Archive for Design Thinking
Focus on Reflective Action for 2012
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Sunrise Beach Musings
Reflective Action- is this an oxymoron? Nope! Not how I use the phrase, as they are both elements of one process.
Let’s explore. Are you one who treats the ‘New Year’ as a time for reflection, redirection and resolution? I hope so, even though any day provides many such opportunities- what I refer to as ‘Pivot Points’….moments where you can affirm or change direction by making choices and taking action in alignment with those choices.
Since the brain is a pattern making organism it supports habits and routines. That’s what makes change such an effort. We are very often so used to doing certain things we no longer really notice we are doing them. You want to be sure to be up-to-date on rituals and habits you perform, making sure they serve your current goals and best interests.
So, I recommend you taking a ‘Habit Scan’. This is a chance to reflect on your way of going about your life day to day. With pen and paper or notation device in hand, mentally walk through your day and note the routine actions you take daily, then add in weekly, monthly and annually. Include both positive and what you might consider less supportive or even detrimental habits.
These can include everything from what you eat and drink, how you exercise, your ways of relating and communicating to key people in your life, routines at work, how you get work done, gift-giving, celebrating, how you use free time, hobbies, who you hang out with, lifestyle quirks and anything else you can think of.
One of my habits is to go to the beach for sunrise musings and meditation, especially on holidays or special occasions. I stretch, walk, reflect, sometimes sing and always write in my journal. I love it and should really make it a more frequent habit for how restorative it is for me.
Sometimes a habit will show up by NOT showing up! For example, if regular exercise is foreign to you, it will not show up on your Habit Scan. Pay attention to the gaps as well as to what is there.
Now for the Action. Once you have written them down, take note of habits you want to continue, habits that need updating by adjusting to serve you better, and habits you definitely choose to discontinue. For example, do you REALLY want to keep going to the donut shop every Friday morning? You might choose to continue, but change what you order. Or you realize that’s your habit because the carpool colleague you no longer ride with used to do that and you never changed your routine. Or you like the social aspect but realize you could meet at a healthier spot.
Then choose several new or adjusted Reflective Actions to put into play in the New Year.
Here are 3 of my new Reflective Actions:
- perform a Mindful Moves sequence daily, either before my morning walk or as an afternoon refresher (Mindful Moves is a new book and video I am releasing any day on Amazon!)
- Open, overview or , better yet, activate any online program I purchase within 48 hours
- Make an offer at least once a week for one of my products or services: courses, books, workshops, coaching sessions or speaking
Now it’s your turn. Do your Habit Scan, Reflect and take Action!
Interview w Me on Walk for Tibet Florida
Posted by: | CommentsMy friend, colleague & fellow red-head Heidi Richards Mooney interviewed me here on my imminent event, Walk for Tibet Florida.
As a Legacy Strategist, it is my honor to work with people like Jigme Norbu in shaping their legacy into meaningful form by how they express and live what matters to them. We all go through stages of Identifying, Articulating and then Manifesting what our destiny is, so that it becomes, in effect, our ‘Living Legacy’. (I AM, expressed.)
How about you?
Creative Civility, Compassion & Communication
Posted by: | CommentsToday is officially set aside to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his message; his dream made all the more urgent with recent events in Tuscon which had President Obama pleading for more civility and care in our relations with each other.
This requires we draw upon personal resources of kindness, tolerance and goodwill that psychologists are expressing concern our current youth lack. Rather, according to reports, they have grown into a generation of self absorbed narcissists who feel entitled to meet their needs before (or without) considering the common good.
From my perspective as an educator, I recognize that many behaviors stem from role models. This spreads responsibility to parents, teachers and other adults to demonstrate appropriate behavior. I know from my work with companies that many adults feel the humanity squeezed out of them by relentless demands at work, coupled with Read More→
Let Your Perceptual Cage Be Rattled
Posted by: | CommentsWhat we see is not always what something is. If that’s true,how would we even know that?
Perception, which guides how we as humans behave in the world, is shaken by neuroscientist-artist Beau Lotto in his TED talk which explores what is so-called ‘real’ vs. ‘illusion’ . Ultimately, what is going on is a combination of the bio-science of vision and contextual framing.
Once we understand how we might each see what appears to be one thing can actually be many other things depending on our perceptual or visual framework or context, we are one step closer to being more empathetic, compassionate and sensitized to cultural differences as a species. We might literally act differently once we ‘get it’ that our certainty of view stands on shakey ground…the same shakey ground as the next guy with his or her certain views.
Bring it on! Enjoy this profound talk, and leave a few minutes afterward to let your cage be rattled. It’s worth the 16 minutes.
Creative Distinctions-When Does Single Turn into Unmarried?
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s alot of hoo-ha over the fact that proposed Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan hasn’t been married. There’s the school of thought that says, “so then she’s gotta be lesbian”, which has the gays rallying to support her and the government back-pedddling between, “well, we are denying she is homosexual, but….even if she were there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Then there’s the school of thought that recognises that a busy professional woman of her caliber not only doesn’t have much time for dating, but many men are threatened by obviously highly intelligent women. In fact, the 60 Minutes news episode on Harvard Business School students revealed that many Harvard women hid the fact they were Harvard grads for just that reason. They called it the H-bomb.
So the question raised in our morning paper today is, when does being ‘single’, which implies available, ready for fun and romantic exploration cross over to ‘unmarried’, with the implication of undesirable, past-the-sell-by date, frumpy and old maidish? Why do we associate ‘single’ Read More→
Creative Leverage of Emotions in Negotiations
Posted by: | CommentsIn our Mastermind group last night we reviewed the book Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate by Roger Fisher & Dr. Daniel Shapiro . Brendon Burchard then gave a brilliant overview of 10 hallmark aspects of extraordinary negotiations. Underlying all is the recognition that relationships should always supersede the deal. Embrace these ten things along with thinking and creativity tools to leverage the information, and your negotiating experience and outcomes will more likely to be successful to the fullest extent of the word.
10 hallmarks:
• Presence-real ,attuned emotional availability
• Passion-feeling deeply for what you, as a negotiating group, are working towards which may be bigger than what you, representing your group’s interests alone, want
• Patience-respect other people’s deadlines as well as the unfolding of the process
• Caring-empathy with the other’s identity and position, even if not their view
• Purpose-what’s the overall purpose you are there for , remembering relationships Read More→
