3.17: MAP Challenge #3

In this episode of the Mindful Academic Podcast, I guide listeners through the third phase of the Mindful Action Pyramid: identifying priority outcomes. 

This step involves creating a brain dump of all current projects and commitments and then selecting the major goals to focus on over the next one to two years. I emphasize the importance of setting boundaries and saying no to non-essential tasks to protect these key projects. 

The episode highlights the need for alignment between these priority outcomes and one's values, purpose, and definition of success. 

I also address common issues like overcommitment and the struggle with boundaries, encouraging listeners to be mindful and intentional about their career and personal goals.

You can access Josh's substack @ podcast here:
https://joshuadolezal.substack.com/

Episode Details

Transcript

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the mindful Academy Podcast. I'm Jennifer Askey, your academic coach. And this is the fourth podcast in the mindful action planning challenge. This is where we're going to talk about the big rocks, the major anchor points along your path to success in a mindfully planned career. So in the first podcast, I introduced you to the mindful action pyramid model. In the second one, you spent some time getting clear on your values and your purpose. In the last one, I walked you through your definition of success from a desire point of view. And in this section of the mindful action pyramid, you're going to identify some of the major outcomes you want to achieve, that you believe will train your sales on this success, North Star, going to work with that metaphor for a while bear with me. So these things are things you can check off your list, right, your definition of success, the feeling of success isn't something that's a one and done, these big outcomes can be, they're probably larger things that aren't one and done. They're a bunch of little projects that combine to create a big thing that you can check off your list, but they are achievements in the traditional sense of the word. 

So what I suggest for this part of the process, so this is page four of the PDF that you can get on my website, Jennifer askey.com, I suggest you start with a brain dump. What are all of the projects and obligations that are currently open tabs in your mind? Do you have articles and grants to write mentorship of students, university wide committee projects, disciplinary organization projects, right? All of those things? Do you have things at home that you should need to do? Those sorts of anything that you've been working with or on as part of your current personal and professional plans? Okay, so you will probably come up with a list that is daunting. One of the things that I've been reading a lot about and talking to a lot of my colleagues, who are both coaches, or organizational development experts, and consultants, is the flat out over work that most people, regardless of industry are doing. The fact that all of the things on your to do list and their deadlines would add up to working a gazillion hours a week, right, you have more on your plate than is reasonable. That is almost a guaranteed fact. Because most people do. We have I think used technology and its efficiencies and its ability to make us accessible at all times to continually ratchet up the expectations of work without also ratcheting up our expectations around rest and recovery. It's the institution's we work for in higher education are in an arms race for funding and, and bums in seats and research money and the best of this and the best of that. And so everything begins to feel like a scramble. Now, the beautiful thing, if you are a full time tenure track faculty is the degree of autonomy, you have to really select these big rocks mindfully. Even however, if you aren't in a job where you feel like you have really solid guarantees of freedom you have as a professional room to negotiate what goes on your plate and what doesn't. This is where we start thinking about boundaries and learning how to say no, when we do the brain dump and realize, Oh my gosh, I have actually committed 130% of my time. Right? And you might want to think about what are the follow up effects of committing 130% of your time to work, right? This is probably not what you signed up for, and hopefully not what the people around you want you doing and what they shouldn't be doing either. Okay, so you do the brain dump for these priority outcomes for these big rocks. It is this is where you want to think of monograph articles, grants, research, big travel, seminars, invited talks, taking on a leadership role, teaching evaluations, a side hustle, new curricula, new classes, those sorts of things. You may also and I encourage you also to put on this list big rocks in your personal life.

Does your image of you as a successful person involve you at your fittest and fastest and you want to qualify for the Boston Marathon? Right? That would be a big rock that would be a priority outcome? Do you? Is there a trip you want to go on? Do you want to dedicate yourself to something do you want to get into a certain conference? Do you want to go on a meditation retreat that was in my list for years until I finally made it happen? One of the things that's on my big priority outcomes list right now is to pass the master certified coach credentialing exam, I need some more coaching hours, you need to coach 2500 hours before you've qualified to take the exam. But I'm working on the classes and the learning and the evaluation process for it now, so that when I hit the hours, I'm good to go. Because my vision of success for myself is knowing that I have given my all have given all of the attention and rigor I can to being as good a coach, as I'm capable of being like really investing my rigor and attention into that, and not leaving any stone unturned there.

 So one of my big rocks is continued progress towards MCC, so that in a year or two, I can check that off my list. So for the for the pinnacle, we're looking at no more than a five year period for these priority outcomes. After you do your brain dump, I would like you to and you know, maybe you keep the brain dump as a parking lot someplace. But I want you to pick no more than five big rocks, that are your priority outcomes for the next one or two years, right, depending on how big they are. So these five big rocks should include both what you must do, and what you desire to do in the next couple years. Right. So if you have a teaching or clinical role, and you put as your five big rocks, all of these things that are research focused and travel focused, and you're all excited about it, and then when it comes to planning, you realize, oh, but I teach three days a week, and that's going to impact me in this way. Like, you know, maybe successful teaching just stays one of your big rocks. So things that you must do, and things that you want to do. And again, this is an opportunity to check in with the foundation of the pyramid around values and purpose. And to check in with that success definition at the top of the pyramid. Because ideally, all of these things are aligned. Right. So everything that goes in that big objectives, Priority Outcomes, slice should feed in some way into that image of success, feeling of success. And maybe there are things that don't, right, maybe there are parts of your job that are just a little bit of a drag all the time. But they're necessary that you have to do that in order to have the great job. That's fine. And that can still be one of your big rocks. Okay, but understand, like, Okay, I'm doing this so that I have the freedom to do these other things, which really moved me towards that definition of success. So we're looking at a year or two, that kind of depends on how big these big rocks are. Because you cannot do all the things at the same time.

 So you have five rocks, they're not all research, right? They are parts of a recipe for feeling aligned and good and successful that work. So what you're doing by saying these are my priority outcomes is beginning to create a plan to trust yourself. Right? I have said that success for me feels like this. Because of that I've picked these three to five things that are really important for me. And if I don't do them, I will have regrets. Right. And I have clients and I kind of struggled with this myself. When I initially left academia I took a years leave without pay. I wasn't entirely sure I was gone and that leave without pay came In close to when I would have had a sabbatical. And until I had to get a job, I use the first several months of that leave without pay, to, to work on the monograph that my institution wasn't required for tenure. But it was one of those things that I knew if I didn't finish, I would have regrets, right. And I could have, and you can certainly fill up your days with email requests from people and problem solving, and putting out fires, and being on this little project and that little project. And you can find a million ways to eat up your time that keep you from doing that thing that's really important. 

A, a yoga teacher and creativity coach, who used to be pretty active online, said something about this phenomenon that has really stuck with me. So that big goal, right that that big objective that priority outcome is, it's maybe your precious thing. And maybe you don't rush headfirst into that work every day or every week, because it's precious, and you don't want to mess it up, right? You don't want to mark it, you don't want to drop it, you don't want to do it wrong. And that's fine. And there's some growth mindset things around that, that you can work on with a coach. But just know that saying, in order to feel like I have hit my potential, I want to complete these things. That's an okay thing to say. And it is going to demand prioritization, it's going to demand boundary setting, it's going to demand saying no to other things. And that's what we're doing in this Priority Outcomes slice of the pyramid. Okay. So, as you're thinking about what goes in this slice, saying, Okay, if I do X, Y, and Zed in the next couple of years, how will I feel? Will that be moving me towards that ultimate feeling of success? How will I recognize that I have gotten there? What does taking on one of these priority projects? What does it equip me to do? Right, so if I pass the MCC examined a year, so what does that equip me to do? And that's a fascinating question. So if you write that book, get that job, what are you then equipped to do? And how does that feed into your definition of success? And then your job is to say, Okay, if these three to five priority outcomes are my real goals for the next couple years, they include the things I must do and the things I want to do, and they're doable within a reasonable amount of time, then you can start getting concrete about that, but getting concrete about it is going to be putting boundaries around it. 

And the coaching supervisor at academic impressions uses the metaphor of the castle of your writing and the moat around it. And so whether your priority outcome has to do with writing or not think about what happens for that priority outcome, the work that you need to do as your castle. And your boundaries are the moat that you built around it. And you can put the drawbridge down every once in a while and you bring the drawbridge up. But you're not saying no and like pushing people or things or obligations away. You're creating a moat around that precious thing. So that it has time to develop in the overwork and hustle mentality where everybody answers Oh, how are you with? Oh, my gosh, I'm so busy. We have no white space, we have no time to think we have no time to daydream and Muse and be bored and let creativity hit us. Right? So what? How do you need to work to protect that precious thing so that it has time to grow? That's the biggest challenge here in the second segment of the pyramid where you're working on your priority outcomes. When clients come to me, they talk about time management. And I think I said this in the last episode or in the first one. It's never time management. It's always priority management. It's always I've said yes to too many things. I let too many things get added to my plate. No, it's not really my job, but I'm good at it. Oh, but I was so happy to be asked, et cetera, et cetera. And none of that is bad, but As you focus in on what some priority projects are, it will hopefully become clear to you the cost of being the person who says yes to everything, the cost of being the capable person that everybody turns to, so that they don't have to pull their own socks up and learn the process, right. So, if you struggle with boundaries, this is one way to visualize for yourself, what you why you aren't protecting your time. And so being projects that move you towards success. So that is the second slice of the pyramid. I will come back tomorrow with the next episode of the challenge where we get to actual goal setting. Okay, and you might want some post it notes for this, or the back of the piece of paper that the pyramids printed on because this is where we get into the nitty gritty. Thank you again for being here with me today. And I will be back soon. Get in touch when you have questions or insights from the pyramid. I would love to hear them Jennifer@Jenniferaskey.com