Setting the Path for the Next Decade

As we close out an incredibly challenging life-changing year it has become clear that this next decade could and should be the most important decade in human existence. A decade of reflection, relooking, revisioning, reimagining, and recreating.  So many of the unchallenged assumptions about how we work and gather, and what we value and prioritize have been shattered - liberating us to truly create a life by design, not default.

The year 2020 has given us 20-20 hindsight into what no longer serves us as well. We have also gained 20-20 foresight into what is longing to happen - for each of us personally, for the people we love and for the world.

So what is longing to happen for you?  Here is what’s up for me.

Instead of New Year Resolutions of what I will do differently next year, I am resolving to remember, live into and embody the lessons of this year that I am grateful for.   They include:

• My every Sunday family zoom calls with Rob’s family and then my family. These include siblings, adult children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren and, in my case, my 94 year old Mom

• Learning that showing up with love and a commitment to serve transcends every medium. Love is the greatest technology ever created.

• Saying goodbye to 40 years as a road warrior - never home for more than 2 weeks at a time. It turns out, getting to my center instead of getting to the top, requires resting in place, with the land, at home, with Rob.

• Deep, loving relationships based on unconditional love require listening hard to what is longing to happen and acting from that place.

I am also beginning to set the contours of my next decade game.  I will turn 69 in 2021 - that is 9 years into the decade game I set for 60 to 70.  In this last decade, that started when I matriculated (i.e. mandatory retirement from EY), I set a destination that at 70 I would be known as “An Organizational Shaman Inspiring Humans to Live Epic Lives”. I was also cognizant that I wanted to commence the process of transitioning from warrior to elder and shift my relationship with ambition so that it showed up more as servant as opposed to “rock-star”.

I am now looking out at the decade from 70 to 80 and listening for what is longing to happen. The great Basque shaman, Angeles Arrien, described the 5 phases of life found in many indigenous cultures - Child, Adolescent, Adult/Warrior, Elder and Essence. As I think about all my decade games since the age of 8, I see how I have followed that trajectory of growth.   I see this next decade as the opportunity to mature as an elder and begin to prepare the way for the decade of 80 - 90, my Essence Decade.

Here is my first pass at my Decade Game Destination at 80 (You are the first to hear it!). Wouldn’t it be cool that at 80 I am known as “The wise woman in the moon reflecting and illuminating the inner light of others?”  As was with most of my decade game destinations, I don’t know where the idea comes from.  At 60, I had never met a shaman!  But I do trust that there is a knowing inside each of us that knows what is our true becoming. 

What are your Decade Game resolutions for 2021 that will facilitate the design of the best decade yet?

Happy New Year and Happy Next Decade