Olympics 2012: Always Do Your Best

The world is focused on the London 2012 Olympics.  News of wins and losses grab newspaper headlines across the globe.  We are privy to inspiring stories of people from all over the world.   Did you watch Hiroshi Hoketsu of Japan?  He has held the title of the oldest athlete at the games for several years: he is 71.Maybe you watched the incredible speed and determination of Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee from South Africa.  He certainly captured the attention of many at the games.  The games also start to blur the lines of what is possible and impossible.  Agreements that we have may have made with others and ourselves. 

There are thousands of athletes at the games and it would be a shame to only focus on those that made headlines and the podiums.  We must celebrate all of the athletes and all the of the time they put into preparing in their sport.   Others we need to celebrate, and this has been captured in many commercials, are the families and coaches that have supported these athletes.  They are the leaders behind the leaders - the motivators behind the role models.    If you have been reading about the games, you will see that many individuals have mottos or words that they go back to when it comes to preparing for the big race, journey or event.    This is not too far of from moving forward during times in our lives when we feel in the midst of something big or something deeply important.  As the games continue for another week, Miguel Ruiz's five agreements comes to mind; in particular, always do your best.  Let's read more about the five agreements. 

According to don Miguel Ruiz, everything we do is based on agreements we have made — agreements with ourselves, with other people, with the universe, and with life. But the most important agreements are the ones we make with ourselves. With these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible.

The Five Agreements:

1. BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORDSpeak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
   
2. DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLYNothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering
   
3. DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONSFind the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
   
4. ALWAYS DO YOUR BESTYour best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are tired as opposed to well rested. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.
   
5. BE SKEPTICAL, BUT LEARN TO LISTENDon’t believe yourself or anybody else. Use the power of doubt to question everything you hear: Is it really the truth? Listen to the intent behind the words, and you will understand the real message.

In times of broken world records and even Olympic dreams it is ever so important to review what is impossible in our minds.  What we believe to be possible, what we strive for in our day to day lives must always reflect values that we hold true.  These values are ideals that we have agreed to uphold in how we lead and live our lives.   While we see hundreds of athletes achieve great heights, we must also find ways to set goals and aim high in our day to day lives.  The five agreements can help us to make sense and manage the blows when we do not always achieve what we set out to do.   This week, we have reviewed how to to do your best - watch the Olympics and cheer for those that do their best in the headlines and the podiums, but also, by being there by representing their countries. 

Miguel Ruiz's book is an incredible addition to a personal library.  It is a short read and travels well.  Take some to review the agreements.   How might you bring them into your day to day? Or do you have other mottos that you live by?

Summer Book Love: Reading for Travel & Coaching

Have you noticed on our blog we have a Book Love tab? After you read today's blog go check it out! Oh, and comment below with other titles you think could be included on the list.    Below is an amazing interactive way to find your book this summer!  Maybe you can not travel to another country this summer or this year - why not escape from your regular routine through a book? Escape to another world between the crisp pages of a fresh book, or take an inspired walk down to your library to source out a mystery, comedy, or autobiography.  Jump aboard, no passport needed!

Maybe you are taking a gap year or a break from your regular routine to spend some time in another country.  Reading more than just the Lonely Planet or travel blogs about that country can heighten your experience once you get there.  Image reading about the history of the Inca people more deeply than the little  bit in a travel book.  Now, visualize yourself at dawn when the clouds lift and Machu Picchu is revealed.

If you have followed our blog in the past, at mygapyear we also focus on coaching those that connect with our services throughout their gap year.  On our book love page you will find a few books that we just love related to thinking differently about your life & books that ask good questions to get you thinking!

Thanks to teach.com for this awesome graphic!!





Via Teach.com and USC Rossier Online

Redefine Possible

Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out. 
Karl Augustus Menninger

Redefine Possible - Overcome Fear

The world has played witness to two very interesting and powerful experiences for two motivated individuals. A man crossing Niagara Falls and a man climbing a mountain. Two individuals who decided to redefine possible.  I am borrowing this idea of "redefining possible" from  Spencer West and Free the Child - one of the two men I previously mentioned.  If you have not followed his journey to reach Uhuru Peak, the summit of Mount Kilimanjarro what you might not know about Spencer is that he will be accomplishing this feat with out....feet. Training for a year, Spencer and the team set out Africa's tallest free standing mountain to raise funds for clean water projects in Africa.   Check out the team reaching the summit below. 

 Seven days later.......

The first video captures some insights into how Spencer's journey started.  His life changed course from what others anticipated what would happen.  In his case, a story was written even before it had a chance to unravel.   Sometimes that is what we need - a change in direction to re-educate our minds how to think, believe and dream differently about the path in front of us or the life we choice to live.   The second video is of Spencer achieving this incredible milestone!  One of the pieces that stood out to me as I followed Spencer was the incredible sense of team between the climbing group.  With a team, anything can be possible. 

What is on your bucket list?  Big or small redefine possible for yourself!  Who is on your team to help you achieve re-writing your story? 

WHAT ABOUT TAKING A GAP YEAR?

Welcome back, readers.  This is the final posting in our three week series.  We have explored myths about gap years, what happens to an individual's academic journey and finally, we want to share stories from some of our current gappers.  Below is an entry from a gapper who is travelling in South America.  Our clients have traveled all over the world and Canada.  Blogging is a great way to say in touch with family and friends while abroad.  mygapyear values the unique opportunity blogging can add to an individual's gap year experience.  It is a great tool to capture learning, stories and a fun way to stay in touch with family and friends. 

Part Three:  What could you do on a gap year? 

Blog excerpt from a current blogging gapper!

Hey all—

I am proud to say that we have all returned safe and sound to civilization after two amazing weeks in the Amazon. All a little dirty and smelly, we can't help but be proud of all the hard work we’ve accomplished. 

Our first week was spent in the small village of Campo Cocha and our second week was spent just up the river volunteering at a rain forest reserve run by the Arajuno Jungle Lodge. 

In Campo Cocha, we lived with local families in quite rustic conditions. These local families were Quichua, the indigenous people to this region. 

Our mornings were spent working and spending time with our families while our afternoons were spent running a "kids camp" for all the children of the village

Standing in the Buttresses of the ¨Tree of Life¨

. The work that filled our mornings included: collecting cacao and opening the fruits with a machete to collect the coco beans inside, chopping wood, fishing, collecting yucca and plantains, panning in the river for gold, and much more. 

After a hearty lunch of some variation of yucca and plantains, we set off to go to the center of the village to run the kids camp.  Some of us had to walk as far as a kilometre and a half (about one mile) each way. 

We ran the kids camp by doing a different theme of activities (arts, sports or science) each day. Whether it was painting wacky pictures with water colours, kicking a ball around a soccer field with 30 very enthusiastic and energetic little ones, or having slime fights, the kids always had us laughing and having a great time. 

After being exhausted from hard work in the mornings and chasing after kids all afternoon, we would return back to our host families to help prepare dinner and spend time together. We happily collapsed into our beds every night for a much deserved sleep. 

            A week flew by, and after a tearful goodbye with our families, we boarded a small motorized canoe and travelled up the river, deeper into the rain forest, to the Arajuno Jungle lodge for a week of ecological conservation work. 

Upon arrival, we discovered that our lodging was not nearly as rustic as our experience in Campo Cocha village had been

 Another Woman of the Village

Comments!

. Tom, the former Peace Corps trainer who owns and runs the lodge, had outfitted the beautiful hardwood and thatched roof buildings with nice furnishings, including a hammock for almost everyone in our group, a TV with a selection of DVDs, a stereo, and an ipod player --  all completely run by solar power. Even his water system was run by rain water he collected in reservoirs. It was truly an ecologically sustainable palace. 

However, pleasant lodging aside, our work was just as physically demanding as it had been in Campo Cocha. Tom, who works tirelessly to restore the Yellow Spotted Turtle populations of the river, had us chopping up bamboo with machetes, planting bamboo on the riverside and hauling bags of sand from a beach up to his enclosure of Yellow Spotted Turtles to provide them with sand to lay their eggs in. With four and a half hours of work every morning, we were all thankful to have our lazy afternoons of curling up in a hammock with a good book. 

            But now our time at the Arajuno Jungle Lodge has ended, and our time in the Amazon rain forest in general, and we are off to the bustling markets of Otavalo. It’s hard to believe that our time in South America is almost over and we’ll be seeing you all soon.

But until then—

Hope all is well back home.




Thank you for joining us on our three week exploration of taking a gap year.  Next week, we will begin a new series.  Please join us as we explore the foundations of  successful gap years.  

Life Apps - what are they? Why are we running them?

mygapyear recently held the first in a series of  Life Apps .  Sounds cool doesn’t it?  It is, - and we're going to do more! This one took the form of a webinar- part seminar part web based demos.

Our goal is to create opportunities for our Gappers to hang out together - to build a community of Gappers and at the same time enhance emotional intelligence skills or share some coaching tools.

We used Skype to connect and chat and used an interactive media to show a short youtube clip and provide a place to interact through text chats. We were able to connect Gappers in Victoria BC, Banff, Alberta , Toronto and Mississauga, Ontario.

Our first topic was goal setting - an important part of a gap year plan and a great life App! Our Gappers were able to share some thoughts about their own goal setting, and  we demonstrated some goal setting techniques and tips.   Gappers walked away with some tools and resources to use in their gap year planning and in their lives. What do you know about SMART goals? Our Gappers will be able to tell you!

Stay tuned as we present more LifeApps! Future topics include Leadership and Time Management.

From Vision to Reality: Setting goals to create the life you really want

“Whatever we focus on becomes our idea of reality”  - Anthony  Robbins

So why should we set goals?  I think the answer to that question is offered in the following quote by Lewis Caroll  “If you don’t know where you are going any road will get you there”
In other words, setting goals is critical on a journey to personal success because much like any other journey, if you set out without having a destination in mind it becomes very easy to feel adrift and lost in the world.

Goals provide us with a clear sense of direction, and create both a long term vision, and the short term motivation to get us to where we want to go.  By giving us clarity, goals also help us to focus in on what is really important, without getting derailed by fears and/or side tracked by all the distractions we face on a daily basis.

A few things to remember about goals and goal setting….

The first step is to think big…think of goals that will inspire!!! When we visualize our dreams as possible, we create a powerful energy and momentum to get us moving and start to take action.

Achieving a compelling goal is not an easy process.  Once we have a list of “wants” for different areas in our life, it is useful to remember the acronym SMART which offers a proven formula for setting the right kind of goals. SMART stands for: 
S-specific
M –measurable
A –Attainable
R –realistic
T- time bound

SMART goal setting helps to set targets and breakdown those big picture goals into realistic chunks with a step by step action plan to get there. 

It is also important to list the reasons we want to accomplish a goal and put it in writing.  The more reasons we have, the more motivated we will be to do something about it.  And when we put things in writing we take the first step in turning a simple wish into an attainable goal.
Lastly, when we with surround ourselves with reminders (such as posters, symbols, inspirational statements, etc.,) that represent our actual goal, we are most likely to stick with our goal even when feeling discouraged or distracted because our attention will be pulled back to what matters most.

In the end, when we finally do achieve a goal, it is important that we recognize and reward our accomplishment. Achieving goals can be a huge boost to self confidence.  We can take pride in our achievement and recognize the ability and effort it took to get there.

A Gap Year provides the perfect opportunity to begin the process of goal setting for young men and women who may be feeling burnt out, or are unsure of their interests and want some time to explore who they are.  Or maybe they want to carve a path that’s different from the traditional model of success.  It is a time when they can start asking themselves those critical questions… the questions that will help them make better decisions and more authentic choices throughout their lives.  Questions such as … What do I truly want out of life?  What do I want to achieve?  What do I want to learn? What do I need to be fulfilled?  In a sense goals define our “possible selves” and as these young adults begin to discover the answers to these questions, and start to identify and achieve specific goals to help them turn their vision into reality, they will find greater sense of meaning, increased motivation, more confidence and ultimately enjoy greater happiness.  

Want to learn more about goal setting or how a gap year can help your son or daughter start to set the compelling goals that will maximize his or her potential?  Contact mygapyear at www.mygapyear.ca