ican…Be it

Being the best I can be.

You will realise your potential and make your unique difference when you maximise the skills you love (Touch It), for a purpose you care about (Feel It), to achieve goals that are meaningful to you (See It), with a positive self-belief and attitude (Think It).

Picture yourself in the future at a point where perhaps you are one day ahead in the Week of your Life. You are living an amazing life, enjoying every opportunity, and making your unique difference. Your hopes, skills, values and passions have come alive. You have created your ideal blend of Working (paid employment), Learning (formal and informal), Playing (fun and fulfilment), and Giving (time and talents to others).

The shape of your WLPG can be illustrated as a blend made up of four circles, the size of each being determined by the time and energy you put into them and the overlap being their level of connectivity (see the WLPG sketches). Have a think about what you would like your sketch to be on the Wednesday of your life (30 yrs. old). Using the Golden Ticket in this section, write the date you will be 30 yrs. old at the top and imagine yourself on this day and create your own Golden Ticket, a passport to the future you want, by completing the statements shown.

Take some time to look back at your iCan Poster so that your skills, passions and values are included in the Golden Ticket you create.

Be big, bold, creative and imaginative with your responses.

Shaping your personal pathway

Everybody will have their unique route comprising a different combination and priority of Working, Learning, Playing and Giving. Take a look at your Golden Ticket and identify which of these four routes would be a good place to start. Be true to yourself when you are developing yours. The examples below may help.

Working

Find meaningful work experiences and opportunities that help you get to the point where you can connect roles that interest you and maximise your strengths, in organisations and sectors that appeal to you. Consider getting involved in project opportunities, employer visits or information interviews with people who work in areas that appeal to you.

Learning

Ensure you are achieving your star potential by identifying the further learning you may need to take to help you get closer to your goals. Design this so that it links your aspirations (passions, interests, motivations and values) with the needs of your target employers (attitudes, skills, experiences and qualifications).

Playing

Create time and space to enjoy yourself, develop your confidence and grow by meeting new people and developing your social circle. This may involve joining a group who share a common interest, spending time with like-minded people who believe in you, or exposing yourself to new possibilities, places and people.

Giving

Try to think outside the box by using volunteering as a stepping stone to gain new skills, contacts and experience. Start by helping family and friends. Move on to look at opportunities to ‘give back’ locally in your community, in your institution or with your employer. Focus on purposes meaningful to you.

Why this session is important

To help your group or individual to:

  • Explore four different dimensions of their life – their working, learning, playing and giving and identify what this would look like as they reach Wednesday of the Week of their Life
  • Reflect on their iCan Poster and use this to create an inspiring, motivating and exciting vision for their future that they can begin to make real now – their Golden Ticket

What you will need

  • Copy of Be it Activity for each individual(s)
  • Be It Resources
  • Jigsaw puzzle (Optional)
  • Coloured Pens
  • Paper/pens
  • 30 minutes dependent on availability of time

How to do it

Icebreaker activity (optional)

Introduce this session by using the Jigsaw Puzzle as an icebreaker. Put the pieces on to a table and encourage the individual(s) to begin to put them together but do not provide them with the picture on the top of the box. Give them a little bit of time and then ask how easy are they are finding putting the puzzle together when they do not know the picture they are trying to create?

Now provide the picture on the top of the jigsaw box and again give them some time to put some elements of the puzzle together before then asking them if it is any easier now?

Reflect on the activity they have just done and ask for their views.

Bring out:

  • It’s difficult to know how things go together if you don’t know what you are aiming to achieve
  • You could still do it, but it would take you a longer time
  • The clearer you can see the picture, the more effective you will be at creating the final result

Explain that this is just the same in life. The clearer you can see where you are heading, what you want to be doing, and importantly why you want to do it and what it means to you – then the clearer you can spot and then take the pathway to get you there.

Introduction

Explain that this session is going to look at the Be It element of iCan. The Be It section is the culmination of previous sections of iCan including Think It, See It, Feel It, Touch It, which have been summarised on the iCan Poster.

Being the best you can be is all about maximising your unique skills and talents (Touch It) for something that really matters to you (Feel It), to achieve things that you see as real value (See It), with a positive self-belief (Think It) It is important to highlight their uniqueness, and importantly, that they need to be true to themselves in developing their own pathway to their future.

WLPG blend

Ask individual(s) to imagine they are on Wednesday lunchtime of the Week of their Life 30 years old. They are having an amazing life, enjoying every opportunity, and making their unique difference. All their hopes, skills, values and passions have come alive. They have created their ideal blend of working (paid employment), learning (formal and informal), playing (fun and fulfilment) and giving (time and talents to others).

The shape of their WLPG blend is illustrated by four circles, the size of which is determined by the time and energy they put into them and the overlap being their level of connectivity between them all. Make reference to the WLPG Sketches and talk through the different examples considering the pros and cons of each.

Encourage them to have a go at sketching out what their ideal blend of WLPG would be for the Wednesday of their life – how much time are they spending in each dimension and how do they all connect together. Using coloured pens helps to differentiate each dimension.

Encourage them to try drawing a few until they get to the one they are happiest with sharing with you (and one another, if in a small group) reflecting on why they have drawn it as they have and the significance of this. What do each of the circles represent to them and why have they created the connections they have.

Golden ticket

Having created their ideal WLPG blend for the Wednesday of their life now encourage the individual(s) to add more detail and depth to this by creating a Golden Ticket for Wednesday too. Explain that you want them to imagine they are on Wednesday lunchtime of the week of their life. Using the day and month they are on today but calculate the year to be the one when they will be 30 and add this date to the section on the Golden Ticket.

Ask them to imagine they are now on this date. Over the intervening years since they did this activity they have been thinking big and believing in themselves, have been looking forward and creating their goals and aspirations, loving life and living it to the full as well as reaching out and achieving in all sorts of ways to ensure that they are fulfilling their potential and being all they could be.

Suggest they take a look at their iCan Poster to help them answer the questions on the Golden Ticket encouraging them to be big, bold, creative and imaginative in their responses. Explain we all have two characters. Firstly we have the safekeeping self on our left shoulder which likes to plan carefully, keep in its comfort zone and worries about change and uncertainty. Secondly the experimental self on our right shoulder that likes to take risks, be creative and imaginative. If they were driving a car one would be putting their foot on the brakes and the other on the accelerator. For this exercise encourage individuals to let the experimental voice shout louder and give the safekeeping self a fifteen minute holiday!

Provide some time for them to complete this and then encourage them to share this with you (and one another if working in a group). Ask them to talk about the answers they have written as if they were actually on the date at the top of the Golden Ticket.

Having shared their Golden Tickets for the Wednesday of their life – encourage them to think about where they are now – on Tuesday of the week of their life – and the working, learning, playing and giving dimensions of their life today. Explain that the pathway to get to their Golden Ticket will be different for different people and that they can choose which of these four routes or combination of these they would like to take.

Ask individuals to imagine they have achieved their Golden Ticket and complete the following sentences:

  • In achieving all my goals, the biggest obstacles I overcame was… I overcame this by…
  • The people who helped me were…
  • The first step I took was…
  • Make reference to Shaping Your Personal Pathway which shows examples of some WLPG routes and open up the discussion about any practical ways by which these could provide them with the opportunity to take their first steps towards some of the elements of the Golden Ticket that they have just created.

What other questions to ask/points to make

The date chosen as a point in the future can be changed and varied to the needs of your group. It may be 10 years, 5 years, 12 months or 6 months – whatever is appropriate to the individual(s) you are working with.

Again be prepared to share some of your story, if it is appropriate, as you go through this session with individual(s).

Explain that the Golden Ticket is the start of a ‘work in progress’ – as sketchy and unclear as the Golden Ticket may be at this point it is the start of them thinking about what they would like their future to be. It can be added to, adapted and improved. It is a ‘test and learn’ process which ideally should reflect their experiences, understanding of themselves, aspirations and goals. It is something that can continue to grow with them as they go through the week of their life.

Be creative in considering ways by which the Golden Ticket can be developed by using different media e.g. drawing images, creating a collage from magazine images, recording or filming themselves, creating a diary or journal entry for an average day etc.

Suggest that it can sometimes help to share their Golden Ticket with others that they trust and who will help them.

The Common Obstacles may also be a useful discussion point here to perhaps identify any barriers that could be an issue in trying to achieve what they want. Open up the discussion about which of these may prove to be difficult for them and how they could perhaps overcome them.

As the session draws to a close discuss:

  • What they may have learned, or what has surprised or puzzled them about doing these activities
  • Help them to identify one key action they may wish to take as a result of doing these activities

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi
iCanBeIt Activity preview

ican…Be It Activity

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iCanBeIt Enablers preview

ican…Be It Enablers Notes

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iCanBeIt Resources preview

ican…Be It Resources

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