Exploring the IDGs: Acting
The final dimension in the Inner Development Goals framework is Acting. How we move forward, how we enable and drive change. This involves focusing our attention on developing qualities such as courage and optimism which support us to experience true agency. How can these skills and qualities help us generate and share new ideas and act with persistence in uncertain times? While I’ve been focusing on the “inner” side of the IDGs, I also want to acknowledge that cultivating and developing these skills can also be collective. How do our organizations encourage the development of these skills? How do they hold us back? How does our culture allow these skills to grow and flourish? Or how might our culture restrict their development?
Turning back to an inner reflection, and always with a quality of self-compassion, we start this inquiry by simply pausing and asking ourselves a few questions.
Do I take a stand for my values?
Do my decisions align with my values?
Do I take decisive action toward my values?
Do I demonstrate courage in bringing forward my ideas?
Am I willing to disrupt conventional thinking and systems?
Can I communicate a sense of hope and positivity? Do I believe that meaningful change is possible?
Am I able to persevere and stay engaged even when efforts take a long time to bear fruit?
The IDGs offer a free online toolkit. This is an emerging library of tools to explore the IDGs in practice and help people and organizations accelerate progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Note, this is a beta version and is based on research from the free app 29k. 29k is a non-profit organization and community on a mission to make personal growth available for everyone, for free. And under Acting, you’ll find many powerful exercises to cultivate these skills and qualities. These exercises can work supportively to develop many of the IDG skills simultaneously.
I’d like to share one from the toolkit that supports optimism, perseverance, courage, and creativity.
WOOP
WOOP is short for wish, outcomes, obstacles, and plans and is a simple and research-based method for setting goals with something you want to achieve or experience. It only takes a few minutes and only requires that you wholeheartedly try to focus on the task. You can do WOOP individually or with someone (for example, a coach, a colleague, a teammate, a leader, etc.)
How to practice
When starting with WOOP for the first time, try the following:
Think of something you would like to achieve or experience in a given time, such as an upcoming meeting or the day ahead. For example, it could be something new that you would like to learn or an achievement of some kind that you would like to perform. Something that feels challenging but certainly not impossible. Write this down on a piece of paper.
Think about the positive feelings and consequences that would result from achieving what you would like to achieve, big or small. Write these down and then focus for a little while on the two or three things that would be the single best in achieving this.
Next, think about all the possible obstacles and problems that you can come up with that can make it difficult or prevent you from achieving what you want. Obstacles may lie with you (e.g. motivation problems, concentration difficulties, fatigue, illness). They can also lie outside of you (eg being misinformed, a colleague getting sick, or bad weather). Write down all obstacles, big or small.
For each obstacle, think through what you can do to prevent it from happening and what you can do to deal with it should it happen. Write down each such plan on the paper as follows: “For __________ not to happen, I will __________, and if __________ happens, I will __________.”
Read through what you have written and feel free to tell someone else about what you have written.
An exercise like this can help you disidentify from any worries or concerns you may have about even starting it. It gets you one step moving towards something meaningful you want to achieve.
Creativity & Imagination
Creativity may be the skill most needed to find our path forward. Both individually and collectively. More than ever, we need to cultivate a way to bring forth our imagination. We are facing complex challenges that we haven’t faced before. We need each other to find our way through and we need our imaginations. To turn towards your imagination, consider what creative endeavors can you include in your life. Or return to?
One of the most powerful methods I’ve discovered for activating my imagination is Dreamwork. Our dreams contain insights and wisdom and can lead us in positive life-serving directions, but only if we pause our interpretations. We can imaginally re-enter the dream to unfold the images and perspectives. Once unfolded, we discover new resources within ourselves that support us in taking steps toward our goals and commitments. It’s an untapped resource every single human has access to every night.
I’d love to hear from you if coaching could help support this creative and developmental discovery for yourself. Reach out if you’d like to chat.
Visit my earlier blog post or the IDG website for more information.