Introduction to Change Agent: Framework, Part 1

The last two posts introduced you to the Change Agent: Foundation and one of its peers, the Change Agent: Vision. I shared my personal Vision. Here are a few examples of other Visions:

     Pro Futuris is Baylor University’s Vision for the next 10 years
     Helping Baby Boomers change their lives through career design
     Amnesty International

The next few posts introduce you to the 6 steps in Change Agent: Framework for Activating Change. This provides you with a process for turning your Vision into reality!

I am also pulling down the June 18 post. Things I have learned in the last few weeks make the material in it out of date.

1. Set sail toward your vision

First, are you living your vision? This is being true to the idea of being the change you want to see in the world.
·         If the answer is no, you know what needs to be done.
·         The answer is most likely maybe. That is OK. You see opportunities for improvement.
·         If you want to change the world, change yourself first!

Visualize your Vision as a complete success. This may actually take some time. Record it in a way that is best for you. It may be written and it may be a drawing. It might be some other media but it needs to be in a form you can access easily and often. Before proceeding to any sort of planning, it is important to know what your vision looks like in its fully realized form.

Next, choose a project to make your Vision reality. This project should create a key element in the process of making your Vision into reality. Part 3 of the Change Agent: Foundation is about creating strategy with goals and taking actions that implement your project.

It is important to get others excited about your Vision. Strong emotions and gratitude validate your efforts. Expect naysayers. There are always reactionaries in the World that want to avoid change, even if it kills them like Harry Randall Truman. He refused to leave his home at the foot of Mount Saint Helens. Let people like that be footnotes in history, not destroyers of your Vision!

2. Now

Focus on what you can do now.  Be fully immersed in the task at hand now. The only changes you can affect are the changes happening now. If you are in a conversation with another person, be fully present. Being distracted subtly tells that other person the distraction is more important. Focusing on the task at hand now is a key to consistently doing your best.

What happened in the past cannot be changed. The past has presented you with the set of options and consequences that are before you now. If the set of options is not enough, you can spend your now searching for or creating other options.

You can only choose options in the present. That is what makes it so powerful.

The future has not happened yet. You have the option to spend your now planning what you are going to do in the future. The action of planning will affect the options and consequences of your future now. Until recently, preparing for the future was a valid use of your time. Things now change so rapidly that you should be creating options for your future rather than simply preparing for it. Preparation assumes that some aspects of the future are predictable. Adaptability is the new wealth.