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If you were a body of water, what would you be? A river? A puddle?Maybe a stream? A pond, a swamp? Let’s look what would help you decide, shall we?
Life needs to be moved… so it moves like a river. Life can also be a lake, fed by a river or a stream. And, of course, it can be a swamp… and most lives are that.
Life could be a river… you grow, you gather strength.
But many of us, maybe most of us, at some point expect the river to grow, and flow, and it just stops. It becomes stagnant.
Most people who come to me have a life like that. Things may happen, mostly out of their control, but they make nothing happen.
Our life needs to be moved, but no one has taught us how to do it.
This thought is what I woke up with today. And the life experience is being heavy, not wanting to get up, not being alive.
The moment you accept that YOU need to move life for it to move, it really changes the whole picture. The question arises: what is it that I can do? What is it I need to do? How do I move life?
Most people have campaigns, and then stop, and life becomes stagnant again.
So, just like rivers, it has to have a slope, however gentle, however slight, otherwise the river doesn’t flow.
It has a purpose, it has a motive power, it has a direction… and the force that moves it is gravity.
Gravity
For humans this ‘gravity’ force needs to be created, or they only have one inner force: motive power and selfish gene… that work at cross purposes.
Creating the ‘gravity’ for your life is mighty difficult, but step by step anyone can succeed.
Restrictions, boundaries
The other requirement for a river is ‘restriction’ or boundaries… Or the water will spread out creating a swamp.
The start of this process: being cause of your life, is very difficult,
- because you have been idle and reactive for so long.
- Because you want your life to jump, as if it could.
- You want to go from an idea to a working business, for example, in a day or two.
But just like with a river, you need to gather momentum inside restrictions to get a river… a flood is not a river.
There are phases, and unless you take life through the phases, it is just a campaign, it is just a flash flood… it will leave nothing useful, and it won’t flow.
The five phases of a project, of moving life, of creating as a life-giving river are
1. Formulation
2. Concentration
3. Momentum
4. Stability
5. Breakthrough
6. Mastery
7. Emergency
8. Danger
In the Integrity Workshop we’ll tackle the first two phases…
Formulation
Formulation is the stage most people miss, and without that being done, the project fails before it starts… because formulation is the foundation, like digging a trough for your river… or alternatively design the restrictions and the boundaries.
This is the phase in the project when you are creating your plan and what you want to achieve, with deadlines. And you work out what you think you need to be successful.
• Create the ‘project’. A project is a specific, measurable result in time… where you know and everyone can see whether it succeeded or not. Unless it can fail, it is not a project. Not done, poorly done, not done on time is failure.
• Timelines
• Dependencies
• Resources
• Get clear on where you are now – the facts – as well as where you want to go. Where you want to go and why you want to go there are your gravity.
You will see that without formulation you will have no conditions that will give you a river.
In formulation phase you can have lots of smaller projects that all are aimed at strengthening YOUR foundation. Your foundation is the basis of a strong foundation for the project… here the river of your life.
Most people, maybe you too, have no chance for success,
- unless they clean up your lives,
- clean up your incompletions,
- unless you gather and build support for your life, financial, emotional, and
- gain the essential and necessary knowledge and skills to get the confidence to move forward with the big project…
Even if you are in business already, even if you already have a job, even if you are already successful, it is a good idea to schedule some regular ‘intimate’ time with the formulation phase.
Sometimes, like in my case, the circumstances inside which I work are limiting. Environment can be a real hindering factor: the who and the what and the how of the environment…
Given that I have a commitment to not ask my students to do anything I am not willing to do, that I am not doing, I am going to give an hour a day to do formulation type of projects of my own, starting today.
Honestly, I have been reluctant… my WHY was missing… that no gravity.
Where do I teach this: surprisingly I teach this in my Integrity Workshop.
Integrity is built like a river, where you have to do work on it every day, or it tends to flood the fields and the water stops flowing.
In the Integrity Workshop I teach you to set up the river of your life project… on paper.
And then start the formulation phase.
Whether you are going for
- a new career,
- a business,
- going from freelancing to becoming the owner of an empire, or just
- finding a job so you have a livelihood…
- revitalize a stagnant business
this formulation phase will be what we will be working in the program, with an occasional foray into the concentration phase.
- Through restoring integrity,
- through setting up restrictions,
- through building the muscle, and
- the habit of living life, moving life, managing life through projects. Small projects.
Even big projects, life projects are built from small projects.
Designing and accomplishing projects is a skill and it’s a way a successful life is built. Not campaigns, and not stagnation. Not waiting for emergencies to move you. No. Being a force to reckon with…
Increasing your motive power: One of the ongoing projects is to reduce the amount of motive power you give to unnecessary, unproductive activities. This way your motive power grows and is channeled for life, for the life projects, and to building a foundation a good life can be built on.
This is not a learning course, the Integrity Workshop. It’s a working course, a veritable workshop.
Who is it for?
I would say everybody needs it. But you are best suited to do it
if there is an inner tension between how you live your life and how you could, how you would prefer it to be…
That inner tension will help you go through rough patches that are sure to come.
And with my latest bonus, the ‘Let’s create an empowering context’ each rough patch can be transform into joy.
Context
Context, when created, is the most powerful tool for transformation. It changes the meaning, the significance, and the mood of what is happening, of what you are doing and your life.
It is one of the hardest things for a human to do… so it requires a lot of training, a lot of handholding.
That is why I gift you with that recorded workshop. I will teach it, coach it, support it during the Integrity Workshop, but having this gift workshop at your disposal gives you a jump start.
Who is it not for?
- If you only like to dabble
- If you want to do mental learning but abhor homework, or practice
- If you want the result but not the work, not the process
- If you are a jumping jack…
- If you are a quitter
- If you run off doing your own thing half-baked, instead of staying in the training
- If you can’t afford it
- If you are too busy to do the work required
Your life can be a river, it can be a lake, and it can be a swamp… or a dry river bed
Your choice, your doing.
The integrity workshop if for people who want a life like a river. Moving, teeming with life.
Check out the Integrity Workshop
