Category: Completing and Creating Cycles

Dynamic Duos

Some years back, I noticed that the Completing & Creating questions pair in interesting ways. I tend to answer the Completing side in sets. The first and second prompts speak to each other, as do three and four, and so on.

The items work across the columns, too. To use the first prompt that way, I ask what achievements am I coming from, and which ones are next up? For prompt two, what was I truly proud of this round, and does that change ahead?

Taking on the topics in a twosome, that’s good too. I jot notes in order to listen better. Hearing the words verbatim and/or getting them back as notes can be a gift. Brief is best, I think. I usually capture words and phrases that sparkle. Listen for common verbal cues, too. If your partner prefaces with a phrase like, the point is… quietly write down the exact words that come next πŸ™‚

Doing two a week makes a certain sense. Or, touching lightly on them all one week and ignoring them the next. Also valid.

You get my point. Taking things in twos seems to cause a tumbling motion in the mind and heart. Have a tea and talk with you and yourself.

A creative circle is a good place to do this tandem work, too. I use the chart below nearly every day! We’ll go over this approach to listening early next year, and practice prompt questions that don’t sound canned.

Completing this Cycle and Creating the Path Ahead

For me, the Completing & Creating cycle is aligned with the winter season, woven among the family time, holiday rituals, and colder weather. Reflecting back, the questions elicit gratitude, affirm limits, and tend to relationships. Looking forward, the opportunity is to carry on from the sacred center of somewhere in a somewhat sensible way.

Over the years, my management practice improved through this routine, though I often found it difficult to ‘complete’ against the demands of year-end fundraising. In those days, I savored my thoughts and feelings in a Sunday morning journal but did little about it until late January. Then, I cloistered away for a long weekend to make measure. The MLK holiday is often the chance to move in the creative direction.

All together now has been an important mantra this year, so I’m hosting a circle and holding the weekly Wednesday online studio space for the completing and creating process. The simple scaffold is useful to me, and of course, the experience itself unfolds in wonder among friends.

Serving as host (not leader, teacher, or guru) is intentional. The exchange model is dāna, the secular Buddhist practice of balanced exchange. Practitioners contribute to the host what they feel is right and can offer joyfully. Often gifts are not cash, but sometimes a payment is an easy option. The equivalent management practice is PWYW, pay what you wish.

It’s a model that rests in abundance, respects personal limits, and gestures outward toward opportunity. You’re in to begin for free. Your presence is a gift itself. What you contribute (or don’t) is entirely your decision.

Self-directed inquiry is the basic practice with tools I provide, like the Creating & Completing questions. I have adapted the practice and tools over decades learning alongside mentors and coaches. In my time, I made the questions more cyclical, less finite, and carefully unwired notions of obligation. I love to write my responses and often explore other media. I’ve added visual thinking tools that I will share. Movement, music, cooking, crafting – it all adds to the experience.

Gratitude, personal growth, accountability, renewal, and imagination are common touchstones. Grief, guilt, overwhelm, and upset come for visits, too. We don’t fix, crosstalk, or endgame with each other. Rather, we keep that quiet, open space for reflection. We listen as you unfold the insights.

Some of the best leaders tell their own stories so that others can learn. This is a sort of self-leadership that prepares the way.

Or not. Hold on gently is another helpful notion. In an era where rest and recovery are urgent social prescriptions, my work includes unlearning old management habits and states of mind that drive negative loops in life. Moving from vicious cycles to virtuous ones — grace and patience are the main ingredients, alongside the desire to take a dip in divine ambiguity.

To begin, think about the period of time or cycle just closing. Is it simply the calendar, or something different? Then, what about the time ahead? Set your thoughts to the time envelope of what you’re creating.

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Here’s a list of writing and discussion prompts to close one chapter and open another. Do you begin at the beginning? If not, start with a question that has energy in it. One at a time, with inner attention.Download