Checking out who’s who in your family “portrait”

You will be needing your “current state assessment” drawing in order to complete this section … so pull it out and take some more blank paper to work with – we’ll be using the term CSA for short to refer to the fisrt drawing.

What we are going to do here, is to inspect each line, each ray of your CSA drawing in order to determine how much of each good and bad factor in your very personal perception of your family situation you ascribe to your own efforts or influence, and how much of these you ascribe to the other members of your family – or even to outsiders who tend to influence them or yourself.

So now, set up to make a quick start and assign a unique number to each ray and then select one or two or three you want to start evaluating in depth today. You can also make a division in G1, G2 etc. which would represent “Great point 1″ etc., and D1, D2, etc. which would stand for “Disturbing point 1″ etc.

Take a new page for each of these, write the number on it (in a center circle again) and write a short description of the item concerned on top of the paper, and a clear key word in the circle just to help you identify what this sheet it about in a single glance later on, when you will have many of them lying (or flying) around.

Then, pick one point and start identifying the people whom you see as the main forces behind the present situation on this subject, yourself included, and give them a place on the drawing, adding a circle with their name and taking care to place this circle closer to the center when this person’s influence is a stronger one, and further to the edge of the paper if it is a weaker one, but still worth mentioning.

You can also draw some lines between several people’s circles in order to describe supportive or destructive influences they may have on each other’s role in this matter.

Next, put a number of “+” signs on the edge of each circle with a name in it, for positive influences, and a number of “-” signs for the people who rather have a negative influence on the matter you are analysing here.

The number of plusses and minusses, of course, should help you weigh the importance of each factor in the whole equilibrium – oh yes: even though it may be a “disturbing point” you are busy studying here, you are probably talking about a situation that has reached a point of inertia, which means the forces contributing to its present state have found a way to stabilize themselves in some sort of equilibrium that will need a well directed force to be applied to it before it can change – which is of course the reason you are taking the trouble to jot all these elements down … why else go through all this trouble ?

And it is just as important to make such an analysis for the positive points, or at least in stis stage: a number of them, so you can notice some interesting things:

- some people who have a great positive influence on one point, might also have a more disturbing one on another …

- some points that are doing well, may utterly seem to depend on just one strong person’s influence, and this may cause you to reflect on how this person manages to do this, plus how come you do not have such power (yet) … which may lead you to go interview this person to get to know some of his secrets – interesting isn’t it ?

- the same goes for some disturbing ones as well – you may want to find out why this person has so much interest in annoying others, and see if you can locate some areas in his life where people really appreciate this same fellow or gall, which may actually give you some clues you can use later on to start up a change.

Don’t worry if by now, you are beginning to think this will become a study that goes way beyond your original expectations – we will hand you some really great models to arrange these discoveries by, and to always help you stay on top, able to survey the whole project from an eagle eye’s view.

Yes, you are now starting up a project – and we will teach you the project management skills you will be needing to complete it in a satisfactory way.

So, go on and produce a few sheets with the directions we just gave, and make short notes besides each person’s circle, or even assign this person a separate sheet, making sure however to put the number(s) of the issue you are now exploring as for this person’s influence on it, on this separate sheet, so you can always retrace your steps and remember where all this came from.

Good luck ! and see you later at the next step.