Activities

Favourite things

Favourite Things is a short, simple activity which engages people by focusing on the things they enjoy. These favourite things are a rich source of positive concrete life experiences which provide excellent starting points for storytelling.

My career circle

The career circle provides a visual framework to collect and organize insights about eight components essential for a proper understanding of oneself and for establishing career goals.

Connections circle

In this activity people are encouraged to reflect on their identity in context. People are more than a list of personal assets. Their identity is interrelated with all their connections to their larger world. Connections is an effective framework to use when facilitating people’s discovery and reconnection with these connections. This activity focuses on the connections that our life/work roles suggest as well as the potential support that people may have access to while on their journey.

Patterns

The Patterns activity is one of the primary tools for facilitating people’s self-discovery in the Hope-Filled Engagement approach. It is an adaptation of the Pattern Identification Exercise (Active Engagement, Amundson, 2009). Starting with stories that are non-threatening to people, patterns provides a safe environment for people as they tell their stories, reflect on them, and connect them to their lives and the world of work.

Values circle

Values are essential to our life/work journeys. The values activity assists people in not only identifying their values but also to identifying and resolving conflicting values.

Balance circle

The balance circle, adapted from a traditional Medicine Wheel used in Aboriginal healing, asssits people to examine their own life balance, to reflect on its impact on their current life/work situation, and finally to encourage them to consider ways to come into healthier life balance where necessary.

Expanding the circle

Because people’s understanding of themselves is usually incomplete, this activity recognized that the perspectives of others are needed for a full and realistic self-assessment. This activity provides a safe structured way to gain such valuable insight.

Stepping stones

We live in a world which can be uncertain, changing, and even chaotic. Planning in such a world calls for a non-linear process of creative vision/decision/action planning. This activity explores these three aspects to dynamic planning.

The journey continues

The vision/decision/action planning process must be sustainable over life’s long journey even if people encounter barriers on the path. The journey continues presents ia cyclical model rather than a purely linear one.

My career circle

In this activity, the career circle which is first used for self-assessment is used as a starting point for career exploration based on people’s personal assests.

Connections circle

The connections circle is used to explore both what influences may be coming from the connections people have, as well as the influences they may be having on their connections in the world around them.

Mind mapping career possibilities

With this activity, people go beyond general career titles to mind mapping career fields, so that they are able to more finely tune the career possibilities which most closely match their unique combination of personal characteristics as presented in their Career Circle.

Entrepreneurship circle

This activity assists people in evaluating their potential as entrepreneurs. It considers the areas of spirit, resources, opportunity, and plan as a way to brainstorm on entrepreneurship.

Career info circle

In this activity, the career circle is will be used to collect and organize information about specific career possibilities in preparation for career decision making. Participants are introduced to the types of questions to ask as they seek to find out about careers.

Career info resources

This activity presents the three primary sources of career information: paper, internet, and people. The pros and cons of each source are examined. Participants are encouraged to strategize what information they should look for from each source.

Evaluating career possibilities

This activity builds on 2 previous activities: My Career Circle and the Career Info Circle. Once these are completed, people place the two circles side by side to see what matches between the 2 circles and what does not. This is a reflective process that allows for structured evaluation of options.

Looking down the path circle

People are instructed on how to use Looking down the Path circle a lens or framework to summarize, organize, and examine their thinking on each life/career possibility they are considering. In particular they identify 4 aspects they need to consider if they were to choose a specific career possibility: reasons, challenges, resources, and decision/actions.

Expanding the career decision making circle

This activity encourages meaningful insight from significant others in their life as they consider a career possibility. Others are asked to consider what people have identified as the reasons, challenges, resources, and decisions/actions for following a career path. They are then asked if they have any insight to add.

The backswing

Adapted from the backswing metaphor developed by Norm Amundson (Physics of living), this activity encourages people to think about to the principle that often we need to go backwards before we go forward. People are encouraged to take the time to be adequately prepared in order to make the most of opportunities.

Who am I?

This short activity asks people to answer the “Who am I?” question in one word. A discussion follows that identifies some of the common reasons why many people find this a hard question to answer.

Management vs craft

This activity is usually used as an introduction to the concept of Career Craft. It explores people’s different assumptions to the concept of craft and career. This leads to a discussion of the need to supplement the usual “career management” metaphor with one that some people may better relate to.

From the point of view of

This fun brainstorming activity demonstrates to people that looking at things in many different ways is a very helpful ability when they are seeking to explore who they are and what they could do in life. People are encouraged to look at themselves and their lives from different perspectives.

Collages

In Guiding Circles work, especially favourite things, collages are often used with visual people who don’t relate well to pen-and-paper type activities. This is often a very effective exercise with those how are labelled as disengaged.

The penny

The penny is a short activity used to introduce a focused questioning approach that engages people in the spiral of curiosity and discovery. This is usually present a preparation for questioning in storytelling. (in Hope-Filled Engagement)

The pencil

The pencil activity is used to prepare people to do the mind-mapping of career possibilities. In particular it introduces the concept that career exploration is more effective when the world of work is viewed as a web of work as opposed to silos.

Recognition

Recognition is an important issue for people on their life/career journeys. This brainstorming activity explores the different types of recognition people can give or receive from different types of relationships. Participants fill out a recognition chart and they identify the types of recognition they are already receiving, the recognition that is missing, and the recognition they are giving others.

Do mazes have dead ends?

This activity addresses people’s tendencies to give up when they think they’ve hit dead ends. It emphasizes the need to keep going no matter what barriers seem to arise.

Fill in the blanks

This activity uses different word and visual puzzles to explore how people fill in the blanks in their thought life. How we fill in the blanks will to a large extent determine how we will respond to life situations.

Reframing metaphors

Adapted from Norm Amundson’s book Metaphor Making, this activity explores the impact of the metaphors we use on our lives. It assists people to identify the metaphors they are using, any negative influences these metaphors may be having in their lives, and possible ways to reframe their metaphors into ones that are more positive and life-enabling.

Change your questions

Adapted from Adams book Change your questions, change your life, this activity encourages to reflect on the questions they are asking about themselves and their lives and then to consider the impact they may be having on them. People are encouraged to consider changing their questions to ones that may point them to new and more promising possibilities.

Mad hatter tea party

This activity is a funny and loud introduction to answering personal questions with other people. It is a backswing activity to prepare people for job interviews by showing them that they already possess many basic job interview skills.

“Yes, and” vs “yes, but”

This is another activity I often use when discussion life/career improv. It takes a typical improv activity and applies it to the life/career journey.

The Stroop effect

This is a quick mental/perception activity that demonstrates how people can become disoriented when they receive conflicting information. This leads to discussion of how we handle the conflicting voices in the world around us.

Stand on one foot

This is a quick physical activity that leads to a discussion of how easily we can lose balance when our usual frames of reference are removed. This leads to discussion of how we handle the loss of our usual reference points because of the rapid changes in our world.

The S.T.A.R.

I use this activity to link people’s storytelling with effective ways to answer questions during behavioural interviewing.

Define, describe, demonstrate

This engaging activity asks people to define, describe, and demonstrate something. This is then the basis for a discussion of the difference between giving information, explaining, and actually showing people how to do something.

Audition call

I often use this activity as an introduction to the need for life improv, especially on our life/career journey. It leads to a discussion regarding the shifts from the traditional career approaches to a more portfolio approach.