refresh_lj - Profile (original) (raw)

Hello!

Welcome to REFRESH!

REFRESH! is a fun (albeit corny) way to give your life a swift kick in the pants. I'm providing 100% voluntary exercises to help you to refresh your life. You can participate as often as you wish, to the extent that you wish. You can come here when you feel like crap and want to force yourself to snap out of it. You can come here when it's bright and sunny outside and you just want to skip around for no good reason. You can also just sit around here and literally refresh the page waiting for something new to happen. If you DO do that, thanks for the dedication, but please remember to go eat and stuff, too.

Here's the deal. REFRESH! consists of various exercises, many of which are yet to be stumbled upon. The main idea for now is to embrace possibility, to believe in yourself, and to think about new things or to think about old things in a new way. I've italicised the goals of each exercise. You're welcome to make it more than that if you'd like. Who knows what this stuff may lead to?

Current exercises are:
1. Ballsy Friday 2. Three Wishes

1. BALLSY* FRIDAY
(est. Friday 1-7-07)

*This is the official term. If you are offended by this, or if you must edit yourself around family or little ones, the alternate official term is "Gutsy".

What to Do
Each [Ballsy] Friday, you must do something ballsy, no matter how minor or major it may be. It can be offensively ballsy to most-people-wouldn't-consider-this-to-be-ballsy ballsy. I completely understand that sometimes things don't come up or you can't think of anything acceptable. Don't feel guilty about that! It's okay. At least think about it, that's all I ask. If you skip a week or two, you could use the following Friday to do something extra-ballsy. You don't have to, but it's a suggestion for you to take if you'd like. Not only is Ballsy Friday fun, but it also has a built-in goal to expand your horizons and all. (P.S. Your action shouldn't intentionally harm anyone or thing.)

If you aren't sure if what you are doing is "ballsy," see if you answer YES to the following questions:

Ballsy Friday Self-Questionnaire
-Will the action or outcome be most likely positive/productive for the parties involved?
-Is it something you don’t HAVE to do? / Did you CHOOSE to do it?
-Is it something you've never or hardly ever done before? / Is it out of your comfort zone?
-Does it scare you? / Are you at least a bit nervous? -Did you noticeably, consciously, feel proud or more capable afterward?
-Did you breathe easier after it was over?
-Would someone you know have been at least a bit surprised that you did it?
-Would it pave the way for new possibilities?
-Would it be easier to do again if there were a next time?
-Are you being honest with yourself about these answers?

Extra Missions
These are little guiding tasks for your Ballsy Friday activities:
Just Say Yes! Say "yes" to ONE thing to which you normally wouldn't have said "yes". (est. 3-8-07; Inspired by Danny Wallace's Yes Man)

2. THREE WISHES
(est. Friday 1-26-07)

Background: This was inspired by, as many things are, the Technology Entertainment Design conferences (aka TED Talks). Each participant in the TED Talks is asked to submit three wishes that they would like to come true. They present their case, including their interest in the area, their work and research in the area, benefits of their wishes, etc. Most speakers do not mention their specific wishes to the audience. A panel of judges evaluates the claims and potentials of each speaker, and chooses 3 speakers each year to receive the funding and support to literally make their wishes come true (The TEDPrize).

Ed Burtynsky, photographer and one of the winners of the TEDPrize, was more open about the idea of the wishes than any other speaker I've seen. This is what he had to say (off-the-cuff, mind you, which is why it's not exactly polished):

"Walking around for four months with three wishes, and all the ideas that start to percolate up... I think everybody should do it. Think that you've GOT three wishes, and what would you do? It's actually a great exercise to really drill down to the things that you feel are important, and really reflect on the world around us... and thinking that... can an individual actually do something or come up with something that may actually get some traction out there and make a difference?"

What to Do
Starting today, begin to think about your Three Wishes. If you could really truly actually have three, practical, applicable wishes, what would they be? Keep thinking on these. This won't be a weekly thing to come up with three new wishes or anything. Think about this for the rest of your life. Every Friday can be a time to reflect on those wishes more critically than other times, but it doesn't have to be. Sift through the ideas in your head, the things you love, the things you want for yourself and for others, and try to narrow everything down to Three Wishes. It's not important that you come up with three wishes, but that you go through the process to get there. It opens up the potential for dreams to become reality, and opening the doorways of potential are what REFRESH! is about (so far).

Extra Missions
These are little guiding tasks for your wish development:
Tree of Opportunity! Develop a Tree of Opportunity for each wish. The root of the tree is your passions, where things grow from. The trunk is the actual wish, tying everything together and providing stability. The branches are all of the little opportunities that you can take advantage of to make your wish come true. Work toward having 200 branches. This sounds intimidating at first, but when you start thinking, they start growing on their own. And remember that if your passion change, it's okay, because all it means is that you get to grow a new tree... and you're ahead of the game because you already have some past tree-growing experience. (Thanks Lisa, who was inspired by a talk given by Cheryl Procter-Rogers on 3-7-07.)

So! What is the point of this community, then? Other than having a central reference place to detail the exercises, you are welcome to and encouraged to post about how your exercises go. Let us know what works, what doesn't work, if you have new ideas, etc. Don't think too hard about coming up with new ideas though; these exercises so far have come from life being life, and I want to keep it that way so that things are natural as opposed to forced.

Remember that I'm here to moderate, guide, think of new things, or bug you about stuff. I'm not here to check up on you or to tell you that things don't count. You decide for yourself, because this is about helping you, not me.

I hope this works out. It has been going well so far. Don't take it too seriously, but don't take it too lightly. It's like a deep breath of fresh air -- you have to breathe, of course, but really getting a nice couple of lungsful of air makes it so much better, and of course, makes you feel REFRESHED! (Don't say I didn't warn you about this being corny.)

NOTE: Yes, I know I say "you MUST do such and such," though I also say that this is voluntary. I say "you MUST" to motivate you. In the purest, most idealistic version of REFRESH!, a Refresher would be completely consistent and do everything. I want you to strive for that. That isn't the same thing as perfectionism. You don't have to BE the perfect, unattainable Refresher, but you should look up to Him/Her and aspire to be the best that you can be. I just think it's important to put forth effort is all. Everything is still voluntary, but saying "MUST" makes it less likely that you'll slack off or forget about this completely.

Things to inspire you
Improvisers don’t look at change as an obstacle; we look at it as fuel. We know that the next great idea lies just on the other side of the change. We are constantly asking ourselves, “What can I do to incite change?” Well?
-- John Sweeney
Speaker, trainer and author of Innovation at the Speed of Laughter.

If I have given my all and still do not win, I haven’t lost. Others might remember winning or losing; I remember the journey.
-- Apolo Anton Ohno
Five-time Olympic medalist.

On their methods for the reception of possibility, Ben and Roz Zander say in The Art of Possibility:
"Our practices will take a good deal more than three minutes to master. ... So it takes dedication, a leap of faith, and, yes, practicing to get them into your repertoire."

From the same book, a student of Ben's writes him a letter in which she states:
"I understand that trying and achieving are the same thing when you are your own master - and I am." (Giselle Hillyer)