Wish List - Level Two

The Basic Issue

In the second level of the instrument, the person flips each of his personal wishes into a list of activities s/he could do for someone else, and adds in an indication as to just how long s/he should stay at such as task.

There are several things which people find helpful at the end of stage two of the instrument:

The role of the "meaning or significance "column on the right hand of level one, is to provide a base for determining just how long s/he should stay at each task. It allows him/her to articulate the drop-off point of that person's interest in each activity. We seem to be wired in such a way that when the person we are helping gets to the place where we would have been satisfied, our interest drops off.

Often we feel we should stay around beyond that point. It needs to be pointed out to people that if we stay beyond our drop-off point, we are interfering with an item which is on another person's action list. They will pick up where we leave off, so we need to get out of there and "generate some need". We each have our section of the road to work, and we need to go back and pick up the next person we are motivated to assist. This first two stages, which are done at one sitting usually, are sufficient to generate a focus for life.

The Process for Level Two

It is at this stage that I explain what I have been doing in stage one, as an intro to stage two. I explain the ancient principle listed above, and how we are now going to flip the statements over and generate a list of possible activities... "just to see how it would play out in their case".

In order to generate the stage two list, I get the person to write two new phrases at the top of a new sheet of paper.

  1. On the left side of the paper they write "If I was to do what Jesus and James suggest, (do for others what I wish others had done or would do for me) I would :"
  2. And on the right side of their paper they write, "and would do it for others until:"

Once the second list is generated, I have the person stand back and hear how the list plays out as a whole. I usually introduce it by asking "if someone was to pay you 50 thousand a year to do the following as a job, would it excite you enough to bounce out of bed on a Monday morning? (then I read it out to them or get them to read it out).

I have seen many people with tears in their eyes as they realize just how accurate it is to their personality.

If the person seems fairly mature, and seems to have no heavy "baggage" from their lives, I sometimes go right on to stage three, but that is rare.

Frequently, the people I deal with are older and have "lost a lot of altitude" for one reason or another. What they need is to "take hold" and get some "airspeed built up". Getting the focus from this instrument often is all they need to move forward once more.

Level two sets people free to move ahead, but it also sets up a problem which is resolved in level three