Sunday, May 11, 2014

Redirect Seminar in Lake Mary

We are well into our Spring 2014 Redirect seminar, delivered  at St Peter's Episcopal Church in Lake Mary, FL.

This seminar, which we developed in 2012, is focused on goal-setting. It's not meant to be a complete introduction to career development, the field where we have more than 40 years of experience working with clients from around the world.

Czechoslovak executives at The University of the South, Sewanee, 1992
It is, instead, a quick 4-session seminar that helps participants determine just one goal, work-related or not, that can guide them for the year to come.

So far we've been guiding our participants through the foundational sessions of the seminar, helping them in these areas:

1. Establishing that they have a sincere interest in setting a new goal for the next year, and beyond.

2. Examining their past accomplishments and evaluating, from them, their preferred skills, motivational patterns and definition of success, as well as looking for roadblocks that may prevent them from reaching their goal.

3. Exploring possible goals and choosing just one.


 We've been talking about the seminar and our participants this week and have come up with two more short exercises that we think will be helpful to them. This is their homework!




Where have I been happiest?

 Looking back at your life, where have you been most happy with your circumstances? Think of a particular place, maybe a house, cottage or apartment, where you really enjoyed your life.

  • describe this place in some detail--how it looks, where it is, how you happened to be there

  • note what you did on a daily basis in this place

  • list the people, animals, and so on that lived with you or were frequent guests

  • try to say, in 20 words or less, what it was about this place that made you happy.

The point of this exercise is to pinpoint the factors that make you happy, and incorporate as many as possible into your goal.

What do I want to do with the next 20 years?
 
 Start counting the years to come by adding 20 to the current year: 2034. Now think about these question::

  • where will I be living? with whom?

  • what will I be doing every day?

  • what kind of person will I be? what will I have accomplished in my personal life, my professional life, and the life of my community?

  • how can I get there from here?

This is a big assignment and will, no doubt, change shape as time goes by. But if you have no clear idea where you're heading, you might find the years slipping through your fingers. The best place to start planning the next 20 years is where you are right now. Giving a long-term perspective to your life can help you use your time more carefully and with more gratitude for having the gift of a future.






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