Who Am I? #1

Find Your Future In Your Past

I formed my personal “Board of Directors” to help re-version Laurie 2.0. They all accepted! Now I was committed: I had to act. One of my meetings would be “live,” in the small Wyoming town where I live. The other would be virtual, with people from California to New York talking together in a conference call.

I needed to make the meetings fun. But what to show? What to tell them to get their straightforward, creative, fearless juices flowing?

In the next few entries, I’ll show you exactly what I did.


A list of your favorite things…
Whatever Laurie 2.0 looked like, it had to be fun. But what was “fun” for me, specifically?

I needed a baseline, a foundation, a list o’ stuff that I could think about and use to define what I had been doing all of these years, and why it wasn’t working any more.

I began remembering “my favorite things” and asking myself questions about them:
• What had I done that I would describe as the best moments in my life? The peak experiences?
• Why were they fun? What about them made them spring into my mind, seem important to me, create fond memories and feelings?

By now, you know I love to deal in words. So I made a list. Specifically, What the projects were and Why I loved them.

It was fun: a little trip down the ol’ Memory Lane, and a big pat on the back for the things I did well – which happened to be many of my favorite things. Hmmmm – cowinkidink? More on that later.

So that’s the basic raw material: What you love to do, and Why you love to do it.


I hear you: “But I Can’t Write!”

Sure you can. But I won’t try to convince you of that here.

Here’s two alternatives to lists that even I use when words didn’t seem to hold enough:

Dream:
Get a big piece of paper – at least 11” x 17”. Bigger if possible. (Newsprint in the school section of your local discount store is good.)

Get something that marks paper – and can’t be erased: colored pens. Colored crayons. Colored markers, if your paper is thick. Colored pencils. Colored chalk. Get the picture? Colored stuff that marks indelibly. Don’t worry – There Are No Mistakes in this process.

Sit down in a quiet space where you have a chunk of time. Pick anywhere on that beautiful blank sheet (what will you discover?). Think about your favorites times in your life. Pick up a colored thing. Make a mark. Continue it. Fill it out. Label it. Make a stick figure around it. Draw around it. (“I can’t draw!” Well, this isn’t for art class – it’s for you. Let go of how it looks at the end, and get into what it can tell you today.)

Pick another place (anywhere on the paper, I mean). Repeat.

Take as long as you like, but I suggest a couple of long sessions in pretty quick succession so you can really get into it (as opposed to lots of quick starts-and-stops with weeks in between).

See What Happens. You’ll know when you’re done.

Put the paper somewhere you won’t see it for a few days.

Set aside a quiet time, as long as you can. Then get a cuppa your favorite (are we seeing “themes” here?) and look at what you’ve done.

Really look: as if someone else had done it. What does it tell you about the things you most like to do? Write your thoughts down.


I hear you #2: “But I Can’t Draw!”

You can do that, too, but that’s a goal for later. Here’s an alternative.

Collect:
Think about your favorite projects. And poke around your house: in the attic, in file cabinets, under the bed, in your mementoes box(es), in the backyard.

Pick things to represent each favorite experience. A teddy bear. A coin. A button. A mug. Or from outside: A leaf. A flower. A pile of good dirt. A handful of grass. Whatever truly represents to you specific projects or activities you’ve done that make you smile still, after all these years.

When you’re done (you’ll know when), clean a flat spot in an out-of-the-way place (not the dining room table)—even a small corner of your bedroom will do.

Place your collection there, in an arrangement that makes sense to you: First things at the back? Favorite things at the front? Small groups of related objects/experiences? Whatever makes you happy.

Now, Go Away for a while – maybe a day or two (if your collection is where you can’t avoid seeing it, put a sheet over it).

Ready? Set aside a quiet time and sit down and look at your collection: What does it tell you about the things you most like to do? Write your thoughts down.