The power of being your own greatest project
Using the agile methodology for self-mastery
One of my favorite project management frameworks is the Agile Methodology.
It’s a circular approach that begins with a plan, moves into design, starts to develop then test, deploy and finally review. The review process then feeds into future plans.
It’s an elegant approach that requires presence, courage, data and strategy.
But, what if the concepts we learn in Agile can be applied to our lives as well as our projects?
What if we began to see our lives as one giant project where we are deploying OURSELVES into the world, and when we do it with careful planing, design, development, testing and feedback WE become a masterpiece?
Plan
We have explore quite a bit in previous installments (read HERE and HERE) about how to know what it is you want from life. How to CREATE a future.
This is the first step in the Agile methodology because without a plan we cannot design develop or deploy anything into the world.
Knowing what you STAND for is vital.
In a recent training with Lumenalta’s Founder Kuty Shalev challenged us to journal for 10 minutes around what we stand for. What truly matters to us.
Anyone can do this exercise, but few do. Many times, when we feel unfulfilled in life, it’s simply a matter of fuzzy focus. We don’t know what we are actually aiming form.
Design
Once you know what kind of life you want to create - it is necessary to design the actions that lead to that kind of life.
For example, if want matters most to me is delivering excellence, I must design habits that allow me to do that. I need my mind primed and sharp when I start my work day. I cannot roll out of bed at 8:55am to start work at 9am and deliver excellence.
What this looks like for me (doesn’t have to look like this for everyone) is that I wake early so I can get to the gym. I have a nice long workout, and can plan my day and journal and set my top three objectives before I start working.
The things I stand for will never manifest in my life without aligned ACTIONS attached to them.
Develop/Test
Now that I have designed my life and habits, it’s time to develop them. I don’t know about you - but my first iteration of ANYTHING is never the best or final one.
Oftentimes we want our lives to effortlessly fall into place, and when we meet resistance it’s easy to use it as an excuse as to why we will never achieve our desired outcome.
But can you imagine how silly it would be for a project to go from Plan to Design to Deploy perfectly without any need for development or testing?? No way. Testing and trail and error are not only part of the process - but NECESSARY.
Stop resisting this step and embrace it.
Deploy
In a recent training I was running I asked the participants to tell me what they liked most about their personality and what they would change if they could.
Most of them said the same thing: “I like that I research things really well, I know everything about the gaming console I’m considering buying and I really take my time. But, that’s also the part I would change. I wish I didn't overthink so much and I could just make a decision.”
Deploying something takes courage. It requires us to put out into the world the thing we have been working on, planning for and developing. It’s the part of the living that requires being seen. And being seen sometimes means being judged.
In order to deploy yourself into the world, you must overcome fear of judgement and find the courage to launch.
Review
I may have just encouraged you to overcome your fear of judgement, but now I’m going to encourage you to embrace judgement. But, here’s what I mean:
Judgement from others is not helpful. They stand for different things and have different life circumstances, and YOU are the only one living your life.
Judgement informed by your own standards is extremely helpful. When we stop and look at our lives and hold it up against our OWN standards, we start to evaluate: “Am I creating the life I set out to create in the first place?”
This kind of judgement is a gentle realignment rather than harsh criticism.
It brings us full circle back to the step of planning, we get to restart the process of co-creating the life we want to live.
Time for reflection
Which of these steps are you naturally great at?
Which of these steps are more challenging?
Take this moment to reflect on one step that you want to put some effort into improving or taking more action toward.
In fact, next week we will look at ACTION oriented growth. It’s easy to notice the problem, and think about solutions, but taking action is where growth happens.