Own It: Rock Your Tribe

This week's theme, in my Five Habits of Creative Teachers class, is "tribe." The word tribe connotes closeness and loyalty to me. My definition of tribe is a close-knit group of people who can count on one another through the ups and downs of life.

My favorite exercise in this module was the creation of a "Life Ring." Here are the instructions for the exercise, as provided:

Focus on roughly 5-9 major life arenas where you will invest your time, with self, family, work, and community (SFWC). Put your “master in the middle”; this is the primary driving force behind all your decisions – and in every life, there can only be one master. If you try to have more than one master, eventually your Life will intersect events so that you have an “identity quake”, and must choose your primary master. Under each arena bubble, list those most important habits that you will commit to each day or each week. This is not simply a “to do list”, but a list of habits. When the Life Ring has a clear “master in the middle”, 5-9 arenas, and a short list of habits under each arena, it is complete. (Credit for LIfe Ring Exercise to CIC course (Links to an external site.) from U of Pennsylvania)

And here is the Life Ring I created:

The reason I liked this exercise, to be honest, is that I've been feeling discouraged over a few of the major life arenas I've identified, above, and the exercise helped me remember that Jesus is, or should be, at the center of everything I do. I'm a visual learner (and person), and I really appreciate the opportunity to think about not only what's most important to me, but also how to tie everything back to Jesus.

The outcome of the exercise is neither surprising nor expected, but I will say it's clarifying. The biggest insight I got from doing this exercise is that--even though I feel overwhelmed, sometimes, by my life--I can easily make little changes to not only improve each life arena but also center myself more consistently in Jesus. I'm supposed to tell you something that didn't work out for me, and initially, that something was sharing on Google +. I got a notification that I needed to receive an invitation to join the class community. Somehow, though (I have no idea how!), I got in without an invitation, in the end.