Making Your Next Move With A New Year Here, Take Time To Retreat And Plan A Life Strategy

On gray winter mornings a year ago, Erin Dorsey of Spokane would often wake up feeling vaguely irritated with her husband, her house or her daughter.

Dorsey still has the same husband, house and daughter. But on these snowy mornings, she wakes up amazingly happy.

“I cannot believe how blessed I am to have this life,” she says. At 36, she’s an adjunct college instructor, an organization development consultant and the mother of a 3 1/2-year-old.

Dorsey, who tended to feel annoyed with her family because her life wasn’t quite perfect, has changed her perspective. She’s learned to resolve conflicts with the people she loves. She’s also used a technique called strategic life planning.

It’s the type of change most people attempt through half-hearted New Year’s resolutions. But Dorsey had the help of a Spokane executive coach, Dede Henley of Chrysalis Consulting.

Henley, 35, a former Los Angeles corporate consultant, specializes in connecting people to their own passion. She urges them to remember what they loved to do most as children, prods them to write meaningful goals and coaches people through the fear that keeps them stuck.

“Doing what you love is the riskiest and scariest of all,” Henley says.

Henley grew up in Seattle and graduated from Gonzaga University with a business administration degree before moving to California. There she earned a masters’ degree in organizational development from Pepperdine University.

Now, at the start of the new year, Henley recommends that people take time to retreat, whether for a weekend or just an hour or so, to focus on what she calls strategic life planning.

Otherwise, she says, “People get caught up in day-to-day living and 10 years slip by.”

Here’s an outline of a mini-retreat you can schedule on your own, and conduct with a journal or a trusted friend:

Identify your passion: Begin by remembering what you loved to do most as a child. If you can’t remember, call up a parent or sibling for their memories of you at age 8.

“As children we knew what we loved,” Henley says. “You got out of bed and you immediately knew what you wanted to do.

“Little by little, what you want to be doing gets covered over. Your teachers want you to sit still, and you want to dance.”

One man Henley worked with loved building forts as a kid. He was always the idea man, the innovator.

In his 50s and after 30 years in the same position at the same company, he was completely burned out.

“To take a man with that passion and to put him in the same job for 30 years is to kill him,” Henley says. “(People like that) get that look like the lights are on, but there’s nobody home.”

Write down what you loved as a child and translate that into adult life. The girl who loved to organize her friends’ backyard carnivals may grow up to organize adult events.

Think about the pursuits you find so absorbing that time seems to disappear. It might be eating a fine meal, perfecting your golf swing, or playing Mozart.

Listen carefully to your inner voice. It may have been drowned out, submerged like a delicate flower on a lake during a hard rain, Henley says.

Abandoning your regular routine helps. Henley schedules a personal retreat every three months.

“It really alters the way you look at your world,” she says.

Imagine the future. Visualize the life you’ll be leading five years from now, in January 2002. If you have children, they’ll be five years older and venturing through new stages.

Dream about how you’d like your life to look then. You may want to reach a certain stage professionally, to expand your possibilities for recreation or adventure, or delve more fully into a favorite sport.

Envision what you need to do this year to make that five-year dream a reality.

Write specific goals. Make certain you list clear, tangible statements.

“You always win at the game you’re playing,” Henley says. “If you’re not specific, you’ll have general, vague results.”

Henley’s own goals include such statements as “Have a garden in our new home, a place for me to quiet my heart and hear my soul,” “Work four days per week, take off the months of July and August,” and “Publish my writing five times in newspapers and publications.”

“Until you get clear about what you want, you’ll never get it,” she says.

Henley has been using her goal-setting process for 10 years.

She often lists items she doesn’t know how she’ll accomplish. But by the end of the year, she’s completed them.

Another client, Cindy Lindaman, who owns Cedar Street Salon in Peaceful Valley, brainstormed with Henley and listed tangible goals for her business.

“At the end of the year, it’s amazing how many I’ve checked off,” Lindaman says.

Says Henley, “There is something about stating an intention. In the declaring of it, something shifts.”

Set goals for each area of your life.

Explore these areas: relationships and intimacy, work and livelihood, prosperity and finances, play and creativity/recreation, the search for meaning (spirituality/religion), and contribution/giving back to others. Write specific goals for each.

One year Henley listed a goal to take guitar lessons that would prepare her to play folk classics in time for a Fourth of July family reunion at Flathead Lake.

She hired a guitar teacher, explained exactly what she wanted, and, sure enough, when the Fourth rolled around, she was strumming John Denver tunes at the family campfire.

As she played, her uncle’s eyes filled with tears.

“I had no idea you knew how to play the guitar,” he said.

Says Henley, “It altered something within our family.”

Partner with your fear. Realize that fear will never completely disappear. Henley, for example, always feels nervous before she speaks publicly. But that doesn’t stop her.

“Courage is just acting in the face of fear,” Henley says.

Talk with someone you trust about your fears. Speaking the fear out loud may help you resolve it. You may fear that if you follow your dream, you may have to lose something you love.

“It’s not either/or,” says Henley. “You don’t have to give up your marriage, for example, to do what you love.”

Learn to accept uncertainty. Transitions can be difficult passages.

“There are no guarantees in life, and what most of us want is just one guarantee,” Henley says.

That makes her work as an executive coach challenging.

“I don’t want anybody to go through anything difficult,” Henley says. “I want it to be a magic carpet ride.

“But I know those times of difficulty (death or loss or unexpected outcomes), those were my greatest teachers.”

Limit anxiety by reducing your goal to its smallest components.

If your goal is to get a job in advertising, for example, the first step might be to talk with a friend who has contacts in that business.

Gather a group of people who can help you brainstorm and provide contacts to help your dream come true.

Don’t let fear stop you.

As an executive coach, Henley often feels like a diving teacher. She might as well be standing in the pool shouting, “Dive right in. You’ll love it.”

One client, miserable in the wrong job, deliberated endlessly about quitting.

One night, she called Henley at 10:30 p.m.

“I think it’s time to leave the job,” she said.

“It’s time to jump,” Henley said. “Close your eyes, plug your nose and jump. Or I’m going to push you!” The woman made the leap. Recently, Henley received an update. Her client had found a new position, taken up skiing and begun to date again.

“Her whole world opened up,” Henley says. “She had no idea how much stress she was under.”

Watch your energy expand. Once you’re doing what you love, you may discover you have more time than you thought.

“When I am doing work I really like to do, I find the time,” Dorsey says. “I don’t spend a lot of time in front of the television, but I’m doing great work.”

Make courage a daily habit. Each morning, ask yourself, “What is the one thing I’m afraid to do today?” Then do it. Freedom will come with that action.

“We’re not dealing with lions and tigers and bears,” Henley says. “We’re dealing with phone calls, relationships and requests we need to make.”

Henley’s confidence came from having a father who believed in her.

“Who I am for people is what my dad was for me,” Henley says. “I tell them, ‘There’s nothing you can’t do if you set your heart on it.”’

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by Molly Quinn