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The Canvas
This Life Discovery Canvas is designed for Life Discovery Activity. It can be used for self-reflection or coaching programs.
The Life Discovery Canvas is guided by the Project Engagement approach which is inspired by Activity Theory, especially Project-oriented Activity Theory.
Contents
1. Seven Basic Principles
2. Four Significant Areas
3. Two Subspaces
4. A Multiple-dimension Model
5. Four Thematic Fields
6. The Inner - Outer Mapping
7. THINK: What should I Think for myself?
8. LEARN: What should I Learn for my life?
9. SAY: What Should I Say to others?
10. DO: What Should I Do for others?
11. Inspirations
1. Seven Basic Principles
The Life Discovery Canvas is developed with the following seven basic principles:
2. Four Significant Areas
The Life Discovery Canvas is not a simple 2x2 matrix, but a multiple-dimension model for visualizing a holistic view. However, the 2x2 matrix is a subset of the canvas.
I divide the canvas into four areas from the view of the 2x2 matrix:
The THINK area echoes the Theory area of Thematic Space Canvas. For Life Discovery Activity, I consider two pairs of concepts for the THINK area:
I will offer more details for each pair of concepts. For present discussion, I only focus on Spatial Structure.
The LEARN area echoes the PRACTICE area of Thematic Space Canvas. For Life Discovery Activity, I consider two pairs of concepts for the LEARN area:
The SAY area echoes the END area of Thematic Space Canvas. For Life Discovery Activity, I consider two pairs of concepts for the SAY area:
The DO area echoes the MEANS area of Thematic Space Canvas. For Life Discovery Activity, I consider two pairs of concepts for the DO area:
The above pairs of concepts are inspired by the Project-centered approach.
3. Two Subspaces
The Life Discovery Canvas is divided into two subspaces: Inner Space and Outer Space.
The Inner Space contains the following concepts:
The Outer Space contains the following concepts:
4. A Multiple-dimension Model
I have emphasized that the Life Discovery Canvas is not a simple 2x2 matrix for building a typology, but a multiple-dimension model for visualizing a holistic view in order to sense-make a dynamic meaningful whole.
Now let’s look at more dimensions.
4.1 The Self — Other Relevance
There is a dimension behind the “Left — Right” direction: the Self — Other Relevance.
I have introduced the Relevance of Zone in the Life Discovery Toolkit (v1.0). It considers four keywords: Self, Other, Thing, Think. It was inspired by the iART Framework and the Typology of Relevance. You can find more details from .
4.2 The Practice — Theory Dialogue
For the vertical direction, I consider the Practice — Theory Dialogue.
The Practice — Theory Dialogue refers to my primary project: the Knowledge Curation project. You can find more details about the above model from .
4.3 The Production Chain
One of the theoretical resources behind the Life Discovery Activity is Activity Theory which is originally about “Production”.
The “Think — Do” connection refers to the Production Chain. The term “Chain” refers to “Think — Do — Think — Do — Think — DO” which is about a network of project.
4.4 The Communication Chain
I also consider Relevance Theory as one of theoretical resources for the Life Discovery Activity. The Relevance Theory is more about communication.
The “Learn— Say” connection refers to the Communication Chain. The term “Chain” refers to “Learn — Say— Learn— Say— Learn— Say” which is about communities, platforms or other social contexts of projects.
4.5 The Feedforward Chain
The Life Discovery Activity also adopts the framework for its theoretical resources.
A person has an expectation of her or his life achievement in the future. This is called Anticipation. For example, a friend of mine made a vision for her ideal life in general and a life plan for the coming three years. This anticipation inspires her to make some decisions which lead to some actions. This is called Feedforward. Her life vision and short life plan guide her to design an adult development program which became her primary project last year.
You can find more details about iART Framework
.4.6 The Experiment Chain
The last dimension is called the Experiment Chain which is defined by the “Anticipation — Performance” complexity.
The “Anticipation — Performance” complexity refers to a sub-model of the the framework. You can find more details in .
5. Four Thematic Fields
In order to highlight four themes of the Life Discovery Activity, I also define four thematic fields. Each field contains four blocks with two pairs of concepts.
5.1 The Attachment Field
The Attachment Field echoes the ENTER field of the Thematic Space Canvas. It contains the following concepts:
5.2 The Achievement Field
The Achievement Field echoes the EXIT field of the Thematic Space Canvas. It contains the following concepts:
5.3 The Anticipation Field
The Anticipation Field contains the following concepts:
5.4 The Performance Field
The Performance Field contains the following concepts:
The “design thinking” behind the Life Discovery Canvas echoes my ideas about meta-diagrams, diagram blending, and diagram networks.
6. The Inner - Outer Mapping
The Inner Space and Outer Space is guided by the “Internalization — externalization” principle of Activity Theory. I consider the mapping between Inner Space and Outer Space as the starting point of Life Discovery Activity.
This idea echoes the Thematic Space Canvas’s same spatial structure. Since the Thematic Space Canvas is developed for Developing Tacit Knowledge, I call it it “Objective — Subjective” Knowledge Curation. While Objective Knowing refers to the outer space, the Subjective Knowing refers to the inner space.
For Life Discovery Canvas, I just call it the Inner — Outer Mapping. Readers can find the difference between Inner Space and Outer Space from the following sections about pairs of themes.
The diagram below is . We could make a similar visualization from Mapping Life Discovery.
However, I should emphasize that the Inner — Outer Mapping is not the only way of Mapping Life Discovery. Since there are several types of spatial configurations, we can explore more ways of Mapping Life Discovery.
The Inner — Outer Mapping is just the starting point of the journey!
7. THINK: What should I Think for myself?
The THINK area contains two pairs of themes:
The pair of themes “Supplies — Demands” refers to the first basic principle of the Project-centered approach: .
The pair of themes “Aspirations — Situations” refers to two modules of Life Discovery Toolkit (v1.0):
While the “Supplies — Demands” Mapping is about a discovery about life meaning at an abstract level, the “Aspirations — Situations” Mapping moves to the daily life activities at a concrete level.
8. LEARN: What should I Learn for my life?
The Life Discovery Activity requires designing and developing individuals that learn and adapt. These individuals can bring about their continuing transformation in the face of growing challenges to their stability. Thus, I consider LEARN to be an important area for Life Discovery.
The LEARN area contains two pairs of themes:
The pair of themes “Skills — Knowledge” refers to traditional thinking of adult development.
For Life Discovery Activity, it means three things:
The third thing is about the Skills — Knowledge Mapping. I’d like to share a model called Epistemic Development for this task.
I also place the pair of themes “Themes — Contradictions” at the LEARN area.
The Life Discovery Activity focuses on 1) and 2) Exploring Potential Themes in order to enhance a person’s life development. The term “Contradictions” is adopted from Activity Theory while the term “Themes” is adopted from my own work Themes of Practice.
In , I introduced several ways for detecting Contradictions, Disruptors, Dramatic Experiences, etc. For Life Discovery Activity, I’d like to recommend a model called Levels of Activity and Disruptions.
You can find more details in .
9. SAY: What Should I Say to others?
The SAY area focuses on:
As mentioned before, the Life Discovery Canvas is divided into two subspaces:
For the SAY area, we see the following configurations:
The SAY area refers to the “Self — Other” relevance and the communication chain. Here the Inner Space is more about a person’s own properties and self-awareness while Outer Space refers to environments and social contexts.
I’d like to point out that the pair of themes “Resources — Opportunities” is about Objective and Object while the pair of themes “Results — Contributions” is about Outcome and Reward.
Now we can adopt the Anticipatory Activity System framework to expand the SAY area. The core of the framework is the “Self — Other” Relevance. The framework also adopts the notion of “Object — Outcome” from Activity Theory.
You can find more details from . You can also read some related articles:
10. DO: What Should I Do for others?
The DO area contains the following two pairs of themes:
We can also see other configurations:
I have discussed the “Problem — Solution” issue in . However, the article focuses on our own problems in our life.
The Do area is about solving problems for others. It’s about designing projects, developing work processes, delivering final products such as content, services, tools, solutions, etc. It refers to creating values for others.
How to find problems and solutions? This is the significant question of design, strategy, and business in general. For Life Discovery Activity, I’d like to recommend the following diagram for connecting individual life experiences with social needs. It’s a heuristic tool called Career API.
The pair of themes “Concepts — Ideas” refers to my 2021 book Project-oriented Activity Theory (draft).
11. Inspirations
Some sources of my inspirations for designing the Life Discovery Canvas.
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