If week one was activating the blue pulsating dot on Google Maps, week two asks for your destination. What do you see yourself achieving? How do you want to be feeling in your everyday life? To what direction would you like to drive your drive, Madam? With proper goal setting, which in my opinion is a super inspiring and fun activity – because you get to daydream a lot in this week’s session – you can configure your inner GPS and head North.
“The whole point why the Philia Project exists is for you to get clear on and reach your desired goals. So, writing them down will make you aware, if the programme is actually helping you to move forward into the direction you so desire.” Philia writes in the guidelines to Week two.
So let’s get down to business.
Defining my goals would be difficult if I had to list them out of the blue. I would probably write down generic things like put my writing on a more global arena, names of companies I want to cooperate with or countries I want to visit. Basically, bucket-listing without much continuity. Luckily, you can derive goals from the eight areas of the Wheel of Life – That’s exactly what Vladi and I did. Frankly, our goals pretty much formed themselves during week one. With a little time to let everything sit, you get five to ten areas that excite you.
If it’s not a hell yeah, it’s not your true goal!
Vladi was in San Francisco that week, already making progress with one of her Personal Growth goals. She took a part in Designing Your Life, a world-renowned Stanford University course developed by innovators Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. She brought me their book, so I could work on designing my Business/Work area the way I want. Since then, the book has become an important part of my coaching experience. It is not just a set of pages you read. The book actually pushes you to participate actively, asks you to answer big questions about work and life, makes you do weekly check-ins and thus naturally helps switch your mindset into the one of an innovator. “Do not take your life seriously. Designs will be made, prototypes thrown away,” they say. Actually, they explain it way better, watch their TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SemHh0n19LA
When she got back and each of us had her list of goals ready, we met up over a cup of coffee and granola to say them out loud to each other. The rest of the session we spent revising each other’s goals, questioning some of them a bit more to make sure each of us is confident enough to bring her A-game in on this journey. “I know it would be easier for you to write in your local language,” Vladi commented on my aim to diversify my writing and get into new, braver topics, “but since you are aspiring to act globally, make writing in English your mission. You can always do plan B in your local market.” Of course, she was right. Each of us thought of ways how to make our goals quantifiable (Nicole actually gives great tips for that in the Philia Programme!) and how to track progress. Then we were done with the session – drained but satisfied. Finally, things were about to happen!
With all the fuss about goal setting, I forgot to click through all the tasks. So, imagine my surprise when I accidentally came across the NO LIMITS exercise a week later – but hey, better late than ever! This exercise was the most fun I have experienced so far with the Philia Programme. Long story short, you are imagining there are no limits neither financial nor mental to block you from living your dream life. But wait – not just one dream life. You are supposed to imagine three equally exciting scenarios of how your best life might look like. I ended up designing four, including being my generation’s version of Oprah. HELL YEAH!
