The journey inwards needs the proverbial Swiss army knife

This past weekend, I was in the 2-day 'Designing Your Life' workshop that was conducted by Navyug Mohnot and his team. This workshop was originally conceptualised and conducted for several years at Stanford.

I really enjoyed these two days of the program. Yes, the course is built around the principles of design thinking. Knowing these principles is one thing, and applying it to problems at the workplace (for companies / brands / employees etc) is another thing. But, applying some of these principles and the specific methods that these professors at Stanford have created for you to specifically inquire into your own life, is a whole different thing. I loved the fact that I got 2 full days to pause, reflect and write down things about myself and my life that I really needed to examine. The program has a bunch of exercises and tools for doing this in a structured, yet flexible and open manner. I'd highly recommend this program to anyone, doesn't matter what profession or walk of life you come from, it's worth doing it just to examine and 'generate' a few possibilities for what your next 5 or 10 years could look like.

Those who know me well, know that I am a self-proclaimed champion for personal 'transformation', simply put -- reflection, going inwards and working on myself. Having tried a variety of things (towards this kind of personal transformation), I have arrived at the following points of view:

1) The older we get, or the more experienced we are in our profession, or the greater the responsibilities we have at home or at work, it is critical to 'go inwards', and to examine the stuff that's going on in our head. At some point of time, we all have to confront the belief, that external circumstances / people / events are running the show in our life, can only take us so far.

2) What I mean by 'going inwards' is, specifically (a) how do we identify our own blind spots (i.e. patterns or root cause to our patterns that we can't easily identify ourselves, but others can) and (b) how can we get to the bottom of those blind spots or patterns that are disempowering us, or have become barriers to doing the things that matter to us deep down. How do we actually 'resolve' these patterns?

3) The problems that most people struggle with is: How does one actually 'go inward' (on both those dimensions)? Where does one begin? What's the right approach? Who can one trust in this process? Is it really possible to do all this 'soul searching' and get something useful out of it? Does it really make a difference? Am I become a "softie" (or worse, cuckoo) by doing all this 'kumbaaya' stuff?

4) There are no right answers or one-size-fits-all approaches for everyone. But one must explore, experiment and consciously find the tools / methods that work for themselves.

5) Going inwards is especially critical when one is dealing with a 'crisis' at work or in other areas of our lives. Doesn't mean one has to wait for something to be "wrong" or to have "issues" in our lives, before we go inwards. There is no "right time" to begin the journey inwards. But there isn't a better time than when we are struggling in some important areas of our lives (work, relationships, money, health, and so on).

Over the course of the last 15 years, I have experimented with and gradually figured several ways in which I could 'go inwards' and work on myself. Here are 3 things that have worked for me, and have consistently and longitudinally supported me in my ongoing journey to becoming a better version of myself:

1) Therapy: I have been going to Therapy (Psychotherapy ) for 12+ years now. Have found this to be an extremely effective way of dealing with various challenges, situations, emotions and transitions in my life. This has been particularly helpful to deal with 'mega challenges' in these years, for e.g. dealing with divorce, the emotional toll of chronic back pain, grief of my mother's passing suddenly and many other such personal and professional challenges.

2) Exec Coaching: From the time I've had my first experience with Exec Coaching ( Ashwin Pasricha was my first coach) and then with every other Coach I've had over these last 12-13 years, I have found immense value in having an Expert whom I can reach out to for structured, yet personalised approach to continuously improving who I am being, and how I am showing up at work (and its indirect effects on other areas of my life). In the last couple of years, Ram Gopalan has been my Coach. He has been instrumental in helping me navigate several challenges and critical topics that are relevant in my professional context at this stage of my life (for e.g., what do I want my professional life to be about for the next 10 years now, figuring out the transition from corporate job to entrepreneurship, learning to work with a co-founder effectively, etc.).

3) Last, but not the least, Landmark Forum : I first did the 'Landmark Forum' in 2006, and then went onto complete their entire 'Curriculum' including some of the initial levels of their leadership program. If there was only one thing I could recommend in the list of all the amazingly profound and invaluable things listed on this page, I'd pick this program, without any hesitation. And this is notwithstanding the immense value and contributions that Therapy and Exec Coaching (among other things) are still continuing to make in my life. So this wasn't an easy answer, but I wanted to stress upon the impact and the value that the Landmark Forum has brought to my life. Not once, not twice, but several times over these last 15+ years. It is THE best way to completely transform your lives (and the most important areas of your life, in a way that you cannot even begin to imagine right now) in 3.5 days.

In the last year, these are few other programs that I have attended and found immensely insightful (and, each of them have been life altering in their own unique ways):

1) Mahabharata Immersion by Ritambhara : Facilitated by Hariprasad Varma - Zensei? + Rhea D'Souza ; originally conceptualised by Raghu Ananthanarayanan. This is a profound 5+ days of inward journeys using various tools and methods that are best described in the link here . Highly recommended.

2) 'Crafting Your Leadership Story' by Aditi Parekh : Aditi is one of the youngest AND most talented / gifted people I have had the privilege of learning from. She is a force of nature. And the workshop is built off of a course that is taught in Harvard University by Prof. Marshall Ganz on 'Public Narrative: Leadership, Storytelling, and Action'. One of the most powerful frameworks for storytelling (beautifully weaved into the context of 'Leadership'). Again, highly recommend.

3) 3-day Photography Workshop with the legend himself, Mr. Raghu Rai . This might sound like a photography-skill-building workshop, and one might wonder, what has this got to do with 'going inwards'? Let me tell you this was a profound experience to be with a Master craftsman like Mr. Raghu Rai for 3 days. There were so many life lessons I took away from that experience. Must-do especially for amateur or professional photographers.

I have also been practicing an annual reflection and visioning exercise , timed with the transition into a new year. This is with a set of tools and methods that I have designed and developed on my own.

There are several more approaches / methods I am eager to learn and adopt in my life (like Vipassana and Meditation) going forward. After all, the journey inwards isn't something that's once and done. It's an ongoing journey and experience of reinvention of the self. And it probably takes the proverbial swiss army knife, with the right combination of methods & tools, to help us in this journey.