image: Fractal Artist
With all the topics to lament in the news and society today, let's remember the power of celebration.
When working with your team or clients as you kick off the new year, Steve Davis of FacilitatorU.com reminds us in the post below to celebrate successes, challenges, wins and losses, friends, colleagues, children and bosses.
Group Dynamics Skill
A personal coach I once had would always begin our sessions coaxing me into celebrating something for the week gone by. Now I'm not one to easily celebrate anything and I often struggle to find something that I think is worthy of celebration. But I've since learned that celebrating is simply a matter of choice. And for those of us with ultra-high standards or who are super critical, we could easily go through our entire lives finding nothing worthy of celebration.
So why is celebration so important and why am I bringing this up in a journal about facilitation? First of all, I thought this would be an appropriate subject for a Holiday issue. This is a time of year when many of us reflect on the year gone by and the spirit of celebration is in the air. Second, the act of celebrating naturally inspires a sense of abundance, blessing, gratitude and acceptance. So the celebrating can put us into a very positive, life-affirming frame of mind.
What better frame of mind could you have to start your day, your work, your problem-solving or team-building group? Now I know that most of us aren't into celebrating just for the heck of it. In fact, I can hear your group members now extolling you to cut out this celebration crap and get on with the work at hand. "We don't have time or reason to celebrate, we've got real problems here that need to be solved! So let's quite fooling around and get to work!"
But personally, I think the celebratory frame of mind will create better solutions, stronger bonds, and broader perspectives that the stern, problem-focused point of view.
Application
So how does one go about celebrating just for the joy of it? And what do you do if you don't have anything to celebrate?
Well, to start with, celebration can be as simple as just acknowledging something you're happy with or grateful for. This can be a simple accomplishment like, "I'm celebrating the fact that when my associate snapped at me yesterday, I asked him what was upsetting him instead of falling into my usual pattern of reacting and snapping back at him. This act really made a difference in the work we accomplished!"
If you accept that celebration is a matter of choice, then you always have something to celebrate. You can even celebrate your problems as growth opportunities. Many people would surely be grateful to have the problems many of us have. For example, half of us have the problem of eating too much, while more than half the planet has the problem of not having anything to eat at all. A huge number of us are under stress at our jobs, while a great number of our fellow earthlings have no hope of ever having jobs at all. Many of us get frustrated over all of the family obligations that we have, while so many whose families are gone, wish they could simply have another moment with them.
I think you get the picture. So I close by wishing all of you, my dear readers, with a happy, joyous, and peaceful celebration this holiday season!
Action
Your assignment this week is to have fun, enjoy the holidays, and to embrace and celebrate everything and everyone who is in your life. I'd love to hear what happens for you. Please send us your questions and comments.
About the Author
Steve Davis, M.A., M.S., is an Facilitator's Coach, Infoprenuer, and free-lance human, helping facilitators, organizational leaders, educators, trainers, coaches and consultants present themselves confidently, access their creativity, empower their under-performing groups, enhance their facilitation skills, and build their business online and offline. Does leading or participating in groups frustrate you? Subscribe to his free weekly ezine at www.MasterFacilitatorJournal.com and contact him here to schedule a free exploratory coaching session.
©2008. Steve Davis, www.MasterFacilitatorJournal.com. All rights reserved.
Comments