Sensophy’s Inner Circle: Week #7

A couple of days ago, a bunch of us got together on a Friday night for call #7 of Sensophy’s Inner Circle. Now that’s dedication! :o) Below, we’ve summarized some of our favorite talking points.

If you missed the live call, you can check out the MP3 recording in your own time.

Talking Point #1: Take the ‘personal’ out of ‘personal development’

When we’re in this whirlwind of growth and aiming to live the best life we can, it’s easy to get fixated on what’s in it for us. What are we gonna get out of this? How will this help us on our journey? Is this gonna make us feel the way we want to feel? When it comes to doing things for other people, it might feel like it’s getting in our way. But the best thing for us to do is to sometimes take a step back and look at the bigger picture. If we took ourselves out of the equation and spent time with this person, doing something that’d bring meaning to *their* lives, what impact would that have on us?

In a roundabout way, helping someone else find meaning gives *us* the meaning we’re searching for, too.

Talking Point #2: We’re in this for the long haul

A lot of the time, we say we’re on this path because we want the freedom we think it’ll bring us. But what exactly does the word ‘freedom’ even mean? What does it signify for us? Often, we achieve the goals we thought we were striving for, only to find ourselves locked into some other pursuit and not totally feeling the freedom we hoped we might end up with.

A better word to describe what we’re going for might be ‘autonomy’ (meaning self-government or independence). What we want is the ability to lead a life where *we* dictate what we do. There are still gonna be commitments to honor and things we’d rather not do, but most of the time, we’re in the driver’s seat.

The cool thing about aiming for autonomy is that we can actually start living autonomous lives right away. It’s not some esoteric thing that may or may not happen for us in the future, and it’s not about some goal that we achieve once and then that’s it. It’s a lifestyle. And the best way to start being autonomous right now is to get consistent on our fundamentals. What are the things we need to do every day that we know will make us feel awesome and help us live our best lives right now?

Peep This Too

We talked about fundamentals during week #5 of the Inner Circle. Check out the notes here.

Talking Point #3: We can’t always do this alone

As we’re building lives of purpose, it’s helpful to know exactly what our strengths are so we can use them to shape our futures. And who knows what we’re good at better than the people we spend most of our time with?

One of the most interesting and helpful things we can do on our journey is to get other people involved – especially when it comes to bigging ourselves up. We’re not always able to see our own strengths as easily as others do. An awesome exercise to do (which will probably require us to step outside our comfort zones a little!) is to reach out and email 5 people asking what they thing our top 3 strengths are. Feel free to email whoever you feel most comfortable with. It may be a close family member, a colleague, or one of your best friends. You may be surprised to notice what other people find your top qualities to be.

If you need some guidance writing this email, you can use this passage to get you started:

“Hey Jane Doe, I hope all is well with you. I’m in the process of doing some work online and one of the requirements is that I email 5 people and ask them what they think my top strengths are. Well, you were one of the 5 people that I picked. Based on the time we’ve spent together (excluding that one really bad night out drinking), what would you say my top 3 strengths are? I really appreciate your help and promise not to make any more absurd requests for the next month.”

HW + Action Steps!

Get comfortable being uncomfortable! It might be nerve-wracking to email 5 people and ask them to big you up, but the feedback you’ll receive will be invaluable. So go for it! And let us know in the Facebook group what you find out about yourself :o)

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts about the call. Leave a comment below or join the conversation over on Twitter using the hashtag #Sensophy.