Week 6

Congratulations! You are half way there and well on your way to completing the challenge. The first few weeks are the hardest and you can now start to reap the rewards of the work you have already done.

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By now you are used to the challenge format, your routine will be set and will continue for the remainder of the challenge. You should also begin to see your relationship scores steadying and improving week on week.

It’s worth saying again that you need to stick to the routines and discipline that has gotten you this far. Make the most of the investment you have made  and  don’t be tempted to cut corners now.

The value of the simple early exercises will become clearer as we are now able to prepare to move on to bigger and better experiences together over the next few weeks.

The timetable is here Challenge Course timetable

This week is all about three things:

  • Building on your skills and experiences at Viewpoint 3.
  • Redoing the More of, less of exercise with your Monkey.
  • Taking some time to prepare for a formal meeting with your Monkey to establish your partnership.

Down load this week’s practical exercises here:

Standard Weekly exercises

Ongoing Action

  1. Hold the thought. – “If this contact from the Monkey was designed to help – what would it be helping me with?”
  2. Make a note of any evidence you uncover of Monkey Help.
  3. Focus this week on what you want things to be like and how you want you and your Monkey to work together in a positive, friendly win-win situation

Let this develop into what you want to say to make this relationship happen as you want it to.

If you didn’t get a chance to listen to our week 5 Bonus track last week – do it now.       Week Five Bonus Track

Please have a look at  the Facebook challenge page.  and give some thought to sharing your results stories and examples – this is where we can create a community of helpers and buddies that will make it easier for those that follow you to get teh Monkey relationship they want.

We appreciate your help in making this happen!

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

Week 6 timetable is shown below:

Week 6 Day Exercise Planning and organising
  36 Exercise 7 Exploring Viewpoint 3
  37 Exercise 10b More of, Less of Together
  38 Exercise 7 Exploring Viewpoint 3
  39 Exercise 10b More of, Less of Together
40 Exercise 7 Exploring Viewpoint 3
  41 Exercise 10a Preparation for the Formal Chat
  42 Exercise 13 Survey Exercise 14 Week 7

This week’s 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 is simply the opportunity to plan your challenge experience. We know that taking a moment to make things a little easier / organise or plan when and how you will get things done will make the challenge far more user friendly. So on the first day take the time to plan and organise for both the whole challenge and for this first week.

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.

If you can its 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 it’s just somewhere that you find works for you.

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

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

Practical exercises / Audio

Exercise 7: Exploring Viewpoint 3

This exercise takes some work and practice so we give you the chance to play again with this exercise from Week 4.

The objective of this exercise is

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.

In Week 4 at the end of these exercises, we asked you to

1 be able to access Viewpoint 3 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.

This time in Week 6 we give you the space to explore options while you are at Viewpoint 3. The recording takes you through some of these but feel free to look or explore wherever you wish to get an idea of the potential understanding that can be gained from this viewpoint.

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

Exercise 10b Together

Repeat this exercise with the Monkey and work to build a joint view of your ideal life.

You can use the same questions:

“What do I really want in my world?”

“What do I want my world to be like?”

“What would my best day (week, month, year, life) look like?”

 

But by now you may have a question that you feel would work better for you. If so, use that question.

If you are struggling with these big questions, keep it simple and just use those we recommend as titles of the list building in the previous exercise:

What do I want more of?

What do I want less of?

Creating your view of what you really want, where you are going is worth taking the time to get right. It affects everything you think you do an choose an dit is key. to helping you build a better relationship with your Monkey.

When you have finished take a moment to consider what happened and make any notes that seem relevant to you.

Exercise 10b Together objectives

The objective of this exercise is to review what it is you both think you want.

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

By the end of these exercises, you should both

1 have had the chance to check your conscious list from Exercise 9,

2 have a more valid written list of what you both think you want to achieve,

3 have taken another opportunity to delete, add and fine tune the list to fully meet your joint requirements and,

4 be able to see better choices of where to allocate your efforts and resources.

Make any notes that seem relevant to you. 

Ongoing Action – remains the same

1 Whenever you get a spare moment, take a deep breath, drift up and look back at yourself and

2 When you become aware of your Monkey distracting you, use this framing question:

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

3 Make a note of any evidence you uncover of Monkey Help

4 Continue to review your list from Exercise 9 to see what feels true for you and note any resistance to doing the things you must do to create the life you say you want. Your resistance may be more than laziness or inertia, it may be telling you something.

 

Exercise 10a Preparation for the first formal chat

We suggest you formally prepare or think about three areas that we list below before you are ready to discuss futures with your Monkey. The recording talks you through these whilst you start to prepare.

We call these areas:

1 Your welcome speech

This is what you honestly want to say to your Monkey. Make it a genuine offer of a hand in friendship and encourage them to look to the future you can build together. Take comfort from the fact they are really on your side; they will know what you are doing and should be up for it already.

2 Short-term destination

Before you start, you should also have a clear idea about where you would like to go next. A relationship works well when both participants know what they want out of it. At this stage, you don’t need to set any big goals or create any grand plans. Instead, consider what outcome you want for this meeting.

We suggest a simple outcome, such as building a better relationship between you.

Your Monkey may ask you what else you want for this meeting but we suggest you stick to a simple ‘let’s see if we can make this work before we decide where and how to use it’ approach. The danger here is that you two are so disconnected that anything you want may frighten or bore them and they will switch off. Short term, the idea of doing a couple of things together to improve your interactions will encourage them. You have told them you want change and are now becoming more proactive in suggesting a place to start and move forward to.

Remember, if their whole purpose is to help you, then having a good relationship is something our Monkey wants too.

3 Rules of engagement

We know that if you think back to any highly charged incident in your past, you can experience all the same emotions again just by replaying it in your head. The way to stay safe is to be disassociated when you recall these incidents. It’s likely that you will both share some negative emotions about your past relationship. Accessing Viewpoint 3 when you meet allows you both to recall or revisit any of these events in a disassociated state and emotion free.

For our purposes, all we need to know is that by associated we mean looking through our own eyes and dissociated means we are looking at us from our space at Viewpoint 3.

It’s as if we were watching a movie with us in it.

Follow this rule together by watching from the safety of your space. If you have any difficulties with emotion, agree to float up above the situation and look down on it together. Step back or float up, see what is really going on and focus on what you want rather than who is to blame.

You may find your preparation already encourages some working together.

In sales one basic rule is always quoted: ABC, or Always Be Closing. Like many basic rules there’s quite a lot to it but in essence if the customer says, “Can I have it?” you stop talking and say yes. Same here, we have a process and a plan but as you do the preparation the relationship starts to progress there and then it’s worth being flexible and running with it provided you are ready to do so.

Whatever happens, maintain your big picture perspective your leadership role; ‘why’ is more important than ‘what’ or ‘how’ and consistently maintain your Leaders message that you want this change and you will work at it until it’s done.

Exercise 10a The First Formal Chat objectives

The objective of this exercise is to review and determine what it is you think you want your new relationship to be like. To do this with the clarity and insight available from Viewpoint 3.

We ask you to do this exercise once on Day 6 of Week 6.

By the end of these exercise, you should have done enough to be prepared to lay out your stall with or your offer to your Monkey and specifically:

1 have thought through what you want to say and how you are going to say it, and

2 feel confident about your story and your ability to tell it.

Make any notes that seem relevant to you.

 

Exercise 13 Misaligned Monkey Relationship Survey

Remember to take the survey again on Day 7 so you can see the effect the exercises are having on your relationship with the Monkey.

Useful links

Background Listening / Reading