2011 Pre-Mortem - An Exercise to Prepare for the New Year

Most people are familiar with a post-mortem examination that is completed when a person has died.  A post-mortem examination is done with the same care that would be used in an operation. It includes an external and an internal examination of the individual’s shell (body).  The purpose is generally to determine the cause of death, to determine what organs may have shut down, what areas of the body and mind finally got tired and stopped working.  Or if a trauma has happened what part of the individual died first. 

Recently in my work I attended a series of meetings with the leadership team of the company I work for.  The purpose of these meetings was to help the leader’s determine the important strategic objectives for the coming year.  The meeting methodology was fascinating to me, instead of a SWOT approach typically taken to analyze the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats a “pre-mortem” approach was used.  The business results were extremely powerful to the team as they looked at what needed to happen in order to be in a “positive” position in the next two years.

Drawing from that experience I began to think about how I might use that approach to “wind in” to the New Year.  I got excited because for me making resolutions or even intentions has not increased my trajectory into a long term view.  This year I decided to conduct a “pre-mortem” on my life.  Here is what I did.  I sat down and wrote out two scenarios, one that had positive outcomes and one that had negative.  I share this in hopes you might find this same exercise valuable on this last day of 2010.  It is written sort of as an out of body experience, which could be what made it so powerful for me.

Pre-Mortem – Positive Outcome

Today is December 31, 2011, you are sitting quietly candles lit, lights dim thinking back over the last 365 days.  You are at peace; the last year has been amazing.  You feel you have grown leaps and bounds over where you were last year.  You have encountered some difficult challenges but through all of them you have been able to find the lesson in them and feel like maybe, just maybe you have finally learned what you needed to.  You have let go of anything that no longer serves the highest vision of you.   The contribution you have made to your work (employed or other) has been rewarding.  This reward may or may not have been financial, but when you think of the contribution you feel inspired to do more of it in the coming year, because you recognize it as the sacred contract you came to fulfill.  You started on a path last year to live in health,  in body mind and spirit.  This has paid off as you look in your eyes you see brightness, the whites of your eyes gleam, and your skin is radiant.  You have let go of some obsessive patterns that were long overdue to be dismissed.  You have had a conscious spiritual practice each day of being present for those around you, both in work, with friends and family.  Your body has responded well to the shift in lifestyle, the new approach to “feeding yourself” has had remarkable results; you are lean, strong and resilient. 

Emotionally this year you realized your worth, value, and have allowed yourself to accept your strengths and practice more of those and laugh at your weaknesses…and find joy in both.  Your relationships have blossomed.  The process of hibernation you went through has paid off; you have more energy now than you did when you were 40.  The prospect of true love, yes the romantic kind is no longer a prospect but a reality, and it was worth the wait.

Pre-Mortem - Negative

Today is December 31, 2011, you are sitting quietly candles lit, lights dim thinking back over the last 365 days.  The year has been a disaster.  Everything you hoped for has seemingly slipped through your fingers.  It seems as if you are in the same rut you started in this year.  You began the year with all the right ideas and plans, but as you let life begin to live you.  You watched as things were happening around you but chose to stay in the same pattern that felt comfortable. Everything in life is pretty much the same.  You don’t complain about things outwardly, but you continue to live in the same quiet desperation, waiting, hoping that something external will come along and change the situation.  You have noticed that you look old this year, tired, less vibrant and that is ok, after all you are 56.  Your body is weaker, and your spirit is suppressed.  All that you thought would happen this year has, and as you put the pen down you realize that you created it all.  As you write this you find you are tired, defeated and resolved to live this life.  And you ask yourself “why bother” to look at next year because it will be the same, of that you are convinced.

So what is the point of these two exercises?  It would be my hope it is obvious, that enthusiasm, excitement, synergy and a passion for life exudes from the first example.  While I was writing I noticed that I didn’t even want to complete the negative outcomes.  I got tired just thinking that it could be like that!

What should you do with this?  I would invite you to engage in the same process.  While you are doing it notice how you feel, pay attention to the string of things that flow when you are in a positive energy position.  Begin to think about what the next 365 days will look like as you move toward the end of the year.  When I finished this I realized that in my own way I had created a new pathway in my brain that would respond when I chose to get in that rut.  I have some good ideas on what I need to do and be in order to sit quietly next year at this time and celebrate.  Happy New Year, may you have a bright vision for the upcoming days.

History Repeating Itself as Divine Intelligence

Earlier this week I wrote about the Science of Reinvention.  I get excited as I think about the upcoming year knowing that I have an intentional plan to live in 2011.  I think writing about some of my history, is good to remind myself of the cycles of life that we all go through.  In 2004 I was working for a small company in Southern California.  I had taken a job that I knew was not something that I would stick with forever, but  I knew that I needed a different landscape in which to pursue my certification as a professional coach.  In January of 2005 I started a coaching program at the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara.  This program is amazing and because of it made some significant changes in my life.  The years prior to that, I would describe myself as flat, lacking direction, meaning and purpose.  When I drove up to Santa Barbara that first time for classes, I felt like I was on fire.  I was blinded by the possibilities in my life, I was grateful, energized and on purpose.  Honestly I thought I had arrived, whatever that means.  I would say that enthusiasm and focus stayed with me until, well, until it didn’t.  Read that sentence and apply it to your own life right now…”you had it until you didn’t”. 

That is one of the things that I have learned about life and the journey we all undertake if we stay conscious on the path.  It sounds so trite, simple really, but life can be mirrored by the change in seasons.  We are guaranteed that we will now cycle out of this cold wintery weather into spring, and then into summer.  We might try to fight the cold or the heat wherever we live, but the truth is both of those seasons will return again. Such as is with life.  The only difference is our cycles in life may not have the same predictable seasonal trends.

When I finished the coaching certification a year later I was still on fire, sort of the summer of my life, and that carried me until about a year ago.  And just like the predictable seasons, my energy and my life changed once again, as it has over all of my life.  I must admit this student of behavior and purveyor of life was caught off guard.  I have wanted to hibernate because what made sense as the purpose I had identified no longer was an energy force for me.  Much happened during that time of course, some of it exciting and some of it reflecting some significant losses and failures.  The last year has been hard for me because I had to grieve the loss of what I thought was going to be and allow myself to stay in the question of what is next for me. 

As I mentioned I have been living in the question of reinvention.  What is different for me this time versus where I was six years ago is that I am much more intentional on the process I will undertake.  If there is a science to this metamorphosis I intend to uncover it and hopefully leave some crumbs on the path to others that might be following suit. I read a quote this morning from Warren Bennis “People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.”  I don’t’ know that I am interested in standing out at this time of my life, but I do know that I don’t want to live with borrowed postures, or what people think we should be at a certain point in time. 

Over the next few months I will be exploring Reinvention through the sciences of; the mind, spirit, emotion, health, and psyche.  On Friday morning check back for an exercise that I completed to prepare for 2011, it is a Pre-mortem that I found powerful beyond words to show me the way.   Tomorrow I look forward to sharing one of the tools I learned at the Hudson Institute that will help demonstrate the “rightness of it all”.

What Is the Science of Reinvention?

Three weeks ago I had surgery on my foot, it was an elective procedure so I can only blame myself for the change that it created in my normal daily routine.  The days right after my surgery I spent being nursed by a college friend of 35 years.  While there I was having a conversation with her husband about his intention of reinventing himself as he turned 50. 
For some reason I haven't been able to get the word "reinvent" out of my mind.  This time of year we all are finding reasons to be grateful and find the true meaning of the holidays.  I think in many ways that is how many of us "cope" with where we find ourselves in life.  I believe that is healthy thinking and helps us make it through. 
This final week of the year I think we also find ourselves reflective of what the year as meant and what we hope to see in the coming year.  Today as I have been taking stock the word reinvent will not leave my consciousness.  I love words, and found this definition in the dictionary for the one that has been present for some time.
Reinvent-

1. To invent again or anew, esp. without knowing that the invention already exists

Today I have been wondering much like many of you what the next year will bring.  And I came to the conclusion that if I want the next year to be different I need to figure out the "Science" behind reinvention.  So for the next year that is my goal.   I will begin the process to  understand from a holistic view what inventing again might mean.  Being big on definitions here is what I found for science.

1. Systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation

It sort of feels like there is a systematic way to understand both the physical and material world, and alI recognize for my own reinvention that will all have to be new.  I also believe there is a systematic knowledge of the spiritual world that resides behind the veil and has the same potent ability to change us. I will need to lift the veil to see what is there, once again.

You see what I have realized is that I have reinvented myself many times in my 55 years.  At each point when I realize it is time again to take stock of who I am and where I am and "do the work" or figure out the science of me.  In 2004 I was in the same spot, I am today trying to figure out the formula of me.  If the last 6 years was anything like the next 6 years I am in for a real discovery.  

I am grateful for the alchemy of the journey