The Friyay Mindset - Issue #24

September 17, 2021

A big welcome to new subscribers. It's great to see numbers growing every week. (There's over a hundred more of you since the last few days of the summer term!) We hope you're finding the material useful.

Normally this would be the point at which we wrote a cheesy opening that ends with 'it's time for the newsletter' but we're going to mix it up this week... which basically means we're out of ideas. 😃

So with that confession done, let's dive straight in.

Here’s something to try…

As you know, over the summer we've become obsessive collectors of the study habits and behaviours we’ve seen strongly associated with those who thrive in difficult times. What we thought we’d do is make them available here for further discussion and exploration. We’re referring to them as the #100behaviours, and we’ll be sharing them here, 20 at a time.

This week, twenty high systems behaviours. Here's what you might do with them if you use them with students. (The following italicised text is instructions written directly for kids who have the lists in front of them)

1. Try a Never/Sometimes/Always analysis

It’s very simple – you make three columns; ‘never’, ‘sometimes’ and ‘always’, and you give yourself a tick depending upon how often you do that behaviour. The nevers become possibilities for you to consider. Not all of them will look possible or easy, but some might be immediate tweaks you can make to your studies.

Then you could try them for a short time – perhaps a week or two – and see if they have any impact on your state of mind. You might notice small, positive things happening as a result. You might begin to feel better about the progress you’re making or get a slightly higher grade than you’re used to.

2. Place them in comfort, stretch and challenge zones

Consider which activities belong in your comfort zone. These are the ones that you’d feel fine taking on straight away, and wouldn’t involve a huge amount of discomfort.

List the activities that belong in the stretch zone. These are the ones that you could do with a few changes to your routine. They might feel a little uncomfortable or unusual to begin with; maybe these were activities you used to do but haven’t for a long time, or perhaps they’re ones you’ve seen others do but never tried yourself.

Then complete your challenge zone. These are behaviours that seem a little scary as you consider them; the ones you’d feel uncomfortable doing, and that might take a bit of courageous planning.

Once you’ve got your three lists, try some behaviours from your comfort zone that you don’t often do. Then, when you’re feeling confident, try some from the stretch zone. Work on these new behaviours for a week or two, and stick with them – you never know what small steps forward you might make as a result!

3. Make an Impact Analysis

Consider all the behaviours on the list and think about which ones you think would make the best impact on your progress and positivity. Make three columns – low impact, medium impact, and high impact.

Once you’re done, make a commitment to choose a behaviour you’ve rated the as amongst the highest, and take it on for a week or two. Be ready to notice the small differences it might make.

Link at the bottom of the page.

Here’s something we’ve been reading…

We're working on a new book - an expansion pack of 40 new activities, eight under each heading. Working on new material means we spend hours poring over academic papers and books looking for inspiration. Recently, we came across this, and we've been seriously impressed.

It's Warren Burger's The Book of Beautiful Questions. Not only is it crammed with really superb questions to ask yourself and others, those questions are framed with really clear prose and lots of advice, support and guidance on building and leading projects. The subtitle, 'The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead', says it all. It's a really good companion piece to last week's recommend, Dan Coyle's The Culture Code.

(See link below)

p.s. Since we're working on a new book of activities - is there anything you want to see? Anything you think is conspicuous by its absence in other books? Let us know at info@vespaacademy. Thanks!

Here’s our latest offer…

Another reminder that on Thursday 23rd September at 3.45 pm, we are going to run a FREE session to take you through another recent project of ours; a checklist approach to implementation. Aimed at middle or senior leaders, our '21 steps of implementation' are presented as a checklist for you to tick off. Want to go simple? Choose our 10 basic steps... or go full-on and do all 21. If you’d like to join us, send us an email at [email protected] and we will send you a zoom invite.

Thanks to everyone who's already got in touch! We're going to try and keep it relatively small so there's a chance for questions and discussion, but there's just a few places left.

Cheers all. Have a good weekend!

Steve and Martin

THE BOOK OF BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS, the latest from journalist, speaker, and questionologist Warren Berger, shares with readers the most interesting, original, and useful questions to help them decide, create, connect, lead, and improve their daily lives. Follow Berger on Twitter at @GlimmerGuy and subscribe to his blog posts here.