I came across PAS during my Scrum Master Certification with my trainer, Liviu , who presented PAS as a simple framework to keep your personal and professional life on track while reflecting on your goals and moving in the right direction. I remember I was very excited to learn more about PAS as my main goal at that time was to achieve a work life balance and spend more quality time with my family. Being passionate about sailing, when I first heard about Peter's metaphor of sailing to Jamaica, I knew this was something I would love to experience.
Using the Personal Agility framework daily made me realize that, as the sailor of your own boat and to navigate, apart from sailing skills, you also need to adjust the sails properly to ensure that you are moving towards a more balanced and fulfilled life. Hence, when I feel that I’m not going in the right direction, by asking myself powerful questions such as: What really matters? Which possibilities do I have? What brought me value last week? What could I achieve this week/today? Which things are important, and which are the urgent ones? What can I start working on immediately / soon and which later? and last, Who can I delegate it to make it better and faster?, my state of mind started changing, creating and working more towards my goals and vision, and keeping my motivation constantly high, while continuing sailing towards my target destination, without getting my energy lost into unnecessary tasks and details.
I must say that the delegating work to others and ask for help was the most challenging part for myself as I tended to say "yes" to too many things, which were important for the people around me, and something thinking that I'm acting like a rescuer, which made me at the end of the day feeling exhausted, thinking that still I haven't accomplished the things I wanted for myself and these are always pushed when the day has ended and I have no energy to do anything else.
With PAS, I managed to include some time for self-care during a day such as going for a walk / bike, which until then, it would only happen after I would have finished all my other tasks on my "to-do" list. I also realised that there are many people around me who would be happy to help if I needed some support. In time, I could also see that the urgencies list has become empty, as I started being more proactive and create alignment. Most importantly, I could spend more quality time with my 2-years old daughter, being more focused on her and making her feel that she is what really matters when we are together.
The Celebration part played an important part in my direction to Jamaica. We often tend to focus on the outcome, ignoring any important steps along your way that contributed to our success. For me, this small activity is a reminder that big achievements don’t happen overnight or in a few days, but we have worked constantly towards our vision. It improved my self-esteem as an individual, coach, entrepreneur, wife, and mother. 🙂
Thank you, Peter!
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