The heart of the CLEAR method is to work up to spending at least
five hours each week on the five "CLEAR"
areas, spending one-fifth of your time making stretches in
each area:
In the first area, for instance, participants don’t just do any kind of capacity-building, such as time or money
management. Instead, each person chooses to work on the biggest obstacle or the
greatest source of potential new capacity. The same is true for mission and
fulfillment—you don’t just do an hour of anything fulfilling, you do
whatever you determine to be the best action towards your mission and
fulfillment. This idea of spending an hour on the best use of time
carries over to all of the areas of CLEAR.
Doing CLEAR causes several things gradually to happen together: First, you build up
time, money and personal energy. This usually includes getting a support buddy
to help keep you focused and motivated. It also requires that you spend quality time
on your own fulfillment and happiness on a regular basis. In the
"empowering others" area, you can do traditional volunteering or help
others informally. The method asks you to make some personal lifestyle changes
to maintain your life-support systems. Finally, you’re asked to pass on the
approach to a few others, giving them personal support to learn CLEAR and then
pass it on to others.
Why five hours a week; why not
more or less? While people are
encouraged to do as much CLEAR as they can, five hours seems doable in the
long-term. At first, however, you may need to work your way up to
five hours, by focusing on capacity-building until you can
comfortably commit to the five hour level.
Some practical tips on doing CLEAR well
You can choose whatever steps make sense to you, but for
many the following five steps are recommended:
1. If you, like most people,
have difficulty sticking with a goal and staying motivated, then find a buddy to support you with regular calls or meetings, so that you
will follow through. See Buddy System
Basics
page, or create another form of ongoing support.
Without ongoing support, most people won't achieve long-term growth
and goal-attainment. It's as simple as that.
2. If you find you are lacking in time, energy, or some other
necessary resource, build up whatever is the missing ingredient. If
you don't have the available time, energy, and resources, you can't
do much CLEAR. That's why "C" or capacity-building
is usually the first order of business. It is alright and sometimes
necessary for some people to focus all their efforts on
capacity-building, or else they will not be able to do the rest of
CLEAR.
3. If you keep a calendar, schedule the time to do CLEAR.
Better yet, get into the habit of doing a little CLEAR at a certain
time each day or week. For many people, a kind of "hour of power" approach
might be easiest. That may mean spending one hour a day in each area, or
some time in each of the areas each day, making sure that by the end of the week, you’ve completed an hour in all
five areas. Another option is to dedicate a weekend afternoon to making these stretches.
4. One of the first things to do during the time you set
aside for CLEAR, is to brainstorm for the best actions to do in each
category. Remember, CLEAR means not just any
good effort, but your best effort. Once
you've picked what you think are the best actions, then put them on
your calendar and begin acting. Then, each week, take some time
to celebrate your efforts and accomplishments, and then
brainstorm and plan
your next week's CLEAR.
If you are stuck for ideas in any of the areas, or
confused about what is in each area, read the appropriate section
of the CLEAR Actions Menu. This is a
long list that is divided into the five areas and then further
subdivided into easy-to-do tasks, longer projects, and ongoing
actions.
5. In the area of "R," ripple effect, however, we
recommend that you don't invite others until you've had more personal
experience with the program and are comfortable with it.
Pick your favorite style of CLEAR
There are at least three different styles of CLEAR. Each style has a different
impact on how you live your life. You can use any combination you wish, but
you're encouraged to try each:
"Plan and Do" This is the simplest style. On paper or in your
personal organizer, list the actions that you plan to do that are stretches for
you, and do them during the week.
"Awake and Respond" In this style, you
make stretches by being
aware of the people and situations around you, and you do actions that occur to
you, that you wouldn’t have done otherwise. For example: "I first keep
reminding myself to notice what’s going on. Then I happen to notice that
someone around me did something nice. I then compliment them when ordinarily I
wouldn’t have." Another example: "I remind myself to notice what’s
going on. I notice that my back and neck muscles are tight. I push myself to do
some stretching exercises or yoga." The Awake and Respond style
makes you more aware and responsive in your relationships with others and to
your current situation. It's more spontaneous than the Plan and
Do style.
"Path Management" In this style, you ask yourself periodically,
"What is the best, most loving use of my time right now?" Then you do
the action and count it as CLEAR when it's a stretch. An important
variation of this is to address the question to God and make it a prayer.
More on this subject can be found in the Path Management article.
If you want to send in a CLEAR report weekly,
notice that with the last two styles, it’s important to note your actions
and time spent right away, so that you don’t forget.
Additional tips for doing CLEAR
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You should be aware of your attitude
toward doing CLEAR, since some attitudes are much more enjoyable
than others. For instance, some people who are attracted to
CLEAR because they feel it is their duty to help others and
maintain the world, may approach CLEAR as a set of tasks they
must accomplish or else feel guilty. In this case, doing CLEAR
can become an unpleasant burden or five more commandments that
you must obey. If this is your attitude, you may eventually quit
because no one is really forcing you to do it.
Instead of perceiving it as work, you can have the attitude that
it is an art form and you are an artist. Each week you are
creating a work of beauty that you "sculpt." But
instead of clay or paint, your medium is ethical action. Or you
can make each week a game of self-mastery. While others may be
playing games on a computer, you are challenging yourself like
an athlete to develop coordination, skill, endurance and grace.
You are competing against your previous efforts. It may be more
like dance or a relationship, however, if you use the Path
Management style, described in the previous section. This
requires a deep intuitive listening and graceful response to
each situation as it unfolds. Instead of doing CLEAR, you
are becoming "CLEAR."
We recommend that you "try on" one of the three
attitudes just mentioned in order to have a much more satisfying
experience of CLEAR. If it doesn't feel right, try
another! These attitudes won't take the effort out of
doing CLEAR, but like the artist, the athlete or the lover, you
will have a much deeper satisfaction than just being able to say
that you make the world a better place.
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Besides doing the CLEAR
planning and action week by week, it helps to eventually create
long-range goals. For instance, ask yourself what you'd like to
accomplish in a year in each of the areas of CLEAR. But since a year
or longer is too hard to plan, we suggest that you break down your
goal into four-month goals that are each a step toward your
long-range goal.
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In general, your efforts in each of the CLEAR areas will go through a cycle
of four steps: assessment, goal-setting, planning and action. Assessment is figuring out where you are
in your present situation. The assessments on this web site are the Lifestyle
Review, the Helping Inventory, Choices Regarding the Empowerment of Others
and
the Ecological Lifestyle Assessment. The Well Analogy exercise can also
be used as an assessment of sorts.
Goal-setting and envisioning are the second steps
determining
where you want to be, or the kind of lifestyle you want to have. While
Capacity-building, Living your mission, Empowering others, Adding to
the world's stability, and Ripple effect are presented as the five major goal areas, they aren't
themselves goals. You have to choose a specific action and a specific
deadline for accomplishing the action, in order to create a goal.
The third step is "figuring
out how to get from where you are to where you want to
be," and it involves planning and action, using any of a number of methods.
You can use the
Goal or Dream Sheet
or any other planning aid. Of course
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You are welcome to adapt the materials to
your own situation, being
careful to put time and effort into all five areas. Just as five hours a
week may be arbitrary, putting equal time in each area may not be
the best idea if you are very developed in some areas and underdeveloped
in others.
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If needed, take short
breaks or even week-long vacations from using the CLEAR method. Even if you can
only average two or three weeks a month, imagine if everyone did as
much!
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While we encourage you to
make a weekly Action Signal report, it may not be for you. Some
people will find that the counting and keeping track of efforts
interferes with their peace of mind or spiritual path. Others may
decide that detailed record-keeping interferes with them doing more
good action. People in these situations may not want to make an
Action Signal.
