DNA2 – Daily Dialogue, New Now, Awareness and Action

A Coaching Model By Chia-Hsin Chen, Life Coach/Career Coach, TAIWAN

Everyone needs to decide once they encounter a dilemma. Based on my almost two decades of human resources management (HRM) experiences, people often worry about career change regardless of age, positions, or sometimes the inner interest that conflicts with the social value system. I had done interviews and conversations with more than two hundred people in the past two years by using a friendly, doable, and repeatable model named DNA² to help them move forward and successfully transition to the next role. DNA² stands for Daily Dialogue, New Now, Awareness and Action. I will share a more detailed explanation in the following few paragraphs.   

DNA^2: Explanation With Visual

I called this model DNA² because everyone is unique and sophisticated, like an individual DNA profile. Everyone has their DNA, which represents who they are or where they are coming from. The upper case two refers to the initial of two words combination of DNA and has a meaning of “ one more time of double confirmation.”When I apply this model, sometimes I use alternative tools such as Disc, Points of you, or insight color, etc., to help people understand their differences and changes between now and the future. The following picture shows the DNA² model, and the order starts from D to N, then A. Each circle represents a specific action you need to do, and it always overlaps at least another circle for you to consider before you move on.

Daily Dialogue:

when planning a job change or transition, I always ask people to do a daily ten-minute self-dialogue for at least a consecutive twenty-one days. Why ten minutes per day? First of all, the time is not long to ensure people can do it without any excuses (doable). Second of all, people can do this mini daily Dialogue anywhere, anytime (friendly) without interruption. People are welcome to do more than ten minutes if they want to. The consecutive twenty-one days may help behavior development (daily Dialogue) and remind people if this is the thing they want to do. When you do daily Dialogue, you can apply few sample questions as listed below, but please concentrate on only one to two areas you would like to reflect on with yourself. The questions need to be short and precise and hit your issues directly. Once you have done the daily Dialogue, please write down the takeaway and keep it. You can compare these daily takes away and root out the primary one or two challenges for your next transition after twenty-one days of practice. Once done, you are ready to move to the next step- New Now.

Sample Questions for Daily Dialogue:

1. What happens?
2. What is the ideal situation?
3. What are you afraid of?
4. What brings you to worry?
5. What suits you? What does not?

New Now:

new now is the idea status where you want to be in the next role, not current you and not past you. How confident do you feel when you overcome the significant challenges toward the next position from daily Dialogue? How satisfied are you with this “new you” in the future at this moment? How long can it last with this ideal status? I saw many talents who would like to pursue their dreams and dare to embrace the pressure from public opinions. These people never limit themselves and always keep positive attitudes and drive for excellence. One of the mutual things I find among those talents is they do not want people to challenge them, but they will challenge themselves first until they have clarity of the next movement. Often, the things talents change are not many, but only one or two and is good enough to make the life different. What can you do to have better clarity with the next role? You may do some reflections with the following sample questions. These questions are more feelings and emotions related instead of problems related to step one. Why emotional questions? Emotion can affect people’s behavior, learning, and problems solving ability. Hence, while looking at the side of the issue, we shall also pay attention to the emotional area to prepare our minds. Once done, you may move toward the last step, which is awareness and action.

Sample Questions for New Now

1. How can I handle conflicts comfortably?
2. What shall I do to avoid feeling going back and forth?
3. Do I dare to test the limits?
4. How do I react when I feel resistance?
5. How eager I want with a new role?

Awareness & Action:

awareness and action are the final and the easy part of this model. You have completed the first two steps with a clear mind of your challenges and your ideal role as next. Now, you only need to keep this awareness and set a time frame for your action. The time frame can be various depends on your plan. I would suggest keeping the SMART principle (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) to review and follow up your action plan. You also need to pay attention to the resources or help you need while implementing the actions. Instead of moving your goals in one place, you may want to break your goal into small milestones. Take a small step and do the monthly review will be a good follow-up. If your action has a bigger scope, then bi-monthly or quarterly review the longest is good timing to do the checking. If your action does not work out, please go back to the first two steps and exam if any factors or challenges are different.

Sample Questions for Awareness & Actions

1. How can I turn doubts into certainty?
2. What will support my next breakthrough?
3. What do I invite into my journey?
4. When do I want this to happen?
5. What am I going to investigate soon?

In my previous experiences, most of the time, the job transitions lead to a good result with the DNA² model. The top three things I have with the people I work with are trust each other, be willing to reflection and last but not least to live who you are no matter how difficult the situations are. I wish people who apply for this DNA² model can benefit from it and have smooth job transitions to the next role. All the best.

References

https://jamesclear.com/new-habit

https://www.points-of-you.com/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5573739/

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/smart-goals.htm