Show Notes

BEGINNING THE JOURNEY TO EXPLORE

My podcast guest Oie Dobier was passed up for a promotion at work several years ago, and it changed her forever. It jolted her into questioning her purpose in life and forced her to explore what was important to her. She realized that for 20 years, she’d been doing things for all the wrong reasons, and began asking herself, “What are the right reasons?”

That questioning put her on a path to creating Project Who Am I, a resource that guides teens on a journey of self-reflection and discovery.

She, her 19-year-old daughter, Nya, and her husband Darren started Project Who Am I in an effort to help young people find their purpose in life now, so they don’t end up in a space 20 years from now, feeling miserable and unfulfilled.

PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPLORE

Project Who Am I is geared toward high school students who are preparing for college. However, Oie encourages parents of middle schoolers to help their kids discover their natural talents and interests, and then provide opportunities to explore that. Whether it be a summer camp, a class, or hanging out with a friend or family. The middle school age is an important time to provide that opportunity for them to explore because they have a lot of time to do it – there’s no deadline or pressure. When kids are approaching high school and their junior and senior years, they must start making some decisions about what they want to do.

EXPLORING, NOT DECIDING

Explore is the word of the day because if you’re like me, you probably don’t want your kids to lock into a career plan when they’re 13-, 14-, even 15-years-old. What we’re talking about here is not that at all. It’s just looking around and experiencing things and figuring out what’s out there.

It can be exciting to see the world open up and discover what your child’s passions and natural talents are. Especially considering that there are jobs that exist now that didn’t even exist two years ago, or five years ago

THE TIME TO EXPLORE AND SELF-REFLECT

Once kids have explored and have an idea of what they’re interested in, Project Who Am I gives them time and space to reflect on a few key things, like their:

1. Natural Abilities
2. Interests and Passions
3. Values
4. Work Preferences

It is a self-paced self-discovery program. that helps kids take those four key aspects and reflect on what about those four things is unique to them. And then the combination of those four things is translated into various suggestions for careers in different industries.

SMALL GROUP SUPPORT

Once Project Who Am I addresses those four issues with students, there is also a component for parents as well. Oie and her team realized that self-reflection is not an easy exercise, but it helps when you can sit down with a small group of people who know you really well after you’ve done it. When the student does the self-reflection exercise, the program is designed for them to meet a day or two later with that small group of people, which typically includes a parent, a grandparent, aunt, uncle, best friend, etc. and they share what they’ve learned about themselves. Since they sit down with people who know them, those people can confirm or provide evidence around the self-reflection. Like, “Oh, yes, we see this in you via XYZ way.” Or, “Oh, you’ve been doing that since you were little.” When you internalize or think about things yourself, it just solidifies things when other people tell you the same thing. Then you have confidence that yes, this is my natural talent because I’ve always done it this way. Ever since I was little or I’ve always been really good at that.

WHERE PARENTS COME INTO THE PROCESS

Parents are a key component of their program. They are critical because, at the end of the day, it’s their support structure. It’s all of the things our teens still need from us.

It’s an opportunity to do a lot of validating and listening, as well as asking good questions.

Project Who Am I include self-reflection for the students in each module of the program, and along with each exercise, there is a facilitator’s guide. It’s a page for the parents to pull up that explains the purpose of the exercise, gives tips about how to talk to students about it and provides questions to spark discussion during that small group time.

Oie explains that the best-case scenario is when parents can

1. be open-ended with it,
2. refrain from imposing their own thoughts and ideas,
3. really get students to open up and share what they’ve learned,
4. ask if there are some questions they still have about themselves, and then
5. get everybody in their group to give feedback based on that person’s perspective.

It’s important to hear from multiple people because it’s, again, a time of validation of how they’re thinking about things.

The facilitation guides for each module help parents get into the right mindset and have some prompter questions.

FOR STUDENTS ONLY

In addition, Oie’s daughter, Naya, has a weekly check-in with the students. It’s a time for the kids only, and they’re very purposeful about keeping parents out. They use this strategy, because the dynamic is different when the parents are in the room, and they want students to speak up and learn from their peers.

PARENTS HAVE TO EXPLORE TOO – ESPECIALLY THE LETTING GO PART

That can be a hard learning curve for parents – trusting, as kids get older, that they

one of the biggest learning curves, as my kids have gotten older is trusting that they are going to make choices that reflect the values that we’ve tried to model and reinforce with them. Giving them the trust and the freedom of having times like that, where it’s with a group of their peers, or even with trusted family members or friends, is all about what’s going to be best for our teens. It’s not about what we think or where we think they should go or what they should do. It’s about us moving into a place of trusting and being willing to let them make mistakes, which is super hard.

We have to remind ourselves that their values can be different than our values. And we have to be okay with that. We hope that they can take some of the values that we’ve instilled over the years as they grew up and embrace some of them, but we must recognize that the way they embrace those will be different than the way we embrace them. Not only because we’re different people, but also because we’re different generations.

EXPLORING VALUES AND BELIEFS

This is developmentally appropriate, and sometimes, for them to adopt those values in the long run, it’s going to look like they’re rejecting them right now. Because they’re going to explore different things and see what fits. They’re holding different ideas up, and they’re saying, do I really value that? Is that really my thought, my belief, or whatever it is?

For a time, especially from probably 15 to even their early twenties, it might look like they’re rejecting all those values, when in fact, it’s part of the process of them getting to the true values that they’ll hold throughout their lives.

It might look like they’re rebelling, but they’re really just testing to say, okay, there’s this value here, maybe it’s something for me, but let me explore this other value. They’ll either go through that experience and say, you know what, that wasn’t for me. And this one that I’ve always had is truly for me. Or, they may say, you know what, I experienced something new that I really enjoy. And it is valuable to me. It’s part of the process.

TIME, SPACE, AND STRUCTURE TO EXPLORE

Project Who Am I opens the door to creating connection. And not just the emotional, feeling piece of it, but the literal structure of being able to connect over those things and have conversations.

Giving them the time and space to really explore these things is so important. These are deep thoughts that teens really need to start thinking about. They just need some time and space and a structure to be able to do it.

EPISODES REFERENCED