INSPIRATION JOURNAL: DON’T DELAY, DAYDREAM TODAY, TOMORROW, AND THE DAY AFTER THAT

Have the demands of day-to-day life delayed your daydreaming about what your next chapter has in store for you? Don’t delay. Daydream today, tomorrow, and the day after that.

Many of you know that I work with folks on designing their retirement lifestyles. My 6-session coaching programs reveal the greatest retirement challenges. These challenges are gradually unpacked, explored at length for individual impact, and kept top of mind when designing. Frankly, it’s not unlike modular based strategic planning. Why modular? Because whether you are shaping a new strategic vision for an organization or your own retirement lifestyle, there is great value in using an iterative approach to help sharpen your vision and connect the dots.

There are starts and stops, the desire for more external information, the desire for more internal reflection, creative ideation, analyses of a range of options, isolation of the few key drivers, scenario planning, which lead to a solid mission, vision, values, goals, and overall approaches for their achievement. And one of the greatest values of the sessions is hearing, considering, and building on each other’s ideas.

So, how do I prepare team members for modular strategic thinking sessions? A few months in advance, I encourage participants to carry around a journal and make entries when inspired. Their inspiration may come from experiences, readings, news stories, conference presentations, conversations with people, visualization, and the like. Nothing is off limits when making journal entries, even if they are seemingly unrelated to the organization’s strategic plan. Why? Because the practice prompts open-minds, creativity, clarity, connection making, and deepens the sense of purpose. I may also give them a few questions to ponder, like those below, to get their thinking going.

Why does your organization exist?
What are your hopes for the organization in the future?
Where would you like the organization to be in X years?
What are the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats?
What input is desired from key stakeholders?
What forward focused options are worth exploring and why?

Applying these principles to designing your retirement lifestyle can be incredibly valuable. Carry an inspiration journal, paper or digital, and make entries. Daydream today, tomorrow, and the day after that about how you’ll spend your time and with whom, what gets you out of bed every morning, and who you’ll become. And enjoy the ride!

Carol Bergeron guides people through major life transitions with a focus on self-reflection, visualization, and collaboration. She helps clients adapt to personal and professional changes, especially when shaping modern retirement lifestyles, which involve emotional, social, lifestyle, and health-related shifts converging all at once.

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