A brief history of the evolution of the Goal Crafting Intensive
Hi friends, my name is Benjamin. Many of you know me, or at least will recognize me from previous GCI workshops. If not hopefully we get a chance to meet at a future workshop, or in person some time.
Malcolm (Ocean) and I started the Goal Crafting Intensive in 2017. The first year our course curriculum was in a Google Doc, which we were still working on seconds before workshop #1 went live.
Over the years we frequently made updates to the content and structure of the workshop. At some point I’d like to write more on that history.
One of the most significant recent changes happened last winter, which included us:
- 1) re-branding the Goal Crafting Intensive to the Beyond Goals Intensive, and
- 2) building a new evolved course framework along with a corresponding toolkit of activities
When Malcolm and I started the Goal Crafting Intensive in 2017, it was within the context of us exploring a working relationship around the Complice app (now known as Intend). Retrospectively, the question I was asking was:
- Is there a way for us to create a learning environment that supports people to develop clarity and agency in relation to their path, which would also be life-sustaining for us personally?
Our approach to building this learning environment was to create a multi-hour workshop focused around goals. This was pragmatic given that:
- Complice was built around goals,
- we had both used goals personally to create and achieve in ways that mattered deeply to us, and
- pedagogically goals were both general enough to suit a diverse audience, and structured enough that they tended to lead people towards clarity and tangible results
There was immediate feedback that the workshops were on to something. In coaching channels and while “milling about the lobby” after the event, we often heard beautiful feedback from folks. Your appreciation and stories were deeply nourishing for me <3… They were a big part of what made it worth it to us to continue building the program and running events.
Over the years, something interesting happened: although we frequently added to the course content, the underlying framework largely remained the same. At the same time, the other major dimension of the program, the coaching, underwent an evolution as the coaches grew up.
I found myself in an interesting position. In our second year we developed a “Goal Achievement Framework” which had four modules: Goal Setting, Planning, Execution, and Reflection. Aesthetically I find this framework clean and crisp which is satisfying. However, I soon found myself moving on from using the framework in my own life.
This created a tension some of us coaches felt: the framework was based on goals, but the challenges we were grappling with in our own lives seemed to require a set of approaches beyond what goals could satisfy.
If goals are such a powerful and universal tool, why was it that I was not using them in my own life?
I think there are multiple ways to think about this question. Here is just one of those:
In Master and his Emissary, Iain McGilchrist explores the role and relationship between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
The argument McGilchrist makes is that when functioning in harmony, the left brain (more specialized, narrow, analytical) is the Emissary of the right brain (more holistic, embodied, relational) which is the Master. The left brain is characterized as being responsible for apprehension (grasping, manipulating and controlling), while the right brain is responsible for comprehension (taking in the full interconnected nature of a situation including its context).
It turns out that goals are a very suitable object for the left brain to apprehend – to grasp or to grip onto. Sometimes inadvertently in this gripping is embedded the seeds of dynamics we are hoping to transcend.
The issue is perhaps not so much about goals, as it is about our relationship with goals.
What I’ve discovered in my own life, is I have needed to find a way to transform the relationship I had historically developed with goals. I am, as many of us are, in an ongoing learning process of coming into right-relationship with goals.
In terms of the Goal Crafting Intensive, this created a pedagogical challenge.
We liked the idea of evolving the course content, and conceptually it seemed worthwhile to do. But we felt some uncertainty, tension and risk around how. I think the primary concern was;
Is it possible we lose what has worked by inviting in more complexity than we can handle?
Ultimately we had the energy to take the jump. I think we felt like we couldn’t not do it.
The approach we ended up taking was to create a new framework that “transcended and included” the old, where our 4 primary curriculum modules evolved:
- Goal Setting became Intention,
- Planning became Preparation,
- Execution became Participation,
- Reflection became Integration
I’ve got appetite to explore each of these transformations in depth in later posts or in learning conversations with the Beyond Goals community. Generally speaking, in each case the new bolded module includes and expands on the previous. The intention is that we keep the best of the historical Goal Achievement Framework while opening up space for approaches that may be “Beyond Goals”.
So far we’ve heard really positive feedback from folks 🥲
I think the new framework does a better job of balancing qualities associated with both the left-brain and right-brain. This balance affords more powerful and penetrating opportunities for exploring and cultivating right-relationship with goals.
On an even more fundamental level, the evolved framework represents a more mature paradigm for supporting folks to develop clarity, alignment and agency in relation to their path.
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I find myself wanting to be embedded in relationships with others who also are exploring what it means to cultivate right-relationship with our goals, with our path, and with the world around us. I would love to be in that learning journey with you.
If something in this invitation speaks to you, here are a few ways we can connect:
- I’m hosting a 60 minute lightly facilitated call for members of the Beyond Goals community to share what we’ve been learning around cultivating right-relationship with our goals. Calendar invite is here, timing is Wednesday October 16th at 11am ET
- You can register now to spend some time with us at our October BGIs in two weeks on October 19th & 20th ( 20th & 21th for Asia and Australia)
- We’re hoping to begin animating our Beyond Goals Discord and some new social media platforms where you can connect with us (Twitter, Facebook).
In learning & connection
Benjamin
