So what does this have to do with autonomy?
Well, the big picture I’m striving to help families paint here is:
Self-discovery as a family practice.
I also think of this as “social autonomy”. Creating a space where everyone can feel comfortable in their own skin. Where they are part of a team who respects & accepts who they are in the moment and supports them growing & learning in their own ways.
In my experience, it’s easy to feel like you know yourself and the people around you well. To think you have a pretty good idea of values & motivations.
But the difference between thinking we know these things and actually knowing them is an intentional practice.
It takes repetition & focus to put things into our long-term memory and have access to them daily.
And for some reason we buy into the idea of years of focused study, practice, note-taking & idea-capturing effort when it comes to our education and careers, but we don’t tend to think about our families and personal lives in the same way.
Before I nerd out too far on this, let me strive to keep the idea simple:
Everything in your life is there by design. You are surrounded by systems.
But only some of them are your own.
And when you think of the ones where you feel ownership, how many of them were created with clear intention to serve you and your family’s best interests?
Now, please do not read me wrong here. I don’t believe any of this is something for us to feel shame or guilt about.
We’re all born into a world full of systems & ideas that already exist. We come in ready to learn, but not necessarily to lead.
Most of us learn to do what we’re told.
Most of us conform to find connection and avoid punishment.
Most of us are doing the best we can do with what we were given.
Iterative Autonomy, as a practice, is simply my way of saying that if we don’t learn how to center ourselves within our own lives. Our own thoughts. Our own choices & decisions. Our own actions. We are letting someone else “drive our car” through life.
Basically, Iterative Autonomy (IA) is the opposite of AI.
AI is a machine learning for you.
IA is learning your own machine.
We develop our beliefs much more “under the hood of our cars” so to speak (in our own minds), than we do through explicit teachings.
We can ask kids who they want to be when they grow up and tell them to be themselves & dream big, but if the vast majority of their day is spent being fed information & told what to do by the adults around them, they will be conditioned to go with the crowd, follow societies’ norms & look outside of themselves for answers.
Realizing you have autonomy & what that means is like a light switch that flips on & is hard (maybe impossible?) to flip off.
But practicing autonomy is a life-long endeavor.
From being defined by others to owning your thoughts & actions.
From waiting to be told what to do to thoughtfully choosing your next step.
From behaving in ways that feel forced to acting confidently in ways that feel “self-endorsed”.
From feeling lost & confused to building fluency in who you are, what you are doing & why you are doing it.
From hoping your story will turn out well to writing, directing & producing an engaging story for yourself.
And for family teams, it means shifting from doing what you’ve seen others do to co-creating a safe & supportive space to belong and be yourselves.
So…can you see your family as a team?
Would you like a little support in getting there in a playful way?
Tap the button below to join the commitment-free waitlist and feel free to use the form to ask me any questions you have as you consider joining.
I hope to be setting off on some fun quests with your family soon!
