What makes CareerCycles unique?CareerCycles trips are reasonably priced three day getaways for small groups of up to 12 people, designed to activate your mind about career renewal while your body gets active outdoors. For some people, career renewal will mean finding ways to adapt and feel better about existing career choices and work/life balance, while for others it will begin the process of change. Stressed? Burnt out? Getting away can help you step back and examine your situation, re-evaluate what's important to you, assess your options and identify next steps. Combining your exploration with easy biking and hiking can relieve stress, re-energize you, and support moving your renewal process into action.
Read Toronto Sun article, published Wed. June 14, 2006
Read Metro News article, published Tues. June 6, 2006
Read Edmonton Sun article, published Sat. June 3, 2006
The Monday after I felt absolutely energized! The whole weekend had been so full, so informative. My 'personal best' biking gave me so much confidence and motivation and strangely enough, a real sense of calm. -CareerCycles participant
"Your program works. I applied for and was offered a full-time position... Career Cycles was what catalyzed the change. It was while lying in the dunes looking up at the sky that I rediscovered I didn't have to stay in the box I felt trapped in. It was there that I started dreaming of possibilities. I am very excited about the opportunities." -CareerCycle Participant
"The physical activity / inn setting helped to break down barriers between participants and promote a relaxed environment. I think this is a key piece to the whole experience." -CareerCycles participant
What makes CareerCycles unique?
Uniquely synthesizing guided learning and discovery with outdoor activity, CareerCycles getaways align participants’ focus and motivation toward goals, opportunities, choices or transitions they are facing in their professional and personal lives.
A natural, country environment and physical activity are two vital and unique components of CareerCycles. Getting away to a relaxed environment is fundamental to allow participants to step back and assess their situation and options. Activating the body along with the mind can relieve stress, re-energize, highlight authentic characteristics, illuminate possibilities and support moving the renewal process into action.
You can think about CareerCycles as an accelerated coaching program which can include one-on-one professional coaching before, during and after the getaway to sustain participants’ renewal action plans.
"I never thought that you can have such comfort with a group of five strangers. I feel hopeful for us as human beings that we can be so nurturing to each other." -CareerCycles participant
What kind of outcomes can I expect?
The outcome for each participant is a renewed motivation and sense of what’s possible for the future in the form of a workable, realistic plan, and the follow-up actions that meet both professional and personal goals. Participants benefit by:
Becoming more engaged, productive, fulfilled and balanced through clarity of focus and motivation
Becoming more effective supervisors, managers, leaders, mentors, or peers
Seeing past barriers, feeling less stuck, and realizing their unfulfilled potential
Gaining a better understanding of their strengths and challenges
Learning new ways to see oneself and one's opportunities, within an informal or formal Continuing Education context
Participants' workplaces, or professional settings, may benefit by:
Focused actions of participants aligned with organizational goals
Renewal of stagnant roles, teams and business opportunities
Spill-over enthusiasm of motivated and productive employees, countering the poison of the inevitable disgruntled few
Being seen as recognizing that inspired and engaged employees are the foundation of winning organizations.
Women and men who are seeking a unique opportunity to align their professional and personal lives, to talk about what has meaning for them and to learn how to get it, and who are willing to have fun and be active. Included in the target audience are people their mid- to late-twenties who have reached a level of maturity, plus active people in their 60s and early 70s who are looking for focus and clarity in their lives.
CareerCycles will attract participants from professional associations, and for open enrollment programs from small, medium and large corporations, not-for-profit and government organizations, and self-employed and independent individuals.
CareerCycles is ideal for people:
in professional, supervisory, managerial or leadership--formal or informal--roles who have accumulated a modest record of achievement
who may be recognized within their organizations as high potential employees, and who may, or may not, be reaching their potential
already contemplating or intending to initiate transition, e.g. internal job or career change, parenthood, etc.
struggling with achieving goals, or not progressing in career as planned
of diverse backgrounds and personalities who can learn from each other
CareerCycles can substitute for, or add to traditional outplacement--an "in-placement program"--ideal for those who need to formulate a transitional career strategy.
We stay at the Shanti Retreat Centre in the heart of Prince Edward County, Ontario. Our rides and hikes take us through the beautiful, natural setting--including the majestic dunes of Sandbanks Provincial Park--of this quiet corner of Ontario, an easy 2.5 hour drive from Toronto, just south of Belleville, also easily accessed from Montreal, Ottawa and upstate New York.
Our comfortable inn has good spacious rooms. We have full breakfasts and dinners at the inn, with pack lunches. Some of our conversations take place in a private common room while others take place in the great outdoors.
Over three days, participants engage in a series of career renewal conversations moving along a three part trajectory: self-assessment, visioning & dealing with barriers, action planning.
Self-assessment: Learn about yourself and widen your perspective on your work/life questions. Understand your strengths, values and interests as they relate to the professional and personal focus that you are bringing to the program. Explore opportunities for development, growth, change or achievement that are possible based on your abilities.
Visioning: Identify your professional, and personal vision and goals. Gather input, gain perspective and do a "reality check" with feedback from a group of peers. Recognize the obstacles to realizing your goals and explore ways to remove them.
Taking Action: Learn how to expand your repertoire of ways to deal with work/life problems by taking advantage of both planful methods and unplanned events. Develop a plan for achieving your goals, including use of follow up coaching sessions.
Before the program, one facilitator will call each participant to answer questions and to elicit a relevant focus for their participation in CareerCycles.
Implementation of a plan is often difficult so post-getaway support is vital. Participants and coaches together determine the focus and timing of post-Getaway coaching sessions.
There are 21 Continuing Education hours in total for the program.
To register, or for more info, please contact us.