When it comes to M.A.P. Making, self-awareness is vital. You can't consciously create a life that lights you up if you don't have a good understanding of what that looks like.
One great way to build that awareness is simply paying attention. In my work helping clients find and build passion-filled careers, one of the things I see again and again is how much insight they get about what makes them tick when they start really paying attention to it on a daily basis.
Mitch Matthews at IowaBiz.com offers up a great exercise from Marcus Buckingham, author of Now Discover Your Strengths, called creating a love/loathe list. As Mitch describes it...
You simply carry a notebook with you and draw a line down the middle of each page. At the top of the first column, you write "LOVE." On the top of the second column, you write "LOATHE."
Then, as you go about your daily activities you track each activity by putting it on the appropriate side. You just keep asking yourself "Do I love this... or loathe it?" And then write it down. Don't judge it. Don't even worry about how you'd get rid of it.
At this point you just write it down.
After a week or so you'll have a pretty good list of the things you love to do and the things you... well... the things you don't love to do.
The next step - the step that makes sure this isn't all just glorified navel-gazing - is to ask yourself, "How do I bring more of the love side into my life? How do I minimize the things on the loathe side?"

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM





Simple yet effective. My kind of technique.
Posted by: Chuck Westbrook | October 19, 2007 at 08:16 AM