For We All Need a Lighthouse by _tomanthony

What is it?

The name came from a conversation with my bf whilst I was describing what I was up to at the moment.  In particular, the fact that I wanted to commit to not trying to pull myself in two directions.  I want to commit 100% to building up my confidence and self-discipline around being true to myself before I tried to come up with a plan for earning money, including not taking any work for the foreseeable future due to my tendency to lose myself in it.

Fortunately, rather than panic about paying the bills (he does know that I have enough savings for a while, so that helped) he described it as being like someone who might want to go and do a Masters.  I would effectively be a student on a course that I was going to design, run and teach myself.

Which sounds like a total slackers dream, right?!  Which means there’s all sorts of stuff about not trying hard enough that crops up.  Which is one of my patterns that I’m hoping to get to know better as part of this process.

What does it involve?

I’m still working out some of the details on that front, but given there’s a few bits and pieces that are falling into place already.

Course title: MA in Growth and Personal Evolution

Accreditation: None (but I don’t need external validation)

Daily schedule:

• Morning Shiva Nata, Meditation & Writing (though by morning, I just mean when I wake up) – this is what I’m currently trying
• Doing 15 minutes a day on a commitment to others that I’m procrastinating on (including allowing myself to change my mind about some commitments)
• Spending 2 hours on anything I’ve been procrastinating on that will help me grow or evolve (which may be just spending 2 hours practising being ok with the fact that I don’t want to do any of it and exploring that through writing or whatever else comes up)
• Building in lots of time to rest, veg out, snack and hang with bf & the bunnies
• Making dinner from fresh food and enjoying the meal as a time to connect with bf
• Yoga, with lots of shavasana (translation: more resting)
• Purposefully putting 2 hours of each day aside as permission to explore anything and everything that intrigues me, so long as it involves an element of doing and not just reading
• Giving myself permission to spend some time each day doing whatever I need/desire at that time, be it playing Guitar Hero, watching tv, having more snacks, flopping with the bunnies, doing more reading, visiting friends, curling up in a ball, floating around twitter and the blogosphere or making origami animals.  (NB: A trip to library today saw me coming back with: The Human Mind Explained, The Duck that Won the Lottery, Quirkology, Teach yourself psychology, The Black Swan, The Great Big Veg Challenge, The I Ching Workbook, Reiki, and The idiot’s guide to Understanding Ethics.)

Course modules (not a fixed or complete list – suggestions welcome!):

• Anything, everything, and possibly more, that Havi produces
• Someday Syndrome
• How much joy: Discover your soul purpose (and I just got the pun) – unsure on this one, but I’m going to check it out
• Inspired Home Office Wish Kit (reframed as Inspired Home Space-where-I-do-my-MA Wish Kit)
• Bodymind training: Yoga & Shiva Nata, maybe Pilates
• World Domination Manifesto
• Happiness Coaching (at the moment this has been put on hold, and I still don’t know what’s going to happen with it)
• Moon trials (my version of the 30 day trial, it runs from full moon to full moon)
• Personal Development for Smart People

Study groups / Tutorials:

• Taking part in online communities that explore growth and personal evolution
• Jen Louden‘s 2009 Virtual Retreat
• The Mastermind group I’m in

Holidays – I’m going to need to have a break from time to time!

I’m thinking that whilst 2009 and the MA have an overview, I may also give each season it’s own focus.  For example, Winter is about ‘Being true to myself’.  I’m thinking Spring will be about ‘Food & health’.  After that I’m not sure, but it’s possible that one season isn’t even enough time for each of these topics so I may extend them or end up repeating the whole thing.

Maybe next year I’ll be in a position to do it as my alternative MBA and give it a business slant.  Who knows?

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• The Happiness Hypothesis: Progress report March 2009
• The Happiness Hypothesis
• Scheduling crisis: Finding a balance