Photo by Susan LePlae Miller, "Sunset in the Badlands National Park", South Dakota (July 2024).
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” —Karen Lamb
Do you ever feel you have too much to do and don’t know where to start? It’s easy to feel disconnected from the goals that truly matter to us when our “to do list” is long. Moving from awareness to action can feel daunting at times.
In addition, we’re heading into elections (November 5th in the USA) and the winter holiday season (in many areas of the world). A sense of isolation and loneliness can add to our feelings of overwhelm.
So, what do we do?
Last week, my colleagues and I hosted an Activate Your Values Workshop in celebration of World Values Day with attendees from 5 countries (Albania, Canada, India, U.K. and various states in the USA). My section of the workshop focused on the A4 Mindset: Awareness, Acknowledgement, Acceptance, and Action.
This four-step process is designed to help you break through barriers and move forward with clarity and purpose. Whether you're striving for personal growth or seeking to make an impact in your workplace, A4 provides a clear path for reflection and action.
A4 Mindset: Awareness, Acknowledgement, Acceptance, Action
AWARENESS: Recognizing Where You Are
The first step is to develop awareness of your current reality. During this part of the workshop, I guided participants to consider one area of their life they’ve been thinking about changing or improving.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Owning Your Truth
Once we’re aware, the next step is acknowledging what we find. Acknowledgement is about owning both the strengths and challenges of your situation. This requires honesty and courage, as we often avoid difficult truths.
ACCEPTANCE: Freeing Your Energy
Acceptance is often the hardest step. It involves embracing where you are without resistance—accepting that this is your starting point. When we accept our reality, we free up the emotional energy previously spent resisting change.
ACTION: Moving Forward With Purpose
The final piece of the A4 mindset is action. Awareness, Acknowledgement, and Acceptance set the stage, but Action is where transformation happens. I encouraged participants to identify one small, actionable step they can take toward their goal. Whether it’s a bold move or a tiny adjustment, the key is to start moving in the right direction.
VALUES: Elevating Our Goal
After choosing a goal to focus on, we utilized values to help support, amplify, and elevate our goal moving forward. Here is a word cloud of the values our participants chose:
Word Cloud created from the Activate Your Values Workshop 2024
Addressing Loneliness is the goal I chose to give some extra focus to, because it impacts all areas of our lives (work, home, and is prevalent across the ages and stages of life). I will be exploring this over the next few months to explore how to best energize solutions. Reach out if you’re interested too.
Now is the time to manifest your goals with the A4 Mindset, let’s get started to see how we can customize a workshop experience for you.
RECENT Events, Poetry, and Media (2024):
The Menopause Society 2024 Annual Meeting: September 12th in Chicago, IL. I was a panelist on “Dishing on Menopause: An Invitation to Listen” and did an interview with Contemporary OB/GYN on “Empowering women to take charge of their health”.
Paint the Lake Pink Walk: October 13th in Lake Zurich, IL. We had a gorgeous day for My Density Matters breast cancer awareness to action walk.
Loneliness: A new POEM written on October 17, 2024
Tatisa C. Joiner Foundation BOW Gala: October 19th in Oak Brook, IL
UPCOMING EVENTS (details on my website):
Culture Walk: November 6th (free, online)
USVA: Create PEACE with Respect & Kindness: November 8th (free, online)
RSNA: December 2nd – 5th in Chicago, IL
SABCS: December 9th – 13th in San Antonio, TX
In my last newsletter, One Day Can Change Your Life, I reflected on how our simplest decisions can be life altering and of the impact of listening to our intuition. Next month, we’ll dive deeper into how to SHAPE Change and Inspire Impact in your own lives.
In the meantime, if you would like a personalized workshop for your organization to help elevate one of your goals or need assistance improving your next conference experience (as an attendee), let’s get started now to better understand your team’s current needs and customize a workshop experience for you.
May you always “Know your value, Live your values”.