Hello Friends,
Greetings from Barcelona☀️where plans are being cancelled faster than you can say “Feliz Navidad”.
🙌Many thanks for reading The Quest. A special shout out to Cathy in Kelowna, Mónica in Barcelona, Ravi in India, Delia in London, Barry & Michaele in Bracebridge, and Connie in Toronto.
If you are joining for the first time, welcome to our deep dive into all things creativity, facilitation, and learning.
You can catch up on the last edition ⚡ How to Have More Insights and all past editions here.
☝️First, I have a quick favour to ask you…
Would you be willing to fill in a 3-min survey?
I am preparing to launch cohort 2 of my Breakthrough Facilitation course in 2022. I’d love your input. Ideally by Dec 23 if humanly possible.
Big thanks to Quest readers Karaminder, Sonali, Stefy, Sav, and Connie for being the first to fill it out. And to Charlotte, Jenny, and Zab for sharing the link💪.
This is how I started the last newsletter of 2020…
Raise your hand if in 2020…
- You have had a hard time focusing
- You have caught yourself doom scrolling more than once
- You have felt overwhelmed by the urgency and scale of change the world needs
- You have experienced mixed blessings of life during the pandemic
- You have developed new habits that you plan to continue beyond 2020
- You have learned important things that would not have been possible without COVID
- You are relieved that 2020 will be over soon
😳”Oh no!” I thought. Are we in exactly the same situation as last year?
I thought I’d have a new list of questions. I thought we would be in a better place. 2021 was supposed to be different. I felt disappointed.
And then I started writing my 2021 annual review.
All of a sudden I had a different perspective on the last year. I was amazed at how many things I had already forgotten about.
It’s helped me to realize how much has happened.
I wrote an annual review last year. And I can see that the benefits starting to compound. I notice that I can more easily see a bigger picture and connecting threads. I can draw out insights that I wouldn’t have been able to before. Most of all, the annual review helped me step into 2021 with more intention.
One thread that is showing up for me in 2021 is connection.
A deeper connection to my purpose and the work I want to do. More connections with family and friends online and in person. And I’ve expanded connections with people like you who seek out better and more creative ways to learn and live.
I haven’t finished my annual review yet. Did everything go as planned? Nope. Were there disapointments? Hell yes! But feel like I have a fuller understanding of the whole year. And not just what happened in the last week.
What has 2021 revealed to you?
That’s our Quest for the rest of this year.
Here are some links that I hope will help you answer this question.
👉Ness Labs founder Anne-Laure Le Cunff‘s beautiful Annual Review “Making Friends With Fear“. Plus her free annual review template.
👉10 Different Questions I’m Asking Myself This Year. The questions I used for my annual review 2020. Please feel free to adapt and invent your own questions. It will make your annual review meaningful to you.
👉A prompt that I learned from Partners from Youth Empowerment adapted for the years’ end: When you think about 2021 ask yourself: “What’s one thing you’ll leave behind, and one thing you’ll take with you”.
📹GIF for the Year
And don’t forget to celebrate the fact that we have (almost) made it!
💌Thanks for reading The Quest
I am amazed and grateful that you take the time to read the Quest. Wherever you are, whether you can be with friends and family or not, whether you are experiencing the disappointment of canceled plans or not, whatever you may be celebrating or not, I appreciate you!
The Quest will be back in January 2022.
Creatively yours,
