'Show up' Buddy

Ever thought about what could happen if you treated some of your 1 - year learning goals as a 12-week sprint? (side note - with an extra dash of precision, pace and planning)

This is where one of many views comes in.

Take Brian Moran’s book ‘12-week year’. The premise of the book.

Take a big goal that you have and map what could be achieved 12 weeks from now.

Then deconstruct it into monthly milestones…and then…Weekly milestones…and then…

Daily milestones….(for sure be realistic, woop it, refine it and more).

Wanna go deeper…?

Try hourly milestones (with some level of flexibility)….and here’s the rub...

How about pomodoro style minute milestones…(e.g. time blocks of 15-20 minutes or so with a break)!

All the while linking each milestone to that bigger 12-week goal (which itself is linked to something bigger for you).

Not everyone’s cuppa tea.

I’ve played around with this concept over several years and meshed it with other concepts.

One of the key learnings.

No need to always go at it alone.

Towards the end of one year and about 5 weeks out, it was game on.

So as to get a head start on the new year a date was set for a great met up which itself was planned two months in advance of the end of the year with a 'show up buddy’.

‘Show up buddy?' - someone with whom you know you will yourself show up and they too + both of you demonstrating reliability and 'show upness' at a time and place regularly.

Purpose = to share the pursuit of learning with someone, even if a different goal.

We spent the better part of the day mapping (five weeks prior to kicking off the new year) what we’d love to go after and realize the following year - including some epic learning goals.

Then we mapped quarterly (12-week milestones) and more or less repeated that for monthly and weekly.

Every week we met (and at the time of writing this, still meet) to reflect what we did do and what we didn’t do and project the next week ahead.

The next level part of that process was we met up every day at a set time to work on ‘a piece’ of our respective 12-week year.

There was something very powerful in being that ‘show up buddy’ and connecting with a ‘show up buddy’.

Even though our objectives were different and are reasons very diverse, what we shared was the dedication and reflections of our own learning process (still do).

Systematizing your learning in some way, shape or form on the regular has momentum to it.

A ‘show up buddy’ or ‘buddies’ may be part of that too (if that works for you).

Give it a bash (or some form of this).

You may be surprised as to what you can learn and accomplish during this time.

Learning will take you places...yet you've gotta step first.

With Arete,

Sean

p.s. remember to allow yourself a bit of lead time to plan it in advance (perhaps in the presence of others). Others have planned your learning over many many hours and years. How about deepening your own plan for learning?!)