KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Although there are a lot of unknowns right now, especially when it comes to work or school, The Debruce Foundation and 'Up Your Creative Genius' have come together to offer a free online tool to help with your future.
"One of the things we can do in this time period, whether we're looking forward to what's next because we're excited by the disruption, or we're really scared and anxious about what happened... One of the things that we can do is really take time to get to know ourselves better," DeBruce Foundation COO and Executive Director, Dr. Leigh Anne Taylor Knight said. "To better understand what are our interests, what do I do well and how can that project into some more career opportunities for me in the future."
It's called "Draw your Future with Agilities'.
Agilities are a combination of your interests and your strengths and how they can line up with your career goals.
Here are a few examples: Developing Others, Innovating, Inspecting, Judging and Estimating, Managing, Operating Objects, Organizing, Selling and Communicating
Once you figure out your agilities, you can draw your future out on a map.
The founder of 'Up Your Creative Genius,' Patti Dobrowolski, is a coach and visual artist who leads the discussion.
"Draw your Future lets you look at where you are right now and then if you take your agilities profile, you look at what strengths do I already have that I can capitalize on, that I can leverage during this time," Dobrowolski said.
In the tutorial, she talks about drawing out your current reality, not making a list, but actually drawing out what is happening right now: What's working in your life, what's not working, and then, what would you like your scenario to be a year from now and three bold steps it would take to get you to that new reality.
"It's an opening for you, this disruption, for you to disrupt yourself," Dobrowolski said. "The way you always been and to step into the future you have always longed for. This is the time to do it and the way to start is to envision what it would feel like, what would would it be like in this new world."
Dobrowolski usually leads the discussion in person, but with this online video tutorial, it allows participants to go at their own pace.
"In that tutorial, you can stop it, you can draw for as long as you want and when I'm doing it with people live," Dobrowolski said. "And in person, you know we got 45 minutes and so we gotta move through it quickly. This, you can really reflect and this is the perfect time to reflect for what you need to do and what you need to change in yourself."
Lincoln Prep junior, Lauryn Guidry said she's mapped out her future three different times, once in person, once on Zoom and with the video tutorial.
"I was like by myself in my room, and I was able to put more personal goals and I was kind of forced to sit with myself and figure out what I really wanted from this experience," Guidry said. "I was able to kind of go more in depth because I was able to pause the video , kind of think, as opposed to her leading the pace."
Guidry said it's been exciting to have a daily reminder of what her future can and will look like.
Dobrowolski and the DeBruce Foundation have worked with teachers on the program so they can provide their students with a map of what they'd like to see in the next year.
"You're drawing and you're really thinking about projecting yourself in the goals you want to have. 'Draw your Future with Agilities' can really bring to the surface some things that matter to you and again, what you do well, what your interests are and how you can plan ahead in what'll happen next for you," Knight said.
The tutorial is available for everyone: Students, teachers, business owners, anyone who is looking for a way to map out how they want their future to look a year from now.
"Either you're a youth like Lauryn and you're just trying to figure out what am I even going to do in the future, or you're someone today who may have to be thinking about changing a job, making some type of new opportunity to one self," Knight said. "It cuts across the life span, in again, being able to identify and be aware of here are my interests, and here is how that lines up with multiple opportunities."
Through the tutorial, Dobrowolski said participants can gain a sense of control when there are so many unknowns right now.
"It's an opportunity for you to envision how you want it to be a year from today and then what it does, is it changes your body chemistry by doing it. Any time you think about or dream about the future, it changes you and you're in a positive frame already," she said. "It gives you a sense of control, that you are in control of your world, because otherwise you're the effect of it, you're not the cause of things happening and whenever you're victimized by some external influence, you got to right away get charge of it."
This takes about an hour to draw your future with the tutorial.
For a look at the map and the free tutorial, click here.