Course Description
2-Day (AI-Enhanced) Design Thinking for Mid-Life Transition
Language: Cantonese (粵語) with English Materials
A mid-life crisis is a period of emotional, psychological, or existential questioning that typically occurs in middle adulthood, often between the ages of 35 and 55. It is characterized by feelings of dissatisfaction, restlessness, or confusion about one’s life direction, achievements, and purpose.
- Reflection on mortality – A growing awareness of aging and the finite nature of life.
- Unmet expectations – Realizing that personal or professional goals may not have been achieved.
- Shifts in identity – Aspects of identity tied to career, relationships, or roles (e.g., parenting) may change.
- Desire for change – A longing for meaning, adventure, or personal reinvention.
Design Thinking is a human-centered, problem-solving methodology that emphasizes creativity, experimentation, and iteration. It involves rethinking challenges and developing innovative solutions. This approach can be particularly helpful during a mid-life crisis because it encourages individuals to reframe their struggles and explore new paths with curiosity and optimism.
Course Aims:
This course is designed to empower individuals to harness the principles of Design Thinking to navigate and thrive during mid-life transitions. It aims to equip participants with the skills needed to manage life changes effectively. By integrating practical tools for life planning strategies, The course prepares individuals to create more fulfilling and purposeful paths through midlife. It focuses on self-awareness, strategic problem-solving, transformative life planning, and collaborative achievements.
Highlights:
AI technologies provide innovative tools that enhance the life planning process, facilitating clearer visualization and strategic analysis to support personal and professional development. Here’s how AI can empower individuals to craft a more fulfilling life and career trajectory:
- AI Analytics Tools: Advanced systems such as ChatGPT 4-o are designed to analyze the dynamics within personal networks, identifying key stakeholders and their influence. These tools assist in understanding how to collaborate best and co-create with others to facilitate successful transitions and achieve desired goals.
- AI Brainstorming Tools: Tools like Stormz leverage AI to offer creative brainstorming sessions, enabling individuals to explore diverse and innovative strategies for achieving their life and career goals. These tools help in ideating unconventional solutions that can lead to transformative outcomes.
- AI 2D-Visualization Tools: Platforms such as Dall-E utilize advanced AI to help individuals visualize their life journey, both past and anticipated future. By creating detailed visual representations, these tools allow users to see a comprehensive overview of their life’s progression and potential future paths, enhancing clarity and motivation.
- AI 3D-Visualization Tools: Tools like AICG employ AI to generate three-dimensional visualizations that vividly depict various aspects of one’s life. These visualizations help in understanding complex life scenarios and assessing potential changes from multiple perspectives, aiding in more informed decision-making.
Targeted Participants:
- Mid-Career Professionals: Individuals in the mid-stage of their careers who are looking to pivot or advance further in their professional lives often seek new skills and perspectives to effectively manage and leverage mid-life transitions, enhance their current roles or shift to new career paths.
- Individuals Seeking Personal Growth: People at a crossroads in life, particularly those entering or adjusting to mid-life stages, are looking to redefine their personal and professional identities. This includes those transitioning into new life phases, such as post-retirement or after significant life changes.
- Pre-Retirees and Retirees: Individuals nearing retirement or those who have recently retired and are seeking to find a new sense of purpose. They are often looking for ways to stay active and engaged, whether through volunteering, part-time work, or exploring new hobbies and interests.
- Holistic Life Redesign Seekers: Individuals who want to make interconnected changes across multiple areas of their life, such as career, health, relationships, and personal growth. They are seeking structured approaches to prioritize and implement these changes in a manageable and impactful way.
Early Bird Price
HKD 6,500 (up to one month prior to the start of the course)
Length
2-Day
Language
Cantonese with English Materials
Standard Price
HKD 7,000
Involvement
7 hours per day
Course Type
In-person
Course Objectives:
The program focuses on self-exploration and personal enhancement tailored to mid-life contexts. Participants will be guided to deeply empathize with their own latent, unmet, and potential needs to understand better and transform their life journey during this pivotal phase.
Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to:
- Deepen Self-Awareness: Engage in structured self-reflection to better understand and articulate personal motivations and hidden aspects of their personality, especially as they relate to mid-life transitions.
- Refine Problem-Solving Skills: Master Design Thinking techniques to identify mid-life challenges and develop adaptive strategies for personal and professional development during these transitions.
- Reconstruct Life Journeys: Analyze past experiences to design future life paths that align with their evolving values and aspirations during mid-life.
- Cultivate Collaborative Success: Learn to build and lead partnerships and teams aimed at achieving larger shared goals through innovative co-creation methods, particularly useful in navigating mid-life changes.
What you'll learn
Teaching methodologies
This interactive course is designed to equip you with the Design Thinking mindset, tools, and skills necessary to drive bold innovations. Engage in a dynamic learning journey that includes highly interactive sessions and culminates in collaborative group work focused on addressing a human-centered challenge. Our commitment to a “learning-by-doing” philosophy guarantees practical application and immediate implementation of the concepts taught.
Pre-Course Preparation
Participants will complete a detailed self-assessment to evaluate their current life and career status, focusing on mid-life stages, identifying their goals, and acknowledging existing challenges specific to this life phase. This assessment serves as a baseline for measuring progress throughout the course. The results will help participants focus their intentions for the course and enable instructors to customize the workshop experiences to suit better individual needs related to mid-life transitions.
Session 1: Discovering and Empathizing in Mid-Life
• Stakeholder Mapping: Participants will identify the major influencers in their lives and understand how these relationships impact their personal growth and decision-making during mid-life transitions.
• Self-Empathy Exercises: Through guided activities, participants will explore their own unmet, hidden, and potential needs, fostering a deeper understanding of their inner motivations and barriers specific to mid-life.
Session 2: Defining Your Mid-Life Persona and Journey
• Persona Development: Participants will create detailed personas of themselves to better articulate their expectations, constraints, and life contexts during mid-life.
• Personal Life Journey Mapping: It involves charting out key life events and turning points, allowing participants to visually narrate their past and pinpoint significant moments that have shaped their journey through mid-life.
Session 3: Developing Your Strategies for Mid-Life Transition
• Iteration Methods: Participants will explore multiple pathways to achieving their new goals, using iterative techniques to refine and optimize their approaches to mid-life planning.
• Prioritization Mapping: This tool helps to order potential strategies by impact and feasibility, ensuring that the most effective methods are pursued first.
Session 4: Delivering Your Action Plan for Mid-Life Transition
• Prototyping Life Milestones: Participants will develop prototypes for setting and achieving milestones related to their new goals, allowing for tangible planning and execution tailored to mid-life changes.
• ACES Analysis: This feedback mechanism involves gathering insights from key stakeholders to evaluate the progress and effectiveness of the new life strategies during mid-life transitions.
2 Follow-Up Sessions
The follow-up sessions are designed to offer a structured platform for participants to receive valuable feedback from both peers and facilitators. This collaborative process enables participants to refine their action plans, identify and address potential blind spots, and strengthen the overall effectiveness of their strategies for navigating mid-life transitions.
First Follow-Up Session: 1-hour on-line session held on the Friday evening (or Saturday morning) during the second week after the course concludes.
Second Follow-Up Session: 1-hour on-line session conducted on the Friday evening (or Saturday morning) during the fourth week following the course completion.
Meet your coaches
Our coaches are seasoned and certified Design Thinking facilitators. They will share their extensive experience and effective strategies for implementing Design Thinking in innovation projects and organizational transformations. This practical approach enables you to immediately integrate Design Thinking principles into your daily work environment.
David Chung
Dean of DTA China, Senior Facilitator
Dean of DTA China (and HKSAR), Senior Design Thinking Facilitator, Certified Innovation Professional (Level 4), Certified LEAN Leader, and Doctoral Candidates of Innovation Management
Certificate
Upon completing the course and all related exercises, participants will receive a Digital Certificate of “Design Thinking for Life Planning” and a Digital Badge from the DesignThinkers Academy. These credentials are securely issued through a blockchain-based global certification management system. Celebrate your new status as a Certified Design Thinker by sharing your achievement across various social media platforms.
