New Year Renewal

A #MemesThatMatter illustration showing how our perceptions about moving directly towards a goal can be skewed.

In keeping with our #AVA2016 brand attributes, I'm posting intentions vs. specific goals or resolutions for the new year. Why? Many of us have had the little devil/little angel on the shoulder experience as soon as we've decided upon something specific to pursue or renounce. Creating an intention, on the other hand, is like setting out in a certain direction on a journey of discovery. This is a particularly beneficial wayfinding technique, allowing for new information to impact both the voyager and potential positive destinations. 

A few intentions

List subject to evolution:)

Introducing Season Two of the Ava Narrative: Like many serials, the initial episodes/seasons are about setting up a framework. Now we've got the platform & pods outlined, we're ready to write some great #CampaignTrailRedesign stories. 

Can I commit to organizing a box, shelf or drawer 2-3 times a week for #newyear #renewal ? #AVA2016

A photo posted by Kelley Padrick (@pinupspresidential) on

Becoming a better writer by writing. Writing has never been an official deliverable of my paid professional work. I usually concept & hand off to copywriters. I've always admired people who can do it well. Since I have a whole site of content to version and lots of AVA2016 platform conversations to pay attention & contribute to, I figured this was my chance. Taut & terse, yet still wildly intriguing & informative snippets coming your way soon! 

Revisit, reinvigorate & deepen the extraordinary practices I outlined last year. The #AVA2016 platform for civilization design with its fun, sexy #PinupsPresidential promotion and thoughtful, consciousness-focused #Sanctuary programming (art-making, I discovered, is a part of that, not separate from it) represents everything I wanted to be when I grew up. If we don't make it to a #SocialWhiteHouse by November 2016, I'll just keep running until we do, because this is the me I've always wanted to express & offer in service to the world.

Dissolving fear through peace. Developing Pinups Presidential has been a study in contrasts: the healthier & more vibrant I become, the more I realize how damaging many of my previous life experiences were. Some of those hurts were caused by me, but many, many of them were not. Realizing I was not alone in being ignored, neglected or even abused by systems that didn't work guided me to governance redesign & a passionate sense of purpose. The #AVA2016 campaign and related #PodsEcosystem standards project has simply been the most meaningful work of my life. Unlike other politicians, I'm not going to lie and say “apart from being a mother, the most meaningful work of my life was..." Truth be told, I was an average working suburban mom & wife. There were many things that bitterly disappointed me about my suburban U.S. family life experience, so the chance not just atone for my own mistakes through the sharing of wisdom but actually offer up the innovation I'd desired to express to & through my family and small businesses, but couldn't, is both inspirational and cathartic. 

In this project's infancy, I asked myself: if I were doing this for myself and with God as my only audience, would I still wake up thrilled to work on it every day? The answer thus far has been an emphatic yes. 

#BreakItDown 

As a seeker, painter & human experience designer, this means I reflect, or gather into my awareness, the pain points (this is both a consciousness and sales term:) from my own and others' lives. Using my established practices & experimenting with different #Wayfinding spiritual and creative practices from our various #BrandUSA people groups, I attempt first to be merely present with the experience, in order to observe its effects on my mind/body. From those states of intentional awareness, I relate to the suffering of others, and new ideas for #HXD design emerge. These ideas will need to be verified & tested within our #SocialLab experiments where more traditional goals-focused project management processes bring practical design to fruition. From this work, I hope to develop sharable techniques with which to engage & develop other wayfinders & wayfinder teams on a variety of economic and governance redevelopment projects along our campaign trail leading to an eventual #SocialWhiteHouse.