Day 7: Review and Plan

Take a few minutes to review your eighth week. Write about your accomplishments and what you need to work on. Did you:

• Brainstorm some goals, dreams, and exciting ideas that might help you to transform your world?

• Write about what you want your life to stand for - how you wish your world could change, what would make it better for everyone, and big and little problems in your life and in the world that you would like to see solved?

• Write a list of the choices and options you have for transformation now and in the future?

• Examine your Truth with a vision walk, to help expand your understanding of life, and give you greater clarity?

• Write a haiku mission statement for one project or goal that is rising to the top of your priorities?

• Prepare to seek clarity with a few others, either in a formal clearness process or an informal discussion, by writing a short essay introducing your mission, and a list of questions?

• Open the door to transformational love and accept that you will find the strength to carry out your mission?

• Map out your mission, set an intention, make a backwards calendar, and a full effort plan?

• Try a creative awareness process, using observation of your encounters with uncertainty, leaning in to encounters with uncertainty, your love journal to review encounters with uncertainty, and touching the river of Transforming Power to step out of the safety zone and make a shift to peace, strength, and joy?

Schedule your next week, Step 1: 

• Thursday - Adjust your Priority Grid for the month: Check off what you have completed, add new items you have thought of, and move anything down lower that no longer fits.
• Friday - Block in your schedule for the next week: Add events and blocks of time for your priority categories (such as an hour for committee work on Tuesday and Thursday).
• Saturday - Fill in the details: Schedule a daily time for all of your daily priorities, like exercising; choose days and times for the one-day tasks like sending that birthday card; and schedule in the chunks of those big task-driven projects. 

 

Evaluate your Ducks in a Row: If situations are constantly moving you away from your priorities and you feel dissatisfied and out of balance, make a note about why that is. Also, make a note of which of your priorities are getting left out of your life. 

Brainstorm new goals, dreams, and exciting ideas for your future.

Summary

You transform your world when you get clear on your missions, test your leadings, and open the door to creative risk-taking. No matter our limitations, we can produce the energy of love and extend it to the world so that it grows out in ripples.

 

Going forward, you will:

• Examine your Truth - often, in whatever way works for you (your journal, vision walks, a clearness process, ...?)

• Open the door to transformational love  - daily, for as long as live. 

Day 6: Take a Creative Risk

Nothing changes unless we change. All the work you have done to know yourself and understand others is interesting; but it's how you use it that takes it from interesting to transformative. You are now equipped with the knowledge to transform your thoughts and feelings by acting on your Truth and extending love to the world - you can simply tune into your values and principles, and draw on your strengths and the transforming power of love.

Transforming Power is a term coined by the Alternatives to Violence Project, which was started by Quakers and inmates at the Greenhaven Prison in New York in the 1970's, at a time of great unrest and violence. Together the inmates and the Quakers developed non-violence workshops inside prisons, which continue to this day, with town and inmate students, and town and inmate leaders.

In a nutshell, Transforming Power is a river of energy at your core, made up of your essential wisdom, strength, and goodness, which you can touch in with in order to experience a shift. It might be a shift from anger or resentment to peace; it might be a shift from fear and powerlessness to strength; it might be a shift from sadness or worry to joy. 

The shift you experience might be slow and steady or like a lightning bolt, but it will contain an element of love: You become part of the whole, no longer isolated. You will experience a self-acceptance and a sense of peace that allows you to connect with others without hesitation. It's this connection that transforms you: Your view of the world is transformed, everything is different. You see people and situations in a new light, are able let go of whatever was holding you back and act - one small step at a time.

The Alternatives to Violence Manual says, “'Transforming Power’ is not dogma nor is it an item of faith. It is simply a term to refer to something that participants often experience when they respect themselves, care for others, seek a non-violent path, think before reacting, or expect the best.” AVP gives every participant a little card to carry that lists the Guides to Transforming Power. I want to highlight three:

-Base your position on truth.

-When you are clear about your position, expect to experience great inward power to act on it.

-Do not expect that this response will automatically ward off danger. If you cannot avoid risk, risk being creative rather than violent.

The final habit we will practice is the habit of creative risk-taking. Creativity is our greatest super-power, the rich resource that leads us towards transformation. You've been practicing creativity all throughout this book - you've generated creative ideas with brainstorming (which is, remember, to freely think outside the box and generate ideas without the fear of criticism); you have creatively visualized your path forward with vision walks; and then you created a map of your future.

Day 5: Open the Door

At the start of this second section I asked you to center your living in love. Our main purpose on earth is to grow in love; our world needs more love. With more love, we could do away with war- we would have no prejudice, oppression, or violence of any kind. Everyone would have enough food because we would feed each other. We would care for the environment because we love our planet, and the animals, and our children too much to harm it.

How, then, do we create more love in the world? We simply need to open our hearts wide as often as we can, wider and wider, calmly throw open the door to love. 

If you have a leading to act in love, and you have gone through all the stages of discernment, you might be clear on your next steps. That's where we are often stuck, though - we might hear the Truth, but still have doubts about its absoluteness; we might hear the Truth and see our path forward but struggle against apathy, or mind-numbing fear.

Ed Bacon says, “But however Truth comes, it bears with it just enough of its own sense of rightness to overcome the fear of risk taking. While genuine risk plays a crucial role in all of the Habits of Love, it is perhaps most keen in the Habit of Truth. At too many forks in the road, anxiety stops us from following Truth's suggested direction. What will happen if I say yes to Truth as I recognize it? That question can arrest us in our tracks."

Whatever your biggest mission is now - personal growth, healing, service, relationship revival, activism, or something else - you need to find the strength to open the door. This is your growing edge: To accept that you will be carried beyond yourself; to accept that you will find the strength and creativity to take the risk, walk your path, and speak your message out loud. 

Today you will draw on your organizational skills from the first part of this book to open the door to transformational love. 

• Map out your mission: On a plain piece of paper, start a Mini-Map with this priority mission in the center. Looking at your Base Map, follow the connecting lines to all the values (and other priorities) that relate to this one priority, and add them to the Mini-Map. Have a little chat with yourself in your journal, or just make a list of the values (and other priorities) that lead you to action for your mission.

• Set an intention for your mission using the action + deepest reason model.

• Make a backwards calendar: Brainstorm a list of all the supplies, information, people, skills, and steps you need to take to complete your mission. Group all the tasks into chunks. Organize chunks into the order they need to happen. Plug your chunks of action into the weeks of this month on your priorities grid.

• Make a full effort plan for how you will lean in and spark full and energetic effort day-by-day, for your mission: Brainstorm a list of the things that have worked to motivate you in the past and form your Full Effort Practices into simple steps.

Day 3: Write a Mission Haiku

Stephen Covey says, “The first principle of ethical power is Purpose. By purpose, I don't mean your objective or intention- something toward which you are always striving. Purpose is something bigger. It is the picture you have of yourself-the kind of person you want to be or the kind of life you want to lead.”

Purpose and mission statements are popular with organizations, but they are also useful for individuals. I'm using Purpose to mean your overarching idea of who you are and what you want to contribute, and Missions as your various big projects or directions in life.

After all the work you've done in the last weeks, you probably have an inkling of your purpose in life, and some ideas of missions. Today I ask you to choose one mission or leading to examine closer, and write it as a haiku that gets to the core of your mission, and gives you a framework for your actions. You might be surprised by what surfaces in this process, so give it a try!

• Start by ranking your missions in life: If you discovered today that you had just six months to live, what would you focus on? How would you rank your goals by priority so that they would be accomplished before you die?

Day 2: Truth Walk

Truth is a continual revelation, a constantly unfolding series of insights about how your mind works, how the world works, and how you might best act with more love, generosity, justice, and peace. I'm using Truth with a capitol T to mean an absolute - something that is foundational for you: Your values and principles, and your world view, and the leadings you have for action. 

If you have no Truths (no moral absolutes) then you will have no moral guidance. Everything will be situational: Whatever feels or seems right at the time and in that situation is right. This kind of “whatever feels good” mentality and lifestyle creates a society that regards all values, beliefs, lifestyles, and truth claims as equally valid. If we have no absolutes, then chaos follows.

At the same time, we need to accept that Truth is not the same for everyone, and learn how to listen to the Truth of others without getting angry or confused. And we need to accept that our own foundations change, as we grow and understand the world differently. 

Examining your Truth from time to time is a habit that expands your understanding of life, and gives you greater clarity.

Yesterday you wrote out your conscious, top-of -the-mind ideas about how you wish your world could change, and ideas that could lead you to change your world for the better. Now take another pass at it. This time, access your deeper, intuitive mind - your connection to God, or the Inner Guide, by putting yourself into a relaxed, trance-like state, and seeking a leading of the spirit with an open mind and heart.

Week 8: Transform Your World + Day 1: Journal & Set Intentions

For the first four weeks of this challenge, you deep-dived into your reasons for living, made a map of your path forward, and a plan for how to give full effort to your priorities. And for the last three weeks you centered your living in love by giving open-hearted attention to your daily interactions with the people in your life, to your personality style, and to generosity, equanimity, and other virtues and social skills.

The only thing remaining to do is to go out and transform your world. That's the gift we have - to see what needs to change and do the work to change it. No matter our limitations, we CAN make the world better, one smile, kind word, or conversation at a time. 

When I say "transform your world" I am suggesting a shift towards a better life: It could be mostly an inner renovation, or lifestyle alteration; it could be an adjustment in your relationships; it could be a new project or area of growth; or it could be a move into activism or service. You might already have an inkling of where you are being nudged. 

The work of transforming your world has several steps. This week you will take time to hear your truth, and get clearer on your various missions in life; learn how to test your leadings; and how to open the door to the uncertainty of life, take creative risks, and find the courage to act on your leadings. 

We will go through the steps of discernment - the process of making deeply important decisions in your life - that I set out at the beginning of this book. You will:

-Use your practical wisdom, collect information, reflect on your values, and weigh all the possibilities for action. 

-Seek a leading of the spirit (God or Inner Guide) with an open mind and heart. 

-Seek clearness by inviting thoughtful questioning (not advise) from some people you trust.

A note about your Inner Guide

I've mentioned your Inner Guide throughout this book, but what is it, really? Some people call it intuition, or a gut feeling; others feel it in their heart; and some might call it a leading of the spirit. It's that flash of insight, or creative impulse, or sudden clarity you get when you've been working out a problem; or it might be a leading or itch to act on something you never thought of before. It's sometimes quiet and subtle, and sometimes loud and clear.

Week 7: Act in Love + Day 1: Journal & Set Intentions

We've been occupied with love the last two weeks, coming at it from different angles. We've looked at the habits of kindness, generosity, and equanimity, and we've looked at nurturing yourself. You've been working towards Maitri, an honest and direct friendship with yourself: You pay attention to yourself the way you would a good friend - with curiosity, compassion, and gentleness. The next step, then, is to try to understand yourself even better, to be honest and clear-sighted about your strengths and limitations. What is it about you that drives and informs your values and your goals? What makes you behave the way you routinely behave?

We each have distinctive styles of how we interact with other people and our environment, and different motives, habits, and needs. This week we will look closer at your temperament and your personality. 

Your temperament is your unique style of responding to external events. The traits of temperament are those you are born with, probably inherited from your parents, and these become the foundation for your personality, which begins to develop in your early years. Personality includes your temperament, and also behaviors and preferences that you learn by experience.

It's helpful to analyze yourself a bit, and get the ducks of your personality in a row! Then you can accept your personal style, and look closer at the specific habits you need to cultivate in order to improve your relationships, and act in love.

Recap of 4 Weeks and Sample Calendar

You have been getting your ducks in a row for one month now, and it's time for a recap and re-group before we launch into Part Two.

In week one, you created a Base Map of your possible life path that you can carry in your back pocket. You figured out your core values, the compass that shows you the direction to proceed down your path, and your priorities, that give your days focus and help you to decide how to best spend your time.

In week two, you learned how to discern and plan for one month at a time - how to take the Big Picture Base Map you developed and plot it out into manageable chunks, by choosing your top action goals, organizing your goals into a priorities grid, and scheduling your weekly priorities.

In week three, you learned how to make a pledge for action by setting intentions for your core values and for your top priorities. When you are intentional with your actions, you choose your path on purpose.

In week four, you planned ways to give full effort for your priorities, a mental discipline that requires attention, a spark of energy, and balance.

The ideas and techniques you've covered this month are only half of the picture. A calendar for this might look like:

Day 5: Keep in Balance

The third step towards giving full effort for your priorities is balance. I'm not talking about "Work-Life balance" (as if work is not a part of life!); this is about feeling fulfilled and satisfied with your life, having a good mix of work and play, effort and rest, and steadily accomplishing the things that give your life a sense of purpose. 

Balance has two parts- 

-You want to give regular attention to each of your priorities each week, and not create any "low-status" priorities.

-And you want to hold your intentions lightly in the complexity of life. If you are driven to complete everything on your list at all costs, you may miss an opportunity to open your heart, or to grow, or find peace within.

Remember that your vision, mission, values, beliefs, and principles are your compass, and how you want to proceed down your path. I'm talking now about finding the kind of balance where what you are doing leads where the compass is pointing, and you feel relaxed and unstressed as you travel that path. You create this kind of balance with good planning, by remembering your intentions, and also by being flexible but discerning when life offers you choices. 

For example, even though I might start the day with reasonable expectations to do x-y-z, when my daughter calls to ask if she can drop the baby off for a couple of hours I (of course) say "YES!" My family is a priority, and some other priorities can wait for another day.

Or perhaps I just don't have any energy. I decide to take a bath and a nap, and don't wake up until 4 p.m.! I obviously needed to take care of myself - my health is a priority. Such is life. I'm not going to waste energy feeling disappointed with myself.

Balance and Full Effort can seem to be counter-intuitive... How can you sustain personal motivation and determination, and also be flexible and hold your intentions lightly? How can you maintain full effort while also leaving yourself such a large loophole?

Week 4: Give Full Effort + Day 1: Journal & Set Intentions

Now that you see your priorities clearly and have begun to set intentions, you just need to act on them... But how do you find the inspiration to do that with persistence and vigor, day in and day out?

Full effort (sometimes called exertion) is one of the steps of mental discipline on Buddha’s eightfold path. Buddha urged full effort for awakening the mind, and meditation is the essential practice towards that end.

I'm not going to teach you meditation, though that is a worthy pursuit. Instead, you will practice being mindful as you go about your days, giving attention to your choices in the moment, and aiming for full effort on your priorities. 

Full effort requires:

Attention: You remember your intentions - what it is you want to do and your deepest reasons why - and also notice your emotions, energy, challenges, etc.

A spark of energy and determination: You connect to your excitement for life, and sustain it long enough to accomplish your priorities.

Balance: You hold your intentions lightly in the complexity of life. If you are driven to complete everything on your list at all costs, you may miss an opportunity to grow, to open your heart, to find peace within.

The big question to ask is "How do I find the inspiration that will spark full effort for my priorities, every day, over and over?"

The Full Effort Habit has several parts, which we will take one day at a time. 

A note about wasting time

I am so good at wasting time! By "wasting" I mean playing solitaire, doing a crossword, taking a long bath, reading a mystery novel, listening to music, or watching the ducks swim in their pond.

Day 7: Review, and Plan

Take a few minutes to review your third week. Write about your accomplishments and what you need to work on. Did you:

• Brainstorm some exciting new ideas, new paths and approaches for this week's priorities?

• Write about the strongest, most compelling reasons you want to do them, and list possible challenges?

• Practice setting daily intentions using the action + deepest reason model?

• Identify essential intentions for some of your core values and principles, that captures the possibility of daily right action and will be useful in any situation that arises in daily life?

• Map out one of your top priorities to discern all the connections to your values and principles, and (possibly) write an intention or a series of intentions for that priority that speaks to your core values, and reminds you of your deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for living?

• Set intentions for one or two tasks, activities, or ideas listed on your Priority Grid for your coming week, honing in on the deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for doing these tasks?

Summary

Day 6: Set Intentions for the Week

I hope that, this week, you have experienced how setting intentions can touch you at a deep place, and bring clarity, inspiration, and motivation to your everyday activities.

Today you will look at one or two of your tasks, activities, or ideas on your Priority Grid for next week and write intentions for those. Hopefully, the other "umbrella" intentions you have worked on - for your values and principles, and for your top priorities - will help you to hone in on the deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for doing these tasks.

• Focus in on one goal, activity, or idea that you listed this month on your Priority Grid. (I chose to focus on my priority task of painting the windows outside my studio.)

• Have a chat with yourself about this task: Ask yourself, why is this a priority now? Do I feeling motivated or blocked, and why? What are the essential values underlying this task, and who will it ultimately serve? Try to find the words that grab you at the deepest level.

Day 5: Map Out Priority Intentions

Besides the values you listed in Week One, you also listed your top 4 - 8 priorities for daily action - the activities, good deeds, responsibilities, people, and disciplines that matter most to you right now. Today you will use the essential intentions you wrote yesterday as inspiration to make a Mini-Map for just one of your priorities, and a list of ideas that will help you to write intentions for that priority.

• Get out your Base Map, and locate one priority that connects to a value that you defined and wrote an intention for yesterday. (I chose Home, which connects to my value of Simplicity.)

• 
  On a plain piece of paper, start a Mini-Map with this one priority in the center.

• Looking at your Base Map, follow the connecting lines to all the other values (and other priorities) that relate to this one priority, and add them to the Mini-Map.

• Have a little chat with yourself in your journal, or just make a list of the values (and other priorities) that lead you to action for this one priority. My list looks like this:

Home:

1.     Simplicity - lifestyle, simple and ecological.

2.     Earthcare - grow food, forge a connection to the earth.

3.     Love - Friends and Family - create safe, calm sanctuary.

4.     Integrity - maintain my property with honor

• If you can manage it, write an intention, or a series of intentions, for this one priority that speaks to your core values, and reminds you of your deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for living. Or, if that's too complicated, write an intention for ONE ASPECT of your priority. Write your intentions in present tense, using the action + deepest reason model. Example:

"I intend to care for my home and my little piece of earth with integrity, maintaining my property with honor, and creating a home that is a peaceful and well-ordered sanctuary for those I love.

I intend to grow plenty of food for ourselves and to share, because home-grown food is a blessing for my family and a balm to the planet, and working the soil keeps me connected.

I intend to manage my home with simplicity, using only my share of the earth’s resources, because each person and being in the world, and future generations, and the earth itself, deserves to live with basic needs met."

• Extra effort: Over the next weeks and months, write intentions for each of your top priorities. Take it slow. If you want, you can print these out and put them into your Map Book.

Next Week Schedule, Step 1: 

Thursday- Adjust your Priority Grid for the month: Check off what you have completed, add new items you have thought of, and move anything down lower that no longer fits.

Day 4: Identify Essential Intentions

Now that you have practiced setting intentions, let's dive a little deeper, and work on setting some fundamental intentions for how you want to live your life.

Your list of core values and principles (that you wrote in Week One) includes big concepts like love and simplicity. The question is, what exactly do these values mean to you, and what do they lead you to do and to be? What right action or good deeds do you intend each day, or how do you intend to live, to support and demonstrate your values?

Values by themselves lack commitment. You might value honesty, but never fully define what that means to you, or commit to leading an honest life. One could write a book about honesty - it's a complex subject, and it means subtly different things to different people.

When you turn your values into intentions, they become a pledge for action, in the moment- they remind you of your deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for leading a valuable life. It's vital for you to define your values and principles in a way that touches you at your core, and hone each one down to a phrase that can be useful. 

Today you will begin to articulate what your values mean to you, and the actions that support them. Start small - this is a challenging exercise:

Day 2: Set One Intention

Now let's get down to basics, and examine what it means to set an intention. An intention is defined as "a determination to act in a certain way; resolve; to reach a firm decision about."

Some writers define an intention as an aim or goal, but intentions aren't the same as goals: 

Goals are a plan for the future that help us stay on track with who we are becoming. 

Intentions are a proposal for the present that remind us of who we are now, and how we want to be in the world. Intentions remind us of our deepest, most essential, most passionate reasons for living.

Take out your journal and a pen and set one intention:

• Ask yourself, "What one thing could I do today that would move me in the direction of what seems like the highest priority in my life, and my most essential reasons for living?"

Or ask, like Ben Franklin did every morning, "What good shall I do this day?"

Go ahead and write down anything that pours into your head, whether it's big, small, practical or crazy.

Day 7: Review, and Start a Map Book

Take a few minutes to review your first week. Look through your journal. Write about your accomplishments and what you still need to work on. Did you:

-- Brainstorm some lists of goals, dreams, and exciting ideas for your future, and write about your most important reasons for living, and what your best life would look like?

--Go on a vision walk to access your deeper, intuitive mind- your inner guide?

--Write a letter from your future self?

--Discern your top 10 (or fewer) core values and principles that describe the vision of who you are and how you want to proceed down your path?

--Discern your top 4 to 8 priorities that seem most important and feel most meaningful to you in your life right now, that will give your days focus and help you to decide how to best spend your time?

--Map out the relationship between your core values and your top priorities to help clarify connections and renew your sense of purpose?

Start a Map Book

Your Map Book is a place to collect your various maps and plans and creative visions as you work through this book. (I use a 3-ring binder.)

• Today, punch holes in your Base Map and put it into your empty Map Book. If your map is too large, fold it!

Summary