THIS FREE 30-DAY COURSE
SUPPORTS YOU
IN GROWING
WISER AND STEADIER
IN THE MIDDLE
OF MESS AND STRESS
in less than
five minutes
a day.
We're in the midst of complexity, or what we might less politely call: mess.
Living and working in a constantly changing environment is stressful.
We’re often left feeling like we don't always know what our next best move should be, or even how to know how to make that decision.
William Torbert, one of the main researchers in the field of leadership development (and the author of one of the Harvard Business Review’s Top 10 Leadership articles) did some long-standing research into organisations that made significant positive culture shifts.
People with a interdependent standpoint that allows for post-heroic, inclusive leadership, his research shows, have more flexibility and capacity to transform situations of complexity, mess and conflict for the better.
But how do you grow a more finely honed sense of how things are interconnected, when you barely have enough time/energy/resources to keep on top of a tenth of what you're meant to be doing?
That's where 30 Days to Better Instincts might help.
30 Days to Better Instincts is a free course with daily prompts (both written and audio form).
Each prompt takes only a couple of minutes to read or listen to every morning, and gives you a specially-chosen focus for the day.
Every one is designed to systematically grow your capability to take wiser and more timely action, based on my professional exploration and the research of others, like Torbert’s.
30 Days to Better Instincts is for you if any of the following apply to you:
you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the situations facing you and would like to develop more natural insight into what to do next
you've done a bunch of meditation/therapy/stillness/introversion and would yet sometimes struggle to apply what you've learned day-to-day
you're not in a place where going headlong into a book or a course is feasible, but you'd like to know you're still working on your personal development
you'd like to slowly grow your own brand of wisdom, your way, rather than always be borrowing the wisdom of other people.
I’ll introduce myself in a bit, in case you don’t know me, but let me tell you a bit more explicitly what you’re getting.
What exactly is
30 DAYS TO
BETTER INSTINCTS?
Okay. Here’s how a Better Instincts day goes.
You wake up, do your normal morning routine, whatever that is.
When you’re ready, you open today’s email, and click the link.
That takes you to a page with
a two-sentence version of today’s prompt, for those days when you just don’t have the time/energy/spoons to absorb the full prompt
an audio player with a three-ish minute recording of me explaining the practice for the day, so you can listen while you’re getting your breakfast or doing your face or whatever
a link to download an iTunes-ready mp3 of the audio, in case you’d prefer to listen on a different device again later on in the day
a downloadable nicely formatted pdf document of the transcript of the audio, for people who need or prefer to read (probably maximum 500 words or so).
So you can see, it will be less than five minutes of your morning to get today’s prompt.
You need change nothing else in your day!
You just go about your business, but paying attention to a specific aspect of your experience, following the instructions I’ve given you that morning.
There’s also a couple of printable bonuses that’ll help you if you want to reflect - keep reading to find out about those.
First, let me explain the rhythm that ripples through each of the four weeks of Better Instincts. It’ll give you a flavour of the type of prompts you’ll get each day.
Awareness days focus on paying attention to what's happening in the moment - both externally and internally to you. The more conscious and awake we can be, the more we're able to make conscious and awake choices!
As you evolve a more expansive and interdependent lens, your sense of time shifts and changes. On Time Days we practice growing a deeper sense of the past, the future and the present moment.
On People Days you get much more conscious of whose perspective you're allowing in and who you're excluding, who you have empathy with and who you don't, and how deep the empathy is that you hold.
On a Pattern Day you hold an awareness of the rhythms inherent in the situations you're in. Are you oversimplifying complexity? Are you overcomplexifying what's simple? What are your instincts telling you?
The white capitalist patriarchy has messed up our relationship with power. We tend to overuse some aspects and run away from others. On a Power Day you explore the nature of power around you and the kind of power you're employing.
Fundamentally, what you do and how you do it relies on who you actually are. That's what you focus on on a Sense of Self Day. What aspects of your self are you growing? Denying? Letting go of? Who do you aspire to be? Who are you, really?
A Nourishment
Day is a day out of the cycle of the first six days, where we step away and think about what feeds you. Are you looking after your body, your mind, your spirit? What can you build into your routines to makes sure you are?
This programme came from years of thinking and experimenting.
In case you don't know me very well, let me explain how I came to design Better Instincts.
My name is Meg Lightheart, I'm a leadership coach for values-driven, deep thinking leaders.
But that wasn't always the case.
Several years ago, someone I really trust recommended that I look into adult development, which after googling turned out to mean the field of study about how adults grow their capacity to take wise and timely action in the face of complexity and mess.
I then read All The Books and studied with two of the authors once in Boston (boring) and once in Helsinki (transformational). I ended up being one of a handful of people in the UK qualified to debrief and coach the Global Leadership profile, a subtle tool which helps you to see where you’re currently at in your evolution as a leader.
I immediately landed a gig taking a European-wide set of CEO/CIOs through the profile, which taught me a LOT.
When the opportunity arose in 2018 for me to spend six months exploring a research question with a cohort of 12 as part of a 26-week Learning Marathon, of course my question was:
How can I hold a space that nurtures interdependent leaders and deep thinkers in Birmingham?
And what was born out of that was something beautiful: The Circle of Curious Complexity - a monthly supper and meetup which was, frankly, gorgeous.
But the Circle was very geographically-based.
30 Days to Better Instincts takes the lessons from my journey so far and translates it into a something you can study on your own, wherever you are.
It’s a framework, an experiment, an invitation to take an active role in your own evolution as someone who takes wise and timely action in the face of mess and complexity.
YOUR
3 PRINTABLE BONUSES
Reflection is an important part of Better Instincts. In fact, that’s what the last two days are devoted to - what has shifted and changed in the previous 28 days - before you maybe start the process again.
In order to help you stay oriented and reflect there are a couple of extra bonuses you can download on Day 1.
In addition to your daily audio instruction and transcript, there are 3 main support tools to help you during your 30 days.
If you’re someone who gets a lot from reflecting through writing or drawing, you’ll like the printable journal. It has a themed page for every day of the 30-day journey, with space to write in the day’s prompt and a not-scarily-large-but-just-right space underneath to put your thoughts and feelings for the day. (You write the prompt in yourself so that if you want to repeat this process, you can just reprint the journal and put different prompts in.)
The second printable bonus is a poster you can put up on your bedroom wall or wherever to remind you where you are in the weekly cycle.
Your third bonus is a tracker you can use to cross off each day of the journey. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know I love a progress chart - if you’re the same, here’s a super pretty one.
Fancy joining us?
I’m really looking forward to us all starting this experiment together.
Sign up below for
your 30 daily prompts in audio form (either to play right there on the page or download in an iTunes ready mp3)
the same 30 daily prompts with a neatly formatted downloadable pdf word-for-word transcript of the audio
your printable journal
your printable wall poster
your printable tracker.
You’ll also start getting my weekly reading roundup email with 7 links to great articles/videos/podcasts on inclusive leadership and climate/social justice.
You’ll be the first to hear about discounts on new products and services I bring out.
