Jennifer Frahm Collaborations

Happy New Year and welcome back! It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, traversing the swamplands of Slade Point, Nth Qld for a family Christmas, and then working for Spring Vale Winery at the Taste of Tasmania Food and Wine Festival. Rousing renditions of “What to do with a drunken sailor” come to mind. For those not in Australia, Hobart is a beautiful harbour city, and the end of the Boxing Day Sydney to Hobart sailing race.  At the same time it hosts a fab food and wine festival. Can highly recommend Bruny Island Cheese Company  : )

 But I digress. There is of course a lot of talk about about New Years Resolutions - our fearless leader Barbara Gibson has revealed hers , as has fellow IABC-er and Melbournite Melissa Dark. I thought I’d share my approach on dealing with the NY Resolutions.

New Years is a terrific time to get reflective and think about what we want to achieve in the following year. But often this comes from a position of deficit. What we didn’t do, what we didn’t get? And often people set goals that reinforce the negative as a result this. This sets up a cycle of frustration and dissapointement. It actually takes some skill to set goals that are positive in intent and don’t have negative triggers in them.  Let alone goals that realistic and achievable.  I think it can be more useful to think in “themes”. Here’s how I do it. And I borrow liberally from NLP, Appreciative Inquiry,  Mindmapping, Steven Covey etc in application.

Start with a big piece of butchers paper / poster chart and a generous helping of coloured pens.

In the centre of the page write 2009. On the periphereal all the areas in your life that you wish to address (eg finance, family, spirit, relationships, health, business). I use different colours for each - it helps my creative process. Then work at jotting down keywords, squiggles,  illustrations, slogans that capture the essence of how you want the year to be.  So for me, 2009 is the Year of Zen. I have a big fat happy buddha sitting in the middle of my page.  And then work outwards.

 Take your time, don’t force anything. Honour your intuition. Look for connections between the areas and relationships between the themes.

 Here comes the hard part. Show it to some-one. Some-one you trust and who knows you well. Some-one who can challenge your thinking and interpretation with compassion.  This is your reality check - there may be a theme that is too harsh, or not ambitious enough. And that person will help you stay on track throughout the year.

Keep the poster visible.

I find this is a really sustainable way of achieving goals.  So what will your theme be this year? Share…