Finding your bliss your way - DIY

Our programs and toolkits are basically designed to help you “find your bliss.” Helping you explore and grope your way into a better life. Do what you really like and what brings you to life. It's easy to find tests that measure what you're good at doing, but it's harder to measure what you like doing. Many people do well at one thing and like doing another. It's fairly common to be good at things that grow to be fairly boring over time, so it's good to seek out and explore your way into your bliss. Seek out your best mix of what you like and what you're good at. Your bliss washes away the troubles found as you go.

You can create your own program as you go.

• You can do-it-yourself (DIY), in which case we suggest using a journal as you go. Each toolkit includes a bit on journaling, so please read that and start journalling. You can also do-it-yourself in association with others, as follows:

• You can do it with someone, perhaps a mentor. We agree with this idea. Your mentor can be a person, a pet, or plants or animals that act as role models and guides. Guiding plants and animals were normal when people were well attuned to the natural environment. Normally people with lots of animals around mentally merged with some animal behaviors, and people with lots of plants around (eg lush tropics) mentally merged with plants. You can find lots of books on animal guardians and such, and Asians consider themselves to be descendants of dragons, but we suggest a simple approach linked to real experiences if you can. Try to find a simple living mentor or role model, or a holistic one like the Asian dragon.

In any case your mentor should be someone, a critter, whatever, (1) who keeps you on track. Who helps you create and set out commitments, then helps you measure how you're doing as you go. Hunters commonly interacted with migrating animals and farmers interact with seasons and best planting and harvesting times. Nature provides lots of mentors to keep us on track and learning from the seasonal changes. You have to meet that migrating herd or plant crops at the right time in order to do well. Today, you want someone who helps you recognize your cycling patterns today, as you go into tomorrow. Someone who helps you grab the spiral growth opportunities lying inside most cycles, and most crises.

Your mentor should be someone who you can (2) chat with in private. This can be your journal, a pub buddy, talking to your cat, gardening, or nature during a hike or kayaking, and so on. British research shows that pub buddies are often better than therapists for Gulf War veterans. Privacy amongst friends in a pub is often more natural, more community, with more living links, than isolation with somebody in some room.

Your mentor should be someone who (3) encourages you to keep going, to reach out, and to go beyond assumed limits. The 'right' person-critter-journal entry can help you dissolve barriers into new ways of thinking and doing things. That encouragement should match your natural patterns. Humans have a natural range of behavior from perfectionists through craftsmen (mix) to innovator/artists. Innovators often start projects, craftsmen do much of the work, and perfectionists complete them. This is part of the basis for the diversity in holistic team roles. Seek your natural place in such spectra of behavior

• You can do all of this in a group. Such groups can become groups of interdependent mentors coaching each other, so all of the above suggestions combine (including the bits about plants and animals if you have living natural links). Such groups can also be electronic, yaho o egroups or simple email groups, or live. We prefer real live living interactions, possibly with potlucks and such. We prefer grouped interactions that lead into community.

• All groups have leaders. And a fair number of groups have a teacher. Some teachers need to be leaders, others can be servant-leaders. We prefer to rotate people through aspects of leadership because leaders are normally grown, not unwrapped ready-made.

• You can get a coach. Most coaches coach individually and a fair number coach small groups. A coach often awakens and holds you accountable. They may be a teacher, and more often a kind of guide.

Your Journal.

In summary, you can chose to DIY, or use one or more mentors, or you can do it in a group, and/or you can get a coach. I just added the Journal bit, journaling helps with self-coaching. And blends are often best.

How?

Look over the web site. Get free stuff from docs.google.com. Look it over.

Ask for help.

If you want free help, please be prepared ahead of time.