Please note that the prior blog post, entitled What’s Next with the Steps: A Writing Therapy Reflection, included a whole worker bee analogy that I wanted to make as smooth as honey when describing how we should proceed through the process of claiming our truest identity.
And don’t think we’re dropping the writing off while we work on our identity-refining process. Writing therapy will continue to carry us to our destination points.
So now that we’ve listed out our steps with goal SMARTing, I want us to do a little tracking work as we go through our steps to close the gap between where we are in our personal makeups and where we want to be.
If we don’t track what’s going well and what’s not, regarding our work behaviors within the process, then how can we truly make notable progress leading to desirable identity results?
We need to get into a mindset shift of being super-conscious of what we’re doing while working on ourselves. It’s a work-in-progress process. So, we have to continuously look for ways to move that goal post forward as we’re closing the gap.
And, I’ve found that list-making . . . journaling . . . note-taking . . . SIMPLY WRITING THINGS DOWN (whatever you want to call it) is a surefire way of staying “WOKE” to where you’re thriving and to where you’re lacking.
Let’s just call this writing activity (or actually, “writing therapy”) — tracking our behaviors.
- What limiting behaviors are we constantly replicating that need to be stopped?
- What healthy behaviors have we mastered and need to continue?
- What areas of improvement in our lives need additional guidance and support from outside influences like our family, friends, support groups, accountability partners, etc.?
- What resources are we lacking (and MUST acquire) in order to move forward in the process?
- Are we exhibiting the bee-attitudes noted from last blog post, or are we falling short in these behaviors? (There are more than the ones listed below, but let’s just focus on the five previously-mentioned to drive the focus of the remainder of our discussion today.)
To refresh your memory, here are those bee-attitudes again.
- Be the worker in this process and execute those steps that you’ve identified you need to work through to make life changes.
- Be as positive in your attitude as you can while you’re working through the process.
- Be patient.
- Be realistic.
- Be accountable (for the improvements you’re pursuing) to yourself and to those who make up your support system.
Honestly, I picked these five core behaviors — ways of being — attitudes because they, in general, encompass those characteristics we’ll need to reflect in order to be successful in our personal development process. And they all are loaded character traits.
For example,
When you’re bee-ing the worker, you carry your work weight and do what’s expected of you, you follow through and are dependable and responsible, you own what’s been assigned to you and don’t try to push it off on others, you put in the necessary effort to get the job done, you already have and/or have the ability to acquire the knowledge and skills required to do the work.
When you’re bee-ing positive in your attitude, you don’t flake out when obstacles and trials come your way, you learn from your mistakes and failures instead of letting them take you out of the process, you control your mindset and look for ways to draw on the positive aspects of the process and build from there (the whole “glass half-full” mentality), you look for solutions instead of problems.
When you’re bee-ing patient, you have a “don’t give up” attitude and strive to persevere even in the face of adversity, you look at the process as a life-long refining process and not a one-and-done effort, you embrace the fact that life-changing processes take time and you don’t beat yourself up when you don’t see results as quickly as you’d like to, you are diligent with and consistent at and committed to the process.
When you’re bee-ing realistic, you understand (ahead of time) that there may be some bumps in the road so you don’t let them derail you on your identity-refining process, you understand all of the above points and how they all must be practiced in order to see successful outcomes, you remind yourself from time to time that there will be ups and downs while going through the process and therefore you keep yourself in check (don’t get too high or too low).
When you’re bee-ing accountable, you hold the expectations that others have of you just as high as the expectations you have of yourself, you set out to do what you’ve told others you will do, you include your supporters in the process and give them permission to hold you accountable for your actions, you assign your supporters roles to help you stay on track with the process and/or reward you for doing a job well done on the process and/or reprimand you when you’re not meeting the expectations set before you.
So . . .
Here’s what I want you to do.
I want you to be my support partner in holding ME accountable for coming up with a nifty behaviors tracker for self-improvement. Something that can be used each day to track behaviors (stellar and limiting) — behaviors we exhibit (sometimes without being consciously aware of them) that are allowing us to progress or are impeding our progress in the identity-refining process.
Now, I haven’t started on the tracker yet. I’ve just been thinking really hard about creating one. So, give me a couple of weeks or so, because I want it to be a purposeful tool we can successfully utilize as we continue on with our writing therapy for healing.
Oh, and let me know if there are any particular items you’d like for the tracker to include. (It’ll be a multi-page document for sure, but that’s all I’ve got right now.) Hey, and I’m always up for creating things that will actually be useful to you in your life education. So, let me know what you think.
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