You will learn:

• How our brains relate to change; and

• 3 types of threats that trigger a fight-or-flight response in our brain.

You’ll also have the opportunity to identify a professional change that you’re currently navigating, and to reflect how that change is impacting you.

You will learn:

• What it means to ‘confidently’ navigate change; and

• The difference between achievement-driven confidence and sustainable confidence).

Plus we’ll explore a metaphor that will help you begin to connect the dots between “having a secure relationship with self” and “confidently navigating uncertainty.”

Join Colleen to learn what recent research from the fields of neuroscience, neuropsychology, and related field has concluded about the relationship between “developing a secure relationship with self” and "being able to confidently navigate uncertainty”.

In particular, we’ll explore:

• Why psychological threat is a barrier to adaptive change; and

• How active identity reinforcement lifts psychological barriers to change by buffering against threat and reducing defensive adaptations to threat.

In this chapter introduction, you’ll learn the 3 Steps to a Secure Self:

1. Identity-Mapping

2. Aligned Decision-Making

3. Active Identity Reinforcement

Then Colleen will briefly walk you through the “Step 1: Identity Mapping” chapter lesson plan, including all of the delicious self-knowledge topics you’ll have the (interactive) opportunity to explore.

In this lesson, you will learn what “Present Priority Values” are, how they’re different from Core Values, and why that matters.

Next, Colleen will lead you through anactivity in which you’ll have the opportunity to first reflect on what matters to you most right now, and then to identify and define your Top 6 Present Priority Values.

These values will serve as a clear, meaningful set of criteria with which to choose goals and make effective next-step decisions.

In this lesson, you’ll learn what our brains actually care about, what the implications are for goal-setting, and how tangible outcomes (like meeting a professional performance goal) fit in.

Then, Colleen will lead you through an activity designed to support you in accessing and articulating your Desired Future Experience (DFE) goal.

At the end of the lesson, Colleen will share three concrete steps you can take to embed your learning and begin turning your new self-knowledge into personal power.

Along with your values and goals, your beliefs serve as critical criteria for aligned decision-making as you make progress towards favorite self.

In this lesson, you’ll have the opportunity to reflect on and get clearer about:

• Your ethics - what you believe about how we should behave and treat each other, and

• Your spiritual, philosophical, and/or esoteric beliefs - what you believe to be true about life and the nature of humanity and the world.

In this lesson, we’ll explore the connection between (1) understanding and employing your strengths, and (2) building change resilience.

Then, you’ll have the opportunity to identify key strengths through several unique, evidence-based reflection activities that challenge you expand your definition of ‘strengths’ beyond ‘marketable skills I get paid for’, and towards, ‘skills, traits, and abilities that - when practiced - help me feel the most like ME’.

“Close relationships...are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.”

In this lesson, you’ll learn more about the connection between (1) social connection, (2) happiness, (3) health, and (4) change resilience.

Then, Colleen will lead you through a series of activities designed to help you claim your people, cultivate community, improve the quality of your professional network, and process shame through vulnerable sharing with safe others.

In this lesson, we’ll explore several scenarios, in order to better understand why Practical Compassion matters, and how to apply it.

Then you’ll have the opportunity to investigate your context with compassion, considering the external perception and impact of factors such as:

• History of trauma

• Historical oppression or disenfranchisement

• Economic status

• Mental health,

• and more!

In order to develop a practice of Active Identity Reinforcement, you first need clarity on the things that make up your identity.

In this lesson, you’ll have the opportunity to reflect on and pinpoint what feels good and fuels you, by exploring:

• Your environmental and sensory preferences

• What works at work (including your preferred communication style, work-life balance boundaries, and more)

• What drives your curiosity (the ultimate antidote to fear)

• Your personal interests and passions

How do we go from Identity-Mapping to Practicing Identity? By using all the self-knowledge you just gained to make choices that drive self-respect.

In this chapter, we’ll explore the connection between self-respect and change resilience.

Then, you will have the opportunity to learn more about aligned decision-making and how to practice active identity reinforcement.

In this lesson, you’ll explore the research connecting values, ethics, and change resilience.

Then, Colleen will walk you through an activity designed to set you on the path of making aligned decisions that foster self-respect.

The questions you’ll explore in this lesson will become powerful criteria for everyday decision-making, and support you to confidently navigate uncertainty and cultivate a life that you want to wake up to every day.

Time is a limited resource. Are you using yours with intention?

This lesson is your opportunity to begin developing a healthier - and more identity-reinforcing - relationship to time.

Colleen will walk you through an activity designed to reinforce that you have the agency to CHOOSE, with purpose, the tasks, projects, people, and experiences that serve and elevate you.

In this lesson, we’ll explore the connection between social support and change resilience.

Colleen will then share a set of meaningful criteria you can lean on to make aligned social decisions, before leading you through several activities designed to kickstart your ability to:

• Prioritize connection with ‘Safe Others’;

• Foster community and celebrate culture; and

• Cultivate stronger, more mutually-beneficial professional connections.

You’d be amazed how much bandwidth we lose to dysfunctional, misaligned environments.

In this lesson, we’ll take a look at what it means to design our environments to both work for us, and to reflect and reinforce our sense of self.

Then, Colleen will walk you through a series of questions designed to help you assess the functionality and affirmative capacity of your environments, before identifying several simple actions you can take to make your spaces work and feel better.

In this lesson, you’ll have the opportunity to identify actions you can take to engage your interests, passions, and curiosities.

We’ll focus on several areas described by relevant research as having a significant impact on your ability to develop a secure, resilient relationship with self:

• Curiosity + learning

• Culture + entertainment

• Personal expression

• Adventure + novelty

• Sensory satisfaction

• Positive Nostalgia

Self-advocacy starts ‘at home’ - with your commitment to showing up and standing up for yourself, to yourself.

In this lesson, we take a brief look at two key approaches to internal self-advocacy:

• Learning how to approach yourself with Practical Compassion, and

• Learning and actively practicing Growth Mindset.

These practices are critical to becoming a human who likes themselves and has the capacity to expand into possibility, regardless of change.

In this lesson, we’ll bring all the pieces together and give you an opportunity to apply your new learning in the context of a change you’re currently navigating at work.

First, Colleen will lead you through a powerful set of questions to clarify what isn’t working for you, before giving you the opportunity to begin taking action to advocate for yourself and bring more of what works for you (what will allow you to show up and perform at the expected level) into your change scenario.