The Occupational Adventure (tm)

Who do you want to be?

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Where do you want to go with your life? I recently ran across this fabulous exercise. Project yourself five years out in the future and ask yourself...

• Which qualities have I developed in myself?
• Which are the most important lessons I have learned?
• What have I done for others that I feel most happy about?
• How did I manage to stop underestimating myself?
• How did I manage to stop underestimating other people?
• How did I manage to stop pretending that I cannot do things?
• Which kind of powers and abilities did I discover in myself?
• Which kind of powers and abilities did I find in others?
• What can I do right now in order to be this person in five years?
• If it feels right, make a commitment to yourself to make this vision reality.

Part of what I love about this is that it's not just who you want to be, but how you want to relate with the people around you.

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

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Fortune cookie coaching

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Yesterday's post about fortune cookies got me thinking about the potential to use fortune cookies as a catalyst for exploration and discovery.

A couple years ago I posted about using tarot cards as a career exploration tool. The idea was not that the cards could foresee the future, rather it was that they would give your mind something to bounce off and look for connections.

You could do the same thing with fortune cookies. Rather than opening a fortune cookie and saying, "OK, what does my future have in store for me," you could open it and say, "OK, what could this mean? How could this apply to my journey? What is this pointing to that I'm ignoring? What does this symbolize? What steps do I need to take to make this happen?"

In my one-on-one work with people helping them find the path to passion (and truthfully, in my own journey as well), it never ceases to amaze me how much knowledge and insights we already have in our own heads and hearts. It's just sitting there, waiting for us to put two and two together and make the connection.

Fortune cookie coaching can be a fun way to spark those insights and make those connections.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Manifestation cookies

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Susan at Work from Within had a fun post last month about a spin on fortune cookies that she calls manifestation cookies. In her words...

I encourage you to gather a group of friends and write your own words of wisdom and motivation on colorful slips of paper.  What is it you want to manifest?  Ease?  Prosperity?  Connection?  Fun?  Whatever you want, write it in the form of a brief message, with fortune cookie sensibilities, like "You will soon be united with the life partner you deeply desire" or "You are about to go on a fun and meaningful adventure."

I love the idea of having a manifestation cookie jar. Any time you need something positive to focus on, just reach into the cookie jar and, voila, a completely randomized manifestation focal point, courtesy of the Universe, God, the Divine Spirit, or utter chance, depending on how you see the world.

(Oh, and she has a link to a fortune cookie recipe too.)

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Year-in-review question #7: What difference did I make?

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I'm a firm believer that having a happy, rich, fulfilling life isn't just a one way street. Getting the most out of life means making a positive impact on the world around you as well. Paradoxically, there's a substantial personal benefit (energy and inspiration, a sense of purpose, etc.) to be had when we focus on something bigger than ourselves.

Looking at the past year, ask yourself, "What difference did I make?"

There are a million different ways you can make a difference. What difference did you make with your work? What difference did you make with your family? What difference did you make with your friends? What difference did you make in your community?

What difference do you want to make?

The real benefits don't come from focusing on some big picture, external definition of making a difference. They come from making a "personally meaningful difference," and that's a unique and individual thing. The question isn't, "What do other people think is meaningful," it's, "What feels meaningful to me? What inspires me?" In short, what pushes my buttons?

Take a look at your life over the last year. Where do you want to make more of a difference? What are you drawn to? What have you done that felt particularly compelling?

The more insight you can get on what making a personally meaningful difference means to you, the more you can purposefully incorporate opportunities to do that into your future.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Year-in-review question #6: What do I love about my life?

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Just like it's easy to fall into the abyss of focusing on what we've done wrong, it's easy to get lost wallowing in what we don't like about our lives. To counter that, ask yourself, "What do I love about my life?"

Give yourself a pool of positive aspects about your life to focus on, both on the work front and the personal front. They can be big and deep (e.g., I love the fact that I get so much love and support from my family and friends), or not-so-deep (e.g., I love the fact that every Friday I have a chance to drum with a bunch of people who love drumming).

You may want to expand this into a long-term habit with a gratitude journal.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Year-in-review question #5: What was less than preferable?

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Much as I'd like to pretend otherwise, nothing's perfect. As you look back on the last year, ask yourself, "What was less than preferable about my life in this past year?"

The intent of this question isn't to give you a list of things you can moan and whine about, saying, "Woe is me." The goal is to help you step up and take control by following up each of those items with the question, "OK, now what can I do about that in the future? How can I change that?"

It's easy to feel powerless in the face of what we don't like about our lives, shrugging our shoulders and saying, "I can't do anything about that." So I'd like to encourage you to put this spin on the question. Ask yourself, "If I had no choice but to change that - if allowing more of the same were not an option - what could I do about it?"

Get creative. Step outside the bounds of your customary thinking. Look at your assumptions and ask if they're really valid. Explore other possibilities.

Take both a short-term and a long-term perspective. If you absolutely can't do anything right here, right now to change it, what might you be able to do within, say, five years if you start taking steps right now?

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Year-in-review question #3: What did I achieve?

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The purpose of this question is to shine a light on what you've accomplished over the last year. Too often, it's easy to get wrapped up in how we didn't succeed, or the goals we failed to reach. For a lot of people, their perception of life starts to get defined by gaps, rather than substance.

Spend today looking at your accomplishments over the last year. What were your achievements (big and small)? They don't need to be press-release-worthy (though you can certainly include those!). The idea is simply to start really paying attention to the plus side of what you do.

Did you start a new business? Did you make it to all of your son's baseball games, or all of your daughter's concerts? Did you gain a new work skill that was outside your comfort zone? Did you start learning a new language? Did you start an exercise regimen and stick to it? Did you hit your sales quota? Did you change careers?

Ask your family, friends, and colleagues to help you create the list. They might remember achievements that you don't.

This exercise isn't focused so much on, "What did I learn?" as it is, "What can I celebrate?" Spend some time as the year winds to a close celebrating where you've been and what you've done so you can build on that energy in the coming year.

You might want to expand this exercise into a long-term habit, making it a regular part of your routine to stop ask, "What have I accomplished - big and small - in the last week/month/etc.," and then celebrate it.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Year-in-review question #2: What went wrong?

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Now that you've looked back and learned from what went right, take a look back and ask yourself the flipside - what went wrong? This isn't an exercise in self-flagellation. We're not interested in looking at what went wrong to give the inner critic more reasons to beat us over the head. We want to see what gifts those experiences have that we can build on  in the future.

So after making a list of what went wrong, ask yourself, "Why?" Why did that go wrong? What was behind it? How did I contribute to that? How did external circumstances contribute to that? What did I have control over? What could I have done differently?

Once again, the last step is one of distillation into nuggets of insight you can put to use in the future. Things like...

"When I ______, it got in the way of success."
"When I didn't ______, what I tried didn't work."
"When I didn't ask for _______, things didn't go as well."

Mistakes and failures are some of the best investments you can make in your future success - if you're willing to look at them and learn. 

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Year-in-review question #1: What went right?

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There's no place to start like the positive. What went right in the last year? Take stock of your successes, and the times when things fell into place, both in your professional and your personal life.

For each of the things you listed, take it a step farther. Why did they go right? What did you do? How did you approach what you did that helped that happen? What external factors supported that positive outcome?

Now take it yet another step. What did you learn from that? Boil it down into pieces that you can apply in the future. For example...

"When I ______, it helped me succeed."
"When I asked for _______, things went better."
"When I stopped _______, it helped me _______."
"When I focused on _______, the outcome was always positive."

Distill nuggets of insight that you can put to use in your favor in the years to come.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Year-in-review questions: Building a foundation for 2007

Congratulations! You've made it to the last week of another year. Now the big question is, what do

mapmaker.curtrosengren.comyou want to do with it?

You can either wave goodbye as it flows under the bridge (which is typically what most people do), or you can turn it into a solid foundation for the year to come.

Whether it was a shining year or a disaster zone, 2006 has incredible gifts of insight and understanding to offer you. Like just about anything good, of course, it will take a little work on your part. To get the most out of the year you just lived, you can't just look back and say, "wheeeeee!" or slap your forehead and cringe. You have to dig in and excavate what's there.

To help you along, I will be posting a "year-in-review" question each day for the last week of the year (starting with my next post) to help you squeeze the most out of 2006.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM