limiting beliefs or mental blocks you may have.
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Learning Styles
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Celebrate Failures
There are no wrong paths when we go on an adventure. That is why we call it an adventure. Consider life as a laboratory and our bodies as experiential vehicles. We want to take successful steps in the direction of our hearts’ desires to bring joy into our lives, and to begin to teach our minds to trust our hearts. When we commit to try something new, this is enlisting the mind as a valuable asset. Since the mind wants to keep us safe from feelings of failure or embarrassment, it will figure out how to do it.
But what happens if we feel we have failed because we do not accomplish something we set out to do? Often we have been taught and coached to battle through failures. Still, sometimes we just can’t find the resolve and constitution to do it, or we find ourselves back in old patterns of behavior. Then what do we do?
There is a better way then battling ourselves. When running into difficulty, stop and open to it. In becoming the designers of our lives we celebrate failures, because in the process of stretching into new ways of being we have just uncovered a mental or emotional block. As we discussed earlier, coaching goals are just a small part of our lives. That block is a doorway into the limiting beliefs and patterns we have about ourselves or life. Through introspective journey work we can get to the core of the block, uproot it, and plant new healthy awarenesses about ourselves and life. This, will in turn, open doors for new possibilities in all areas of life.
But what happens if we feel we have failed because we do not accomplish something we set out to do? Often we have been taught and coached to battle through failures. Still, sometimes we just can’t find the resolve and constitution to do it, or we find ourselves back in old patterns of behavior. Then what do we do?
There is a better way then battling ourselves. When running into difficulty, stop and open to it. In becoming the designers of our lives we celebrate failures, because in the process of stretching into new ways of being we have just uncovered a mental or emotional block. As we discussed earlier, coaching goals are just a small part of our lives. That block is a doorway into the limiting beliefs and patterns we have about ourselves or life. Through introspective journey work we can get to the core of the block, uproot it, and plant new healthy awarenesses about ourselves and life. This, will in turn, open doors for new possibilities in all areas of life.
Experiential Learning
Experiential learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes. It really is about your journey and not your destination. Experiential learning is a continuous process, growing your experience and awareness. It is naturally full of tension and opposing modes of adaptation. Experiential learning involves interactions between you, the learner, and your environment. It is a holistic process of adaptation to the world you live in. It involves exchanges between the social knowledge you encounter and your personal knowledge. Most of all, enjoy the process of learning. Trust that you cannot do it wrong and that everything you need to know is already within you.
GO TO: Key Practice #5 - Supportive Environment
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