Your Holiday (Anti-Goal) Quest!

As we close off the work year, you can feel the instinct building …

Piling up all the inspirational business books you haven’t managed to read during the year to take away on your holiday. Creating a playlist of podcasts on your business topic of choice to binge listen while you’re hanging out at the beach. Noting down all those projects you didn’t get to this year to prioritise and plan for how you’ll roll them out in the New Year.

And I get it. We’ve been conditioned to think of downtime as an available space for us to learn, to plan, to set goals. And setting goals will be a great way to set the tone for the new year. But we’re not finished with this year yet, and we’re in danger of turning our collective burnout into a community wide meltdown.?

So let me pose an alternative approach to our time off over the Christmas break.

The Holiday Quest - a mythical journey of discovery to find … our future selves, and our future enthusiasm ??

So, for those of you game for a bit of adventure … join me as I share the three key steps to a legendary Holiday Quest!

1. Stop planning.?

Now is NOT the time to plan.

Why?

Because you can’t make great plans from survival mode.?

And that’s what we’ve all been operating in this year. Sure, things have opened up, and perhaps we’re getting back to some sort of normal.

But I bet if you were honest with yourself, you haven’t felt quite like yourself yet. In fact, you probably haven’t even had a moment to reflect on life this at any point this year as we all just rode the wave of openings, get togethers and business recovery.

Put simply, we’re bone tired. We’re resigned to just making it to the end of the year.

And is a place of resignation really the best starting point to design a great new year?

So cut yourself some slack, and simply commit to … nothing. No planning, no personal development, no goal setting.

This holiday break, we’re going to start with being.?

Being present.?

Being snoozy.

Being stuffed full of good food.

Being directionless.

Being … content.

2. Start being … and wondering

Because once you start being … THEN we can get to the wondering.

When we were kids, we wanted to go to new places, scour every inch of our neighbourhood, sometimes further than our parents would have liked. When we went on long drives with the family, we stared out the car window noticing all the details of the world flying past us.?

Details that sparked wonderful adventures in our minds. Details the adults in the car would never notice.

We were curious.?

Unfortunately, as we grew older, we focused more on the pain of past experience, than the joy of new ones, and so our curiosity waned.?

But our curiosity has just been laying dormant.. waiting for us to reawaken it. That childlike wonder is still there, we just need to give it a nudge.

And that starts in our holiday breaks by opening our eyes to each moment, each place, and each group of people we interact with. Opening our eyes, and LIFTING OUR HEADS.

Watch a movie you wouldn’t normally. Try the new cafe at your holiday destination of choice. Pick a different book genre to read. Have mini adventures with your kids. And above all else. BE THERE. Be present, in each moment.?

Our dang phones are not our friends in this effort, so may I boldly suggest that this holiday we all aim for our phones to be used as? … well, just phones. Not mini computers, not entertainment units. Just as a means by which we can call another human being.

And the rest of the time, we look up.?

Revel in the journey of each day, and celebrate the unknown.

And most of all, be willing just to soak it all in. Drying off on the beach after a refreshing swim in the ocean? Just take it in. The sun, the surf, the sand. The sounds of people enjoying themselves. Let yourself be in the holiday, and enjoy the lack of a plan.

By letting yourself enjoy your break properly, a few days in you’ll find your mind start to bring up old dreams you’ve had, things you’ve always wanted to do, see or experience.

By being completely present as you watch the new Avatar movie with your mates, you’ll be reminded that you’ve always wanted to learn how to scuba dive. Or revelling in the amazing breakfast you’re having at the local cafe, you’ll remember you’d love to try and bake your own bread.

You’ll have reached the wonder state. Where the single most repeated question is

“I wonder what it’d be like to …”

How will you know if you’ve hit the wonder state? Well this can often be spotted by the cheeky glint in your eye. This will be all the enthusiasm and joy of the idea, pouring out of you, so strongly, people can in fact see it twinkle ??

3. Build your Imaginarium

And then we’re going to collect all those ideas.

Don’t second guess whether they’re possible, the point here is to start to build a collection of dreams, of things your curious about, and this becomes your Imaginarium, a single place where all your possible Future Adventures are captured in one place.

It could be places you want to go.

Things you want to learn … or perhaps even go back to something you learnt as a kid?

Secret wishes you’ve always had but never told anyone (maybe even getting a tattoo?).

Or it could be challenging yourself to try something new, or push yourself physically.

And as you get really good at this, your Dreams list or Imaginarium will become a place you can go to, to recharge, to get inspired and energised, and you will begin to see the future in a whole new way.

This is the purpose of our Quest. Realising the breadth of possibilities in our future. The sheer awesomeness of what lays ahead.

But the mechanics of our Imaginarium are important. This needs to be an actual list. Not just a mental tally, but a documented, ever growing list of future adventures.

Here’s mine. A cute notebook given to me by a good friend who understands my deep and unwavering love of the Minions ??

And in it I’ve written all sorts of adventures that have occurred to me during the wonder state:

• Learning the drums
• Working on an archeological dig
• Owning a floor to ceiling library with one of those ladders on wheels ;)

But the one most relevant to this holiday break is that one you can see at the bottom right corner.

Seeing the Northern Lights.

Why? Because that’s where I will be this New Years Eve. Fairbanks, Alaska in -30 degrees watching Mother Nature’s very own fireworks.

And it never would have occurred to us to go, if it hadn’t been captured in my Imaginarium years ago, after watching a David Attenborough documentary.

So build your Imaginarium. Get yourself a notebook ( Moleskine are a great start). Because it will quite literally end up being filled with your Future Adventures!

So, are you with me? Will you join me on the Holiday Quest to rediscover ourselves, and build our Imaginariums?

Every Quest needs some secret signal that lets other legends know they’re in this together. So how about instead of a normal ??, if you’re joining the Holiday Quest this year, you use the ??reaction on this post??

And if you’re super keen, share in the comments what you think the first entry in your Imaginarium might be? Cause I’m always looking for inspiration for new entrants in mine, so let me have it!

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And if you are keen to do some more of this curiosity stuff, there are a couple of ways I can help out:

Would you like to give your team the gift of an Imaginarium for themselves? The Adventure Connection Team Building workshop shifts your team from surviving into thriving mode by rediscovering their curiosity. As their creativity and courage is ignited, I also demonstrate how the techniques they are learning can be applied to the generation and implementation of ideas in the business - changing transformation from a chore to the exciting challenge it should be.

Consider having a team building day focused on energising the individual first. Just book a free 15 minute Team Building Discovery Call and we can work out the best way to get that connection happening!?

Book your time here

Is your audience ensuring their staff have all they need to make curiosity a habit and take the business to the next level? If not, you might find my keynote on investing in Imagination Capital could be perfect for your next event. The session includes 3D slides & 3D glasses, instantly creating a great vibe in the room ?? You can find out all the details below in my 2022 Speaker's Kit. And feel free to Direct Message to find out more.