The Circle Blueprint. Skeen Jack

      What is the Circle Blueprint? The Circle Blueprint is a framework that illustrates the conscious and unconscious factors that determine the quality of a person's life. Your Circle encompasses values, dreams, character traits, causes, people – what truly matters to you. It determines who you will become and what you will accomplish. It defines your purpose and ultimately your happiness and satisfaction.

      Everyone has a Circle. Your Circle probably includes people you love, such as family members and friends, or causes you care about, like saving the whales, defending your country, or taking a stand for the rights of others. It might include character traits such as honesty, responsibility, or self‐discipline. You may have personal hopes, dreams, or goals in your Circle: finishing your undergraduate degree, working for a certain company, writing a novel, or running a marathon.

      In terms of human development, everyone starts off with a small Circle that includes only self‐centered values: comfort, safety, pleasure. Infants are exclusively focused only on the comfort of a full stomach, a dry diaper, and a warm bed. As we grow, life challenges us with opportunities to expand our world that require adding new things to our Circle. The “terrible twos” are noted for a push for independence that shows up in endless questions and persistent defiance. Going to school requires following rules, forming friendships, and learning new skills. Adolescence brings the challenge of breaking away from your family to find your unique place in the world. Each stage of life changes the composition of your Circle. New content is added that changes the mix and balance, and other times, content has to be removed to bring balance. Imagine an adult wearing a diaper and having a pacifier in his or her mouth – these items were long discarded, and much as we remove these items from our lives as we grow, we also have to remove items from our Circle at times if they unbalance our Circle. How we negotiate these challenges of adding and subtracting significantly impacts the quality of our adult lives.

      By the time we have reached young adulthood, most people – but not all – have expanded their Circle with activities beyond pleasure, self‐protection, and other self‐focused values. Those whose development has been stunted by trauma or neglect will still prioritize values that are life‐limiting. A person whose Circle is filled with activities limited to pleasure, for example, may take drugs or steal without concern for the future or other people. Even those who grew up in healthy and happy homes can fail to fully develop their Circle and, so, they limit their success and life satisfaction. They may have not completed a fundamental developmental challenge, stopped adding new and more meaningful content to their Circle, or failed to keep the elements of their Circle in balance.