women who inspire :: Lori Pickert

Lori Pickert makes the internet a better place!  she happily shares her time, experience, and encouragement.  she is the author of Project Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners.  she also runs the PBH website + forums–a rich place to read + learn + try new things.  my favorite collection of posts is called 10 Steps to Getting Started in PBH.  she’s also a twitter maven! Lori actually models how to be a mentor in her interactions with homeschooling parents, and her example is illuminating.

i’ve had the privilege of taking a few classes from Lori.  her journaling class was truly amazing.  i have always journaled, but she showed me how to use my journal as a tool for transformation.  each day for a week a new email with examples, inspirational quotes, and lots of encouragement arrived in my email.  i keep on returning to her words:

Create an environment that helps you focus. Advertise to yourself. Create visual reminders that call you back to your highest priorities. Make sure your space is constantly bombarding you with messages about what you care about: your family, your work, your values, your priorities, your goals.  Use your space to promote your most authentic life.

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To be active, engaged mentors we focus on our own practice. We aren’t simply reflecting back our children’s ideas like a mirror; we are weighing significance, attempting to understand, thoughtfully curating. The more we understand ourselves as learners, the better we can mentor our children to direct and manage their own learning.  The better we understand ourselves, the better we can accomplish whatever we want to do in life.

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A journal isn’t only for helping us remember — it’s also a place for helping us THINK….Journaling encourages us to engage more with our own lives as they’re happening.It’s a tool for curation.

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A learner mindset is in opposition to prediction and perfectionism.  If you’re learning, you can’t predict what’s going to happen….If you’re learning, you can’t hold onto perfectionism. To do things perfectly means always setting your sights lower — aiming at the sure thing. And learning happens when we move past the sure thing.