Week 4

Welcome to Week 4

We continue to stick to the now familiar format:

On Days 1-6, the daily 25-to-30-minute slot consists of a couple of minutes preparation, the exercise itself and then a couple of minutes to review and make any notes you need.

On Day 7, we use Exercise 14 to take a moment to see how it’s going more generally, review what we have accomplished and then check our plan for the next week. We also complete Exercise 13 and retake the relationship survey to get a new updated score.

Sticking with this format will help you successfully embed the challenge into your day-to-day activity for the whole twelve weeks. We cannot over emphasise the importance of making the time to do this thoroughly.

The recordings  build over the 12 weeks to help you achieve the states that will give you the best results in the later exercises and so it’s vital to avoid skipping sessions or content early on. Your rewards will come so pleas take a leap of faith and follow the plan as well as you can.

Down load this week’s practical exercises here:

 Note these exercises will also reappear in later weeks.

This week we will concentrate on two areas:

Firstly, we will build on last week’s idea of experiencing what’s going on with less emotion and more clarity from View Point 3. Over the next few weeks understanding and practising how you can gain this perspective at will is a key part of preparation for the final weeks and your post challenge activity. Being able to step back in the moment when it suits you is a key skill for success in any performance or activity.

Secondly, we will begin to test the idea that your Monkey can and will help if:

  • they know what we want and
  • they know we would like some help.

Standard Weekly exercises

If you haven’t yet, get into the habit of recording your survey scores Typical record sheet here for Survey Results

Ongoing Work

Hold the thought. – “If this contact from the Monkey was designed to help – what would it be helping me with?”

Make a note of any evidence you uncover of what might be the start of  ‘Monkey help’.

Consider any pressure on you to quit –

Why might this exist?

What is the purpose behind these thoughts?

As before there are more background / support recordings below.

Some of you may feel a need to see or have all the materials and this week there is a link to everything at the end of this page.

It also helps to share your story on the  Facebook Challenge page

Read More about each of this week’s exercises below –

This week

Week 4 Day Exercise Planning and organising
  22 Exercise 7 Exploring Viewpoint 3
  23 Exercise 8 Interruptions and Distractions
  24 Exercise 7 Exploring Viewpoint 3
  25 Exercise 8 Interruptions and Distractions
26 Exercise 7 Exploring Viewpoint 3
  27 Exercise 8 Interruptions and Distractions
  28 Exercise 13 Survey Exercise 14 for Week 5

 

More about the exercises

Exercise 7 Exploring Viewpoint 3

Overview

Our experience working with thousands of delegates suggest that there are at least three viewpoints we experience as we go about our daily lives. The most successful delegates we met used these viewpoints deliberately and consciously to achieve their goals.

At Viewpoint 1 there is no gap between the stimulus and our response. I shout at you and you shout back.

At Viewpoint 2, we have some distance between the stimulus and our response. I shout at you and you don’t just shout back. You consider what’s going on. You might, for example, think about our history or what happened over the last ten minutes. You override your automatic response and choose instead to respond with a gentle voice and a concerned question.

Viewpoint 3 goes a step further. It offers us the chance to watch as an outside observer. We can see ourselves in the movie of our lives  and we can watch us playing our role within it.

At Viewpoint 3, I see you shout at me and I can see me considering an immediate shout in response but then I see me pause and think before responding. I may also see a more complicated pattern of cause that led to this effect and this incident. Perhaps I see that the incident is a result of a chain of events that started yesterday. I am more likely to identify the real cause and am more effective than the version of the me who is in the movie.

We can see the progression from Viewpoint 1 through 2 to 3 as a progressive increase in separation, or distance. Understanding this underlying process is key to your ability to access different viewpoints and use this ability to improve your results. This exercise provides a practical method for accessing Viewpoint 3 when you need.

Note: Although Viewpoint 3 gives us perspective and detachment we are not disconnected. We can still feel and show empathy to everyone in the situation. We can see their point of view and can understand them better. The danger with disconnect is that we can lose compassion, care and empathy for others who are involved. The purpose of Viewpoint 3 is not protection, rather it is about understanding what is really going on, free from emotional involvement.

Exercise 7: Exploring Viewpoint 3

The recording for this exercise takes you through a gentle relaxation process and then provides you with a framework to explore your future or your past from Viewpoint 3. We

will build on this framework in future exercises and this framework will help you to use Viewpoint 3 for your own purposes as your skills develop.

Exercise 7 objectives

The objective of this exercise is for you to notice the space around you at Viewpoint 3 and start to become aware of the endless possibilities this space and this viewpoint could offer.

We ask you to do this exercise on Days 1, 3 and 5 of Week 4 and 1, 3 and 5 of Week 6. We will also return to it once more during Week 8 on day 3.

By the end of these exercises, you should

1 be able to access viewpoint three by drifting up or back in the exercise,

2 become aware of the possibility of doing this in just one breath, and

3 begin to appreciate the options and possibilities presented by spending time here.

After you have listened to the recording and completed the exercise, make any notes that seem relevant to you.

Ongoing Action

Remains the same – To fully benefit from the outsider’s perspective, whenever you get a spare moment, take a deep breath, drift up and look back at yourself. Do this over the next few weeks to form this powerful habit.  Developing this skill allows you to remain calm and consider better options instead of reacting in the heat of the moment during any situation.

Exercise 8: Interruptions and Distractions overview

We may have seen the Monkey distractions as less than positive. But what if the Monkey is trying to help us with their distractions? In this next exercise we are going to use a technique that can be loosely described as a reframe. Let’s use this technique to discover other more positive options that might exist.

Let’s use our skill of looking from Viewpoint 3 to consider what the Monkey does to help us.

Keep part of your focus on your breathing and then watch for the interruptions. Consider the following question:

If this contact from the Monkey was designed to help me, what would it be helping me with?

Exercise 8: objectives

The objective of this exercise is to watch the interruptions as they come up and see if they make more sense in the light of the posed question.

We ask you to do this exercise on Days 2, 4 and 6 of Week 4

By the end of these exercises, you should

1 be able to access view point three by drifting up or back in the exercise,

2 become aware of the possibility of doing this in just one breath,

3 begin to appreciate the options and possibilities presented by spending time here, and

4 be able to see that some of what the Monkey does may have real value when we look beyond our old reactions and responses.

Make any notes that seem relevant to you.

Standard Exercises

Exercise 13 is the Misaligned Monkey Relationship Survey which you can complete on line. In week one we take this day seven as we will every week but in addition in week one, we also take the survey on the first day. This gives you a starting score before the completion of any of the exercises and so this gives us a more accurate before and after result when you compare it to the final score on the final day.

Exercise 14 

On day seven of each week Exercise 14 is simply about planning and organising for the following week.

This involves thinking about how it’s going to work for you and making it as easy and as enjoyable as possible to get the work done.

If you can it’s worth having a regular time each day and even a regular place or situation in which you complete the exercises. Whether it’s in your bedroom or on the bus makes no difference – just somewhere that works for you.

It’s also worth making sure you can easily access the relevant recordings and have headphones and the time and space to spend 25 or 30 minutes or so to listen  to them effectively.

There’s also a link below about making change easy / completing the Challenge.

Useful links

A recorded version of the exercises for this week’s activity for you to download and use here:

Background reading / Listening requirements remains the same if you have not yet take a peak at these …..

Continue to have a listen / work through any remaining refresher / background recordings

A word of warning

We think the exercise timetable works as it is so please be careful not to jump ahead of yourself and cheat yourself of the full experience.

If you need to get access to all the Challenge Materials follow this link here