Kickstart Change
At Spark, we’ve been thinking a lot about change – its benefits, what it takes to make meaningful change and what holds us back. Typically, people make changes in their lives to improve their happiness, sense of fulfillment, health and prosperity. A quick survey of our coaching clients reveals that, in addition to realizing a desired goal, embracing change offers a number of benefits:
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- Growth and development: Change forces us to adapt to new experiences and drives growth and development both personally and professionally.
- Improved flexibility: Change teaches us adaptability as we encounter new challenges and as we re-evaluate our habits, patterns of thought and belief systems. We may learn something new or reinforce our trust in our beliefs, either way, we have engaged in critical thought that builds greater flexibility in our ideas and thought processes.
- Revealed strengths: Exploring change and adapting to new ways helps to remind us that we have more than our handful of ‘go-to’ strengths
- Increased openness and compassion: As we tackle change ourselves, we encounter the challenges of breaking old habits and are reminded about the importance of giving and receiving understanding during these times.
- New and improved opportunities: Making a change often involves making new and different choices. Even small choices can uncover opportunities that weren’t visible to us before we started.
In spite of all of these benefits, our clients all agree that it can be hard to get started. It takes time, energy, different thinking, and space to explore and create new plans.
With all of this in mind, we created a brand new workshop called Kickstart Change. The premise is simple. We provide participants with a creative but carefully structured experience where they can clarify the change they want to pursue, explore both enabling factors and hurdles to change and develop an action plan to take concrete steps towards their goal.
In our most recent workshop, participants found that the 3-hour session was easy to schedule, and with some pre-work, provided them with sufficient time to hone their thinking and make meaningful progress. Replete with helpful tools and exercises, our approach allowed participants to work individually and in groups both small and large. The group – united by an interest in making change – provided an opportunity for rich discussion and feedback and each person benefitted from sharing and receiving perspectives and experience from other participants. By the end of the session, each participant left with detailed action steps on several things they would begin doing as well as a few things they would stop doing. Literally a kick-start, embarking on the path towards their desired change.
Here’s what some of the participants said about Kickstart Change…
“The workshop helped me frame what I am trying to achieve and got me started on how to go about it.”
“Exploring my ‘enablers’ and ‘hurdles’ to the change I want was really helpful. The unsaid hurdles – that’s what generates fear. Vocalizing and writing them down was so helpful.”
“The workshop sparked action and reframed my thinking. Working with a group showed me that I’m not the only one. The pre-work and workshop gave me a set of helpful tools. Overall participating in this workshop made change seem less scary.”
One Day or Day One? You decide. It’s time to Kickstart Change.
To learn more about Kickstart Change please email info@sparkideas.ca