Exploration: What Are Your Options?
We’re well and truly settled into the year now. Yet, the past couple of months were still characterized by short days, long nights, cold and wet weather, and an inwardness of incubation.
Now, the days are getting longer. You might catch yourself one day at the desk in the office thinking it’s 4.30pm as it’s getting dark when it’s already 5.50pm!
We have more and more energy each day thanks to the increasing daylight hours and gradual shift towards more warmth.
Exploration
If you’re anything like me you have used the last dark months to explore your options. An exploration into your soul can bring up a lot. Not all pleasant.
It’s a time that lends itself to examine the proverbial doors in your life. In other words, to look at your options.
An exploration is really “the activity of searching and finding out about something” (Cambridge Dictionary).
It’s not a time for decision making. That comes later (in fact, next week’s blog will deal with decision-making in full).
What are Your Options?
It can be a lot of fun to find out your options.
However, there are some pitfalls to be mindful of:
The rabbit hole: during your exploration you might come across an idea that you think is brilliant. Consequently, you stop exploring and jump all into action. Chances that you’ll run out of steam very soon are exceedingly high.
Getting overwhelmed: you might find so many options that you don’t know what to do next. You feel it’s all too much and secretly wish you had left Pandora’s box locked up.
Being underwhelmed: yes, you might look at your options and none of them make you jump for joy. You might get a bit depressed looking at what’s ahead. If this is you, read on!
The biggest mistake you make (I say that because it’s the one I make, too!) is that you want to do all the exploration in an afternoon. And be done with it. And know exactly what you want from life.
Sorry!
It doesn’t work that way.
Believe me: I’ve tried that approach so, so many times.
Listing Your Options
Instead: take your time with this. In theory, you have all winter. In practice, I’d say the best time to start your exploration is the New Year.
Don’t settle on your New Year Resolutions on the New Year as that’s not giving you the time to be deliberate about your choices (leading to unfulfilled promises).
To be honest, I should have written this blog in January so you would have had the time to explore your options in depth. Apologies. I wasn’t that organized.
So, now we’re here, I invite you to list your options: list everything from the very small (like making a change to your diet) to the very big (like moving to another country).
This is not an invitation to sit down now and start writing. It is, in part, but I want you to take more time than the next half hour or so.
Once you’ve put all the options down that come to mind, put the paper away for a day or two. Go back to it when you have another idea that you want to put on it. This is especially important if you felt underwhelmed by your first list or the attempt to write options down on paper. Trust me: more ideas are going to turn up.
I promise you: you’ll know when you’re done.
Give yourself this gift of exploring with enough time.
Colour Code Your Options
Once you feel like all your options are on paper, I want you to take different coloured pens (or pencils) and colour code your options.
This is what works for me:
Red = what I’m passionate about and would love to do
Blue = what my mind says is the logical option to do
Green = what would be fun to do
Yellow = what would bring joy to others as well as me
I go through the list and make a star with the applicable colour next to the option. Once I’m done with one colour, I go through the list again.
Usually what I end up with is very colourful! But it’s also giving me a good idea which options might be more worthwhile than others.
Obviously, you can play around with the colour coding and write your own legend. Just make sure you note it down: you might remember right now which colour you chose for which category, but you might not remember in a couple of weeks.
Last thing to do (if you haven’t already): date your paper. It’s fascinating to come across these bits of data later on in life and see what has materialized and whether your hunches were right.
Exploration: What are Your Options?
A quick recap of the main points:
Explore without making decisions
Avoid the common mishaps: rabbit holes, overwhelm and underwhelm
Take your time to list out your options
Colour code your options (don’t forget to label and date)
Store it somewhere safe
Right, you’re done reading: now it’s time for action and to start on your options exploration list. If you’ve already got one (even if it’s from a long time ago), you can use that as your entry point. To support you with these exercises and dive deeper why not get the Soul Journey for this topic?
Remember, take your time. You’ll need days. Not minutes.
