WORK IN PROGRESS
THE Personal Effectiveness E-zine October 2007

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Recapitulation - bringing closure to endings, clarity to beginnings.

When something ends, take the opportunity to recapitulate it before you get far away from it.

Why recapitulate?
We tend to believe that anything that is recent and vivid in our experience will stay vivid for ever, but it will fade, often quite quickly. Life will take over, new memories will be created, and our recently developed insights and good intentions can easily be obliterated.

Recapitulation enables us to tell the story of whatever the event was, clearly and vividly, to learn the lessons that we need to learn, and to clarify what we want for ourselves as we move forward. It helps us to regain our mental balance, to center ourselves on our own long-term goals and plans, before we move on to the next event. It enables us to integrate our experiences into our life experiences, to make adjustments, to record what needs to be recorded. It can help to avoid the transfer of processes and/or feelings from a previous event to a future event when in fact there is no connection between the two. Conversely, it can help us to decide what lessons have been learned that we WANT to continue into the future, and just how we want to go about this.

Recapitulation techniques can be usefully applied to almost any situation, event or relationship that has ended, or is in a change phase. Next month I will visit recapitulation in regard to personal relationships, but this month the focus is on events such as conferences, important meetings, and trainings.

First, here is the Merriam-Webster Online definition for "recapitulation":
"1 a: to restate briefly : summarize: b: to give new form or expression to
2: to repeat the principal stages or phases of "

I find that a combination of these two definitions leads to the most successful use of recapitulation.

A process that you can use, or adapt to suit your own style, starts with written notes. Go through the event in chronological order - the meeting, the conference, whatever it is or was and make notes on the various phases, the beginning, the sub-sections, the ending. You may have made notes at the time and they will be useful, but unless you are already experienced in this process they will not be sufficient. It is most likely that you made notes of facts, of what was said, and possibly ideas that resulted, but it is not likely that you made note of feelings - and observation of our feelings is important if we are to maintain balance in all areas of ourselves.

Now, taking each phase one at a time, ask yourself some questions. For me, depending on the situation, these questions may include:
What did I learn?
Who did I meet?
What did they say that is relevant to me or my projects?
How does this change what I think? What are the implications of this change?
Do I have feelings about the event that need to be processed? Are they positive or negative? What triggered them? Is there something I need to learn or change resulting from this awareness?
How does this change what I do? What will I do differently? When will I start?
With whom do I want to follow up? What do I want to say to them - and when will I do this?
To whom do I want to pass on information about my experience or learning? When will I do it?

Notice that we are giving ourselves clear deadlines. We will not allow this process to escape from us, to bury itself in a pile of routine to-do's. By conducting a firm recapitulation we will force it to stand up and be counted, and to allow us to squeeze the last drop of learning and experience from the event before we let it slide away into the past.

Try to do this as soon after the event as possible, before the rest of your life starts to pressure you to move on to other things.

Next month - Recapitulation of relationships
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Right-click for safety!

Sometimes it's phishing, sometimes it's porn.

Have you ever received an announcement that you have received a greetings card from an anonymous someone? Have you wondered if it was genuine or not, because it looked so exactly as though it had come from Hallmark or some similar and reputable organization? Have you worried that a friend might be offended if you ignored a well-intentioned egreeting, and yet hesitated to click on the link... just in case. Or perhaps you've received something else that invited you to click on a link. Some of my readers know how to check where that link actually takes you, but perhaps some do not, so I'll tell you... it all comes down to a simple right click.

First, identify some distinguishing words just to the left or right of the link. Then, right click NOT on the questionable link itself, but somewhere else on the document. You will obtain a drop-down menu that includes the words "View Source." Click on View Source. You should now see a screen showing the source language that lies behind every HTML document. It may look like gobbledegook - do not be dismayed.

Look for the words that you identified as being beside the link. If the document is fairly small you can scan it visually. If not, then click on "Edit" (top left of your screen) and then on "find" and enter the words, doing whatever your browser then does to enable you to find words on your screen.

When you find the identifier words, you will see beside them something that begins with and is followed by the rest of a URL. I can guarantee you that in many cases this will bear no resemblance to the website of the organization from which the email pretends to emanate. The one that I noticed this morning, that appears to come from an internationally known greetings card company, actually, based on the words in the URL, leads to a porn site. So glad that I chose to right click first.

Now you know! If this is a genuine greeting card, then the link will take you to a real greeting card site, and you can happily discover who it was who sent you the card. Or who sent you whatever else you think MIGHT, just MIGHT be genuine... or might not.

And whatever you do, run your virus and mal-ware programs regularly - remembering that "regularly" does not mean only once a month. If it doubt, check out http://securitytango.com/ - and I can promise you that this is a SAFE link!

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If these thoughts may be useful to anyone you know, please forward this newsletter in its entirety.

If you or your friends would like a free half-hour sample coaching call, please contact me by email or via my web site at http://ChoiceCoach.com.

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Disclaimer -The contents herein are solely the opinions of Work in Progress owner, and should not be considered as a form of therapy nor advice. There is no guarantee of validity or accuracy. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, services of a competent professional licensed to serve in your community should be sought.

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PLEASE! Any re-use of this material should include the words "Copyright Diana Robinson 2007. For more information visit Diana's web site http://ChoiceCoach.com or contact her at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com."

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