In the previous segments of our Visioning Tips series, you took a look at nine different steps for generating creativity and homing in on your vision. In this next segment, you'll do some "creative questioning" to energize your group by revitalizing your connection with an inspiring vision. Need to catch up? Start from the beginning of the Ivy Sea Visioning Series.

From listless to lightening
TEN QUESTIONS TO HELP ENERGIZE YOU AND YOUR GROUP

In her book Your Performing Edge: The Complete Guide to Success and Fulfillment in Sports and Life, author and sports-psychologist JoAnn Dahlkoetter, Ph.D. writes, "Plateaus and slumps are universal experiences that all athletes and performers have gone through, regardless of ability level or type of sport. The experience of peaks and valleys is normal, but there are ways to ensure you experience more high points than low ones."

Lessons from peak-performance sports-psychology are applicable even if your "game of choice" is business (or other key roles and areas of priority in your life). For example, one thing that peak-performance athletes know is that there are seasons and cycles that will inevitably affect their sport and their performance over the course of the year. If they're using productive mindset-management practices, they know it's futile to expend energy resisting inevitable seasons or slumps, or railing against the cyclical nature of things. They also know, as Dahlkoetter often reminds her clients, that there are exercises and practices that can help to navigate the terrain more effectively or jump-start one's self out of a slump.

Questions can be valuable tools

When facilitating clients through visioning programs, or doing our own vision check-ins, we at Ivy Sea incorporate a series of questions that can, through reflection and brainstorming, help foster a quantum leap out of a slump or plateau (or at least start generating the ideas, desire and energy that may ultimately lead to a leap). Sometimes by asking a seemingly simple question —such as "Why does it have to be that way" or "If not that, then what?" —a previously obstructed channel or pathway can be cleared, allowing the more productive and creative thinking required for quantum leaping out of a rut.

Here are a few of the questions we like to use to "ask ourselves out of" a stale level of visioning and performance:

• What's most important about ... (fill in the blank)?

• What are we not seeing here?

• Why am I resisting this?

• What are five more things we could add to this list?

• If there was an incredibly creative, viable idea that we were missing here, what would it be?

• What could we be doing differently?

• If we rated our performance on this at a "Level Two," what would Level Ten look, sound, feel like?

• What's the point (of our work, our vision, our doing this, this project, this meeting ... fill in the blank)?

• What are we hanging onto too tightly here?

• How else could we apply this (skill, service, product, etc. ... fill in the blank) in a different way that we are currently?

Check back next month for a round of bonus-tips in our Inspired-Visioning series.

In case you've missed previous tips...

We'll have ten tips in all (and, knowing us, we'll throw in a few bonus tips to tap that extra reserve of inspiration). So mark your calendar and bookmark the Series Intro page now. Don't miss these previous installments to our Visioning Tips Series:

Visioning Series Kickoff — A Few Great Reasons to Bother With Visioning

Visioning Tip #1 — Prime the Pump: Loosen up with some "get-started" dialogue

Visioning Tip #2 —The Reflection Connection: What's most important?

Visioning Tip #3 — Activate Your Senses: Get your brain storming with creativity

Visioning Tip #4 — Identify Your Emerging Themes

Visioning Tip #5 — Noticing Where Your Key Themes Are Already at Work

Visioning Tip #6 — What do people call your company when you're not in ear-shot?

Visioning Tip #7 — How do your personal ethics affect your vision, and others?

Visioning Tip #8 — Is your vision based on someone else's standards?

Visioning Tip #9 — Getting clear on your "vision story"

Remember, this information is food-for-thought. The most effective approach is the one that's been tailored to meet the unique needs of your group. If you have questions, connect with someone who can provide a perspective you trust and value, or e-mail us at info@ivysea.com.