MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu PE.550 Designing Your Life January (IAP) 2007 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.Reminder: Assignments are due before the start of class. Assignment 1 This is a mandatory assignment, and a condition for entry into the course. Take it seriously. It’s going to take you a few hours to do this. Send your completed work to Lauren and Gaby by January 25th. Note: We appreciate that what you are writing is sensitive and personal and we promise confidentiality. We do request your permission to use your material anonymously in class as it is very useful in forwarding the work we are accomplishing in the course. If you have an issue with this, please specify when you submit your assignment. Addressing Yourself: For each area listed below, answer the following questions: 1. Rate each area of your life (areas listed below) on a scale from 1-10. Use the rating scale at the bottom of the assignment as a guide. For each area that’s not at a 9 or 10: 2. Write out what a 9/10 looks like for you in that area. Be complete in your description. Create the full picture in detail. 3. Explain the circumstances that have you say you’re the number you chose versus 9/10. What is really going on in that area of your life that isn’t working well? 4. What is your explanation for why it makes sense that you would end up at that number? What’s gone on in your past or your family that have it make sense that you’d end up at that number. 5. What are the reasons why you can’t have what you want in this area? What are your negative beliefs? The Areas of Life 1. satisfaction with school 2. body/weight/appearance/presentation/how you look 3. community/friends/depth/intimacy 4. your relationship to yourself (what do you say about yourself to yourself) 5. bad habits/vices (biting your nails, overeating, drinking, smoking, partying, addictions, including what's a great time for you, how many drinks can you handle and still be able to drive, how often do you do it) 6. relationship (whether you’re in one or not)7. sex (including, are you happy with the quality, how often, cheating of any sort – and your history, comfort with your body, your happiness with the size of what you’ve got, the last time you had sex) 8. romance – giving and receiving attention (not flowers) 9. characteristics that don’t work about you (anxiety, anger, moodiness, etc) 10. participation in your family – your parents/siblings/etc. 11. money/wealth (including, are you happy with the amount you earn, the amount you’ve saved, how you spend it, how it’s managed, etc.) 12. career 13. time (how you manage your time (to-do’s/scheduling), anything you wish you’d get to but don’t, as well as how you’re using your life, do you love what you’re doing/anything you’re doing that you’re not impressed with) 14. home 15. being organized/the physical universe 16. learning (wanting to learn about things you are not taking the time for like flying or guitar) 17. fun/adventure 18. spirituality 19. health Ratings key 10 Perfect. Unsustainable state of affairs. Reserved for individual episodes and fleeting moments. 9 Highest sustainable rating for a category. 8 Highly satisfactory state of affairs. Significant additional focused effort will be needed to elevate rating to a 9. A source of pride. 7 Solid, can’t complain, coasting because it’s good enough but not a source of pride. 6 Weak, but not painful. Frayed around the edges. Can talk oneself into it being a 7 but it’s not easy. Needs work but doesn’t have to be today.5 A 6 that’s been around a while. Still not intolerable but likely the issue or the necessary remedial steps are being actively avoided. 4 Getting to be intolerable…but not yet. Requires a great deal of justification and/or denial to continue this number at a sustained rate. 3 Things are bad. Very bad. It is not yet life threatening or a point of no return, but close. 2 Things are hopeless. You wonder why you exist. There is much pain. Virtually unbearable. 1 Fleeting moments of hell. Unsustainable level of