Let me fall if I must fall. The one I will become will catch me. – The Baal Shem Tov
Welcome to my month long exploration of the Inner Development Goals, a framework of concepts developed to help us to nurture the “inner capacity to deal with our increasingly complex environment and challenges.”
The IDGs are made up of five dimensions under which are clustered a handful of goals:
Being (relationship to oneself)
Inner compass
Integrity and authenticity
Openness and learning mindset
Self-awareness
Presence.
Thinking (cognitive skills)
Critical thinking
Complexity awareness
Perspective skills
Sense-making
Long-term orientation and thinking.
Relating (caring for others and the world)
Appreciation
Connectedness
Humility
Empathy and compassion.
Collaborating (social skills)
Communication skills
Co-creation skills
Inclusive mindset and intercultural competence
Trust
Mobilisation skills.
Acting (enabling change)
Courage
Creativity
Optimism
Perseverance.
From tomorrow, I will be emailing out a favourite quotation and image as a response to each of the dimensions and goals.
These will be a personal (and perhaps liberal) response to and interpretation of these concepts. The quotes I have found are not definitive or conclusive and – an important caveat – I am not presuming to second guess the thinking or intentions of the people who developed this framework. Each quote is my ‘next thought’ after reading each Inner Development Goal. So please read them as evidence of my being in dialogue with each goal rather than trying to pithily sum them up.
My personal dialogue with this framework comes through the lens of creativity: I am a facilitator, process mentor, and non-fiction writer who focuses on the experience of creativity. This means that many of the quotations I will be posting will have the theme of creativity lurking behind them.
Creativity is one of the goals included in the IDG framework. Because of who I am and what I do it is, for me, the lens through which I view the world including the IDGs. Maybe take a moment and scan the framework and think about which goals feel closest to you right now? If you were doing what I’m doing, where would you be looking for quotes that inspire you to reflexivity? They might be very different to the ones I’ve chosen and I would love it if you shared your own choice of quotes in the comments below each post.
Lengthy introduction over: Now enjoy the rest of the month’s postings!