Day 4 – F ocus

Day 4 is about ‘Determining which area of your life you can and want to change’ through Focus. In reality you can’t change everything at once so it’s essential to prioritise.

By now your printed out wheel of life from the introduction should have plenty of ideas and observations scribbled around the different areas of your life and the satisfaction you have with them. If not, take some time to review your thinking from the previous RID stages and relate your responses back to the wheel. As you reflect on the page, what area of your life instinctively feels right to change now and what needs to change later?

For the aspect chosen;

1. How important is it that you change it?
2. How committed are you to changing it?
3. How able are you to change it now?

Repeat this process for all the aspects you’ve identified then compare the results. Do the results support your instinct?

This may seem a difficult exercise to contemplate for the first time without facilitation or a partner to discuss options with, but usually for most participants we find the right answer comes easily and naturally – hopefully it has for you too!

Tomorrow we’ll look at E – Ends – where we can set some goals and establish what results you want to achieve.

Day 3 – D istractions

Welcome to Day 3 – well it’s actually Day 4 for those that started properly on New Year’s Day. If you didn’t or have just joined us then I suggest you go back to GO without collecting £200 unfortunately! It will make much more sense that way….

The third element of RIDFEAR® is Distractions which is about ‘Understanding and changing what is holding you back’.

Let’s try to help making positive changes easier. Imagine a Helium filled party balloon tied to the back of a chair. How would you get it to rise to the ceiling? Would you physically lift it, complete with chair, up to the ceiling – only to see it fall back down the moment you let go?  Of course not as it’s a totally absurd suggestion – hopefully you’d cut the string and let it float naturally upwards!

So lets see if we can apply this to our lives. Rather than put energy and effort into forcing changes, let’s remove those obstacles that hold us back and prevent us moving forward with relative ease. Spare yourself some time to think about;

1. How many friends, colleagues or relatives sap your energy rather than add vitality? Why do you let them?  Do you dread them calling you or popping in as you know you are about to lose an hour of your life for no benefit?  When did you last ‘unfriend’ someone that doesn’t deserve your friendship? What effect do credit card bills, unanswered e-mails and general clutter have on you?
2. Although RIDFEAR is an acronym and not focussed on fear, you do need to ask what are you frightened of? The dark? Failure or success? Being found out maybe?  There are lots of fears we all hold, mostly unfounded – identify them and think about how you might tackle them. How much have those fears held you back in the past and added a cost to your life?

Again plenty to think about there and just a sample of the exercises we cover in this section of RIDFEAR®, but the message is simple – let’s use less accelerator pedal and just take the handbrake off.

When you’ve got some answers and can see a theme emerging, go back to your printed out wheel of life from our introduction. Would anything you’ve discovered improve your satisfaction scores here if you acted upon them?

Tomorrow we’ll look at F – Focus – determine which area of your life you can and want to change.

2 hr Taster Sessions – Jan 19th and 24th 2012

Intended primarily for HR and Change Managers in organisations, these free taster sessions are designed to experience and discuss the RIDFEAR® concept and how they can be used in organisations to support employees experiencing change.

• Dates are Thurs Jan 19th @ 14.00 / 16.00 and Tues Jan 24th @ 10.00 / 12.00 and will be held at the   Media Centre, Huddersfield   HD1 1RL
• The next scheduled ‘Take One Day’ one day course is on Monday Jan 30th  -  price £125 – again at the   Media Centre, Huddersfield   HD1 1RL

Day 2 – I deal

Given that  this is probably the first day back at work for many of you, it’s maybe just as well that today’s exercises are relatively easy – well from a time and energy viewpoint that is.

The second element of RIDFEAR is Ideal which is about ‘Starting to determine what you really want’.

All you need to do today is daydream! Very often we lose the ability to do this, or hold on to dreams that are no longer appropriate for where we are in life. Here’s a short article that might help you from www.psychologytoday.com.

1. Suppose you had a significant win on the National Lottery – what would you want to spend your day doing long-term? What hobbies and interests could you persue to fill your time in a fulfilling way – in other words what’s your passion?
2. If you could have any job/career in the world – what would that be and why?
3. If you could live anywhere, where would that be and why?

Plenty to think about there and just a sample of the exercises we cover in this section of RIDFEAR.

When you’ve got some answers and can see a theme emerging, go back to your printed out wheel of life from our introduction. Would anything you’ve discovered improve your satisfaction scores here if you acted upon them?

Tomorrow we’ll look at D – Distractions – what is it that holds you back?

Day 1 – R ealisation

So assuming you are still committed to making positive changes in your life – where do you start? Many coaching programmes start with setting goals as the starting point – but not here.

RIDFEAR starts with Realisation. The first thing we need to do is understand more just who we are and what our situation is.

There are many ways we can do this and it’s been known for us to spend a complete day with groups just exploring this one aspect. However, lets keep this simple and just look at three quick, but powerful, ways to begin to understand a little more of who we are and why.

1. Think how you introduce yourself when meeting someone new. Is it as parent of, partner of, employee of, live at, drive a, job title - etc, etc? Do we describe what we are – not who we are? So how might you describe yourself instead?
2. Is there an item you can think of that explains who you are and what defines and is important to you? Maybe a marathon finisher’s medal, an item of clothing, a family photograph or a ragged old teddy bear that everyone takes for granted?
3. Finally let’s get slightly more scientific – what aspects of your personality do you know about and understand? How do these affect what’s important to you, how you react to situations and how you interact with others? We like to use the Enneagram as we have had excellent results with it and most people can easily relate to the preferred types they are identified with.  Try these free tests at either similarminds.com or the Enneagram Institute where there is a wealth of supporting information.

Remember just knowing something is not enough – it’s what it means and what you do with the results that’s important…….

When you’ve got some answers and can see a theme emerging, go back to your printed out wheel of life from our introduction. Does anything you’ve discovered about yourself here help explain your satisfaction scores?

Tomorrow we’ll look at I – Ideal – what is it that you really want?

New Year’s Day – lets get started…..

Today’s the first day of the rest of your life! Obvious but true……

Do you want to make positive changes in your life, be in charge or just be a victim of where the currents in life take you?

If so, all you need to do now is say yes and mean it and then over the following seven days think and act on some of what we present to you!

Well ok its not that easy – but for today just do three simple things.

1. Read the RIDFEAR® Overview page so you understand the seven elements
2. Take a deep breath,pause and mentally capture where you are, how you feel and what’s worrying you – write it down and don’t lose it
3. Print out the Wheel of Life with Instructions – One Page and see if you can identify eight elements of your life and determine how satisfied you are with them.

Easy……..

Tomorrow we’ll start with one example from R – Realisation and begin to understand who we really are.

Welcome 2012

2012 is going to be a fantastic year for so many of us! However, we have to make it happen – nobody is going to do it for us anymore…….

Leave the gloom and doom to others, lets just get on and make things happen – RIDFEAR might just help you along the way.

RIDFEAR® is a UK registered trademark of Partners in Management Ltd