What I love
What I Love Workshop
Aim & Context
What is the aim of the exercise? | Discovering what we fundamentally, really love. This is part of the Ikigai and will be a useful component to explore in its completion. |
In what context is this exercise useful? | By understanding better what we love, we can adapt our activities accordingly and find the sweet spot of the Ikigai. |
Quick facts
Preparation time: 15 min, if only reading all content of workshop and preparing for it. Alternatively, about 90 minutes, as ideally, facilitator should do this exercise before workshop to provide examples. Workshop time: 90 minutes Ideal group size: Mostly individual exercises, size does not matter so much. Maybe keep it relatively small. Contact of Workshop Developer: mathieu.shanks@gmail.com | Equipment and tools needed:
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Detailed Description of Activity & Method
Please list step by step how the activity should be facilitated
Activity & Format | Time | Instructions | Facilitation Notes |
Check-In | 5 min |
| Start with answering the check-in question by yourself and let everyone share and then hand the word over to someone else. |
Introspective discovery of ‘what I love’ – Natural inclinations | 30 min |
For this exercise, participants will need a pen and paper to write down what’s going through their mind.
They should think about themselves as a child between ages of 4-8 years old. Ask them to close their eyes. They should write their thoughts as they come.
Go through the following, give about 5 minutes between asking the following question:
| While people are thinking and writing, I suggest playing some calm focus music. |
Introspective discovery of ‘what I love’ – Flow state and peak experiences | 25 min |
For this exercise, participants must think about a peak experience they have lived and situations where they experience a ‘state of flow’. Give about 2-3 minutes between each question to allow time for participants to think and write.
Ask them the following (peak experience):
Ask them the following (flow state):
| While people are thinking and writing, I suggest playing some calm focus music. |
Connecting the dots | 15 min | Ask participants to take the following 15 minutes to look back at what they wrote.
| Give about 5 minutes for each question.
While people are thinking and writing, I suggest playing some calm focus music. |
Sharing with a peer | 10 min | Ask participants to group in pairs and discuss their findings.
| Participants have about 5 minutes each to share with the other |
Check-out
| 5 min
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Feedforward: Tips for future facilitators
Resources (Helpful websites or books for further reading)
Listen to the inventor of the concept here: https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_flow_the_secret_to_happiness |
Necessary background knowledge:
Natural inclinations are generally related to things that we naturally gravitate towards as a child, before we our parents and society ‘tells us’ what is right or wrong, and what we ‘should’ be doing. Inspired from the book ‘Mastery’ from Robert Greene, the author discussed the concept of natural inclinations. He argues that each person is born with specific interests and natural skills that they can excel in if they develop them with time. These can be discovered at different times in one’s life. It is therefore important to cover this aspect as soon as possible and attempt to highlight people’s natural inclinations so they and the world around them can benefit from these. Robert Green explains that understanding and leveraging one’s natural inclinations is the first step towards mastery. This is mainly because, if you are naturally drawn towards something and you enjoy doing that more than anything else, you can sustain practice in this aspect and deepen you skill, and understanding of this specific thing, as to eventually become a master on that subject/art/sport/profession/activity.
For some people, this is ‘easier’ to discover than others. For instance, Green’s natural inclination is writing. For others it could be painting, playing music, making people laugh, cooking, doing a specific sport. These can also relate to activities or tasks that you gravitate towards as a child. Examples of this could be helping others, doing a specific sport or art, providing guidance, teaching, organizing things, making new friends, observing, learning about something specific, exploring, mediating, solving conflicts, leading, understanding how things work, etc. By combining such components, it can help you define more accurately what you love, and why.
State of ‘flow’ is also known as ‘being in the zone’. It’s a mental state where you feel fully immersed, feeling energized focus, involved, and enjoying the activity or task at hand. In this situation, you are in complete absorption with what you are doing. Time often feels like it ‘disappears’ when you are in this state (distortion of temporal experience). Such an activity usually feels intrinsically rewarding.
Listen to the inventor of the concept here: https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_flow_the_secret_to_happiness
Peak experiences are situations in which you felt at your best, you might qualify them as some of the best moments in your life.
‘’Such peak experiences are often associated with self-actualization and an intense "flow" state. According to Abraham Maslow, a peak experience includes such states as " a sense of wonder, awe, reverence, humility, surrender, and even worship before the greatness of the experience", where reality is perceived with experiences of "truth, goodness, beauty, wholeness, aliveness, uniqueness, perfection, pure potential, completion, justice, simplicity, richness, effortlessness, playfulness, self-sufficiency". (Taken from: https://www.thebrightpath.com/en/peak-experiences/)
Additional exercise / do at home after workshop:
Imagine if your doctor tells you that you now have 3 months to live before sudden death:
Think about what would you keep on doing?
And what you would stop?
Are there similarities with what you found during the ‘What I Love’ workshop?
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