Dancing with wisdom - chapter 9
Sunil K. Raheja
- 10 minutes read - 1929 wordsChapter 9 - YOUR WISDOM QUEST
We are caterpillars longing to become butterflies.
When I studied medicine, I knew nothing about coaching. I had been trained to work with what has been called ‘the medical model’. In many respects, it is very useful: disease and illness do need treating. However, it is not the only way to look at life and the significant problems and challenges that we face. There are also therapists, counsellors
Comparing us, as human beings, to our relationship with a car is helpful. A therapist, like a doctor, seeks to fix what is broken. A counsellor will help you find out why it got broken in the first place. In contrast to these two, a coach will take your ‘car’ that is working reasonably well and help you work out where you want to go with it. Coaching is the means of determining direction and purpose in our life and then finding the motivation, energy and skills to pursue this direction so it becomes a reality.
Most people lack clarity about where they are in their lives, where they want to go, or what they want to become. Over the years, I have developed a coaching programme that I take my clients through. It’s the means by which I help them to penetrate the complexity in their lives in order to find clarity in who they sense they are called to be and what they discern that they are called to do.
We look at ten main interrelated dimensions of life:
Spiritual—your connection with God
Intellectual—your engagement with significant ideas that matter to you
Emotional—your psychological health
Physical—the health of your body
Marital—your relationship with your spouse or significant other
Parental—your relationship with your children, nephews, nieces and godchildren
Social—your network of friendships
Vocational—your profession
Avocational—your hobbies
Financial—the health of your finances
It’s common for many driven individuals to make goals and plans to cover only one area of life. Even if those goals are realised, it’s easy to be left with regret or disappointment because one or more of the other dimensions has been neglected.
If there is no plan it is easy to either be driven to or drift towards a destination that we never intended. How much better to design our life with clear intentions and purpose! Of course, in reality the unexpected and unplanned can happen. As the World War Two leader and subsequent American President Dwight Eisenhower said, ‘… plans are useless, while planning is indispensable’. It is the process of planning that takes our minds to another level and opens us up to options and possibilities we might not previously have thought possible. ‘The plans we initially laid out may change dramatically as we progress, but in many ways that doesn’t matter, An imperfect plan that is executed is far better than a perfect plan that is never attempted. An important principle is to hold on to our plans lightly, while keeping close to the One who knows the future and all things.
This becomes a dance with the Unexpected and unpredictable, while moving forward with intention and purpose.
The tool that I use with my clients is the seven-step Dancing With Wisdom Coaching Programme™ which I have developed. From what I have been saying so far, you may think that it is somewhat contradictory for me now to suggest a seven-stage process after criticising the modern tendency to seek simple steps as a solution to our significant challenges! To some extent you are right, and you have clearly followed my thinking. However, the purpose of a staged process IS to enable those with whom I work to understand the gee rey that are necessary for truly walking in wisdom. The principles behind the programme are timeless. The different components may look simple but will take a lifetime to master—like mastering all the ramifications of moves in a game of chess.
Here are the seven main stages. While they are written in a sequence, they’re more of a recurring spiral than one step following after the one before.
The great secret about goals and vision is not the future they describe, but the change in the present they engender.
Confidential Analysis—Let’s Get Real!
Much of our life is spent in our heads. . . fears, worries, doubts, negative thinking. A rule of thumb estimate is that we have as many as 40,000 thoughts in a single day. What do we do with all those thoughts? How do we decide which to keep and which to discard? How do we handle the fears and insecurities? What do people think of me? Is this idea or plan crazy or worth pursuing?
I provide a safe space to explore the morass of ideas going through our heads that we might feel unsafe about expressing openly. Our sessions are non-judgmental and provide a space for brainstorming and exploration without any sense of having to be committed to a single course of action. It sounds so simple. But, it is difficult to find a place for exploring and developing those thoughts and ideas at the back of our minds, so that they rise to the surface to be truly fleshed out. One of my favourite questions during this time is what Dan Sullivan calls the R-Factor Question’. R stands for relationship and asks, ‘If we were sitting here together three years from today, what would need to have happened in your personal and professional life for you to feel immensely pleased with your progress?’
The power of this question lies in it being focussed not so far in the future that it’s unreachable but also not close enough for there to be any assumption about doing more of the same thing.
I’ve found this question immensely helpful in understanding someone’s true goals and ambitions. Some people can talk about their future in this way for literally hours. We focus, in particular, on the dangers that they want to avoid, the strengths that they are looking to maximise and the opportunities they want to capture.
Options Builder—Let’s dream and raise the roof!
What I have experienced as the other Person opens up to me is that there are a few deeply held desires and longings about what they want to do and where they want their lives to go. Often they have been too nervous or hesitant to share these deep thoughts with anyone else. It’s a true privilege and honour to hear someone say, ‘I’ve never discussed this with anyone, not even my spouse’.
Like nurturing a small seed embedded in the soil, we work together to nurture this tiny germ of an idea into growing and developing. It is inspiring to see enthusiasm, excitement and zest for life beginning to take hold.
Unique Game Plan—Let’s discover!
Having spent time looking at various options, it becomes important to make a decision and commit to a course of action. Will that course of action necessarily lead to success? We don’t know, but until we try we can never find out. That’s why we are on a ‘quest’. The process of finding out is as much about becoming the person we are called to be as it is about the fulfilling and satisfying work we are looking to put at the centre of our lives.
This is a journey of discovery. We do not know where we are going or how the journey will evolve, but it is still exciting and enormously meaningful.
Accountability Framework—Let’s protect what we discover!
Any journey of self-discovery is going to involve failure and set back. The temptation to throw in the towel and give up may be very strong. How can we learn from failure, rather than allowing failure to bring discouragement and abandoning our dreams? In order to learn from our setbacks, we need to develop internally the thinking and externally the relationship structures that will pull us in the right direction rather than thwart and inhibit our progress.
Personalised Solution—Let’s raise our game!
A favourite verse in my favourite book is:
‘For we are God’ workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works He has prepared in advance for us to do’ (Ephesians ch2 v10).
The word for workmanship in the original is the word poema, from which we derive our word poem. We are literally a work of art that God is sculpting and moulding to create something beautiful and lasting.
The journey to get there is not easy, but with patience and perseverance it is possible. This is the ‘quest’ that we talk about—a long search for something that is difficult to find, or an attempt to find something which is elusive. As we have pointed out, the person you become is at least as important as the goals you seek to accomplish. In working towards this personalised solution, we need to ensure that there is the correct balance between being and doing.
Resiliency Advantage—Let’s stay strong!
Resilience is the ability to not only overcome adversity but also to confront and survive challenges in such a way that we become stronger and an inspiration to others. Frederick Nietzsche famously said, ‘What does not kill me only seeks to make me stronger’.'”? With so many challenges from so many different directions, how can we develop systems and processes in our life which ensure that in spite of anything that happens we are able to keep putting our best foot forward?
Learning Expander—Let’s keep growing!
All healthy organisms and organisations grow. The essence of life is to keep growing. We do not stop after climbing one mountain, but continually strive towards future goals. We were created to learn new things and grow. Most people pursue learning through popular media or the opinions of others. What is the quality of this approach?
Once we grasp that we are called to grow, an entire ocean of possibilities opens up before us! To capture these opportunties we need to learn how to clarify our thoughts so that we can process our feelings from the perspective of making better and wiser decisions. Coaching can assist in making this possible. Coaching works through equipping us to clarify our thoughts and process our feelings so we are in a stronger place where we can make better decisions.
However, as I have sought to explain throughout this book, wisdom is not only about finding ways to change our circumstance’ in order to get what we want. To develop wisdom, we also need to develop a hunger for growth, which is more important than simply changing something about our lives.
In Where Your Treasure Is Eugene Peterson expresses this as:
When we grow, in contrast to merely change, we
venture into new territory and include more people in our lives—serve more and love more. Our culture is filled with change; its poor in growth. New things, models, developments, opportunities are announced, breathlessly, every hour. But instead of becoming ingredients in a long and wise growth, they simply replace. The previous ts discarded and the immediate stuck in—until, bored by the novelty, we run after the next fad. Men and women drawn always to the new never grow up. God’s way is growth not change.
I hope that intrigues you enough to explore a free resource that I have for you at drsunil.com/workbook.
REVIEW QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
What fears and insecurities would I like to ease?
What dreams am I trying to achieve?
What have I learned from previous setbacks?
How can I build my strength to conquer any future challenges?