The M.A.P. Maker

Martin Luther King Day: 4 steps to making it personal

For most of us Martin Luther King Day comes and goes, like so many potentially meaningful days, with no discernible impact on our lives.

This year, instead of just thinking, "Whoo-hoo! I have the day off," or "Hey, there's a sale at the mall," spend some time exploring one simple question. "What could this day mean to me?" You can do this with any special day, but since today is MLK Day, that's a good place to start.

Here are four steps to help you use today (or any meaningful day) as a catalyst for personal exploration and growth.

1. Explore what it means to you.

This exercise isn't about pondering what effect King had on the country, or why he deserves to be honored. It's about stepping back and taking a look at the messages the day has for you, and how that applies to your life. You'll be taking it out of the abstract and finding specific and personal meaning.

You might start exploring it from different angles. For example:

• What are the messages this day has for me?
• What about this day feels important?
• What do I admire about King?
• If I had three words to describe the essence of this holiday, what would they be?

As the resulting insights start to take shape, take it out of the abstract and into your life with step number two...

2. How does this relate to my life?

Let's say one of the things you admire most about King was both his vision. To apply that to your own life, you might ask, "OK, what is my vision? What am I working towards in my life that feels important and compelling? What do I really care about?"

This step is simply about taking stock, not judging what you find. Maybe you look at your life and realize, "Wow, I really don't have any vision that feels compelling to me." Rather than looking at that insight negatively, simply look at it as a potential doorway to change.

3. What action does this suggest?

Once you have insights about how it relates to you life, it's time to start moving towards using them for positive change. Let's say you realize that you're not satisfied with that lack of vision. If that's the case, you have a choice; either lose yourself in being dissatisfied, or use that clarity as the starting point for asking, "OK, what do I do about that?"

You might realize that you don't have clarity about what that vision might be. It's impossible to move towards a vision if you don't know what it is, so exploring that potential vision would be your first step. You might explore questions like, "What would I want my epitaph to say about me and the impact I had in this world? What inspires me? If I could make a difference with one thing in this world - based not on what "they" think is important, but on what has a significant positive charge for me - what would it be?"

Or you might realize that you have a vision already simmering, but you aren't taking any action on it. Your action exploration then might focus on brainstorming different steps you could take, large and small, to start moving towards it.

4. What is the first step, and when will I take it?

Finally, remember that none of the above two steps are anything more than abstract philosophizing if you don't actually choose a step and take it.

So there you have it. Four steps to turn any meaningful day into a catalyst for growth and discovery.

What could this day mean for you?

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

How to be a life sculptor

I often talk about the power of choice to create the life we want (see my posts on the power of the crossroads of possibility and creating your dreams one choice at a time). One of the ways I think of it is using choice as a tool to sculpt your life.

As a sculptor, you have two options. First, you can start with a vision of what you want to create and start removing what doesn't fit. That might be a toxic job, limiting habits, people who drag you down - whatever it is that is standing between you and your ultimate vision. Your efforts are aimed at a specific result.

You can use choice to remove what doesn't belong and reinforce what does. The first step to doing that is to be consciously aware of what is standing in the way and what reinforces your vision. Then you can consciously apply choice as a sculpting tool. For example, you might make a short list of ways that you get in your own way and commit to first noticing them, then to making different choices.

With the second option, you can follow the flow and discover where it takes you. As Michelangelo said, "The idea is there, locked inside, and all you have to do is remove the excess stone." You notice what doesn't belong and remove it, watch for what does belong, and let a life aligned with what energizes and inspires you emerge. 

The beauty of this is that we don't always know what's right for us until we find it. If you aim to create a sculpture based on a flawed and incomplete perspective of what you really want, the end result is bound to be just that, flawed and incomplete. Allowing yourself to discover what's locked inside the stone frees you to learn and grow. You can see each choice you are confronted with as an opportunity to move closer to the heart of it all.

Neither of these approaches are superior to the other. In fact, they're complementary. The first option gives you focus and direction. It gives you a goal to aim your efforts toward. But by itself, it risks being rigid, unable to adapt to hidden features within the stone.

The second option allows you to let go and flow naturally towards your best life. But by itself it runs the risk of meandering aimlessly, dabbling a little bit here and experimenting a little bit there. The focus and direction of the first approach helps channel the energy towards results. 

The two approaches can be used simultaneously, or you can tap into them one at a time. For example, you might let the sculpting flow naturally to help you get out of a rut created by basing your career decision on external expectations, or societal definitions of "success." Once you start to get clarity about what feels right, you can use the focused approach to give it form and substance. That alternating process is likely to continue throughout your life.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

If you started over today, what would you do?

Reading an interview today with Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest (a great book), I saw this exchange:

Q: If you were graduating from college today, what would you do with your life?

A: I would try to continue to learn every day and never stop my education. I would try not to get lured in by the trivial, the mundane, the commercial and the profane. I would spend as much time as possible outdoors. I would be sure that I would be able to sing, dance and draw. I would seek the most joyous way I could find to work on behalf of others. I would find mates who would want to join the effort, or whose efforts I could join. I would focus on an array of skills, and know how to work with my body just as much as my head. I wouldn't try to save the world; I would try to serve the world. I would read like crazy. I would avoid too much time on the Internet, but definitely be digitally literate.

As I read that, two things struck me. First, I love Hawken's answer. I looked at it and thought, "That's not just good advice for a new graduate. That's something for each of us to aspire to, starting today, wherever we are in our lives."

Second, it strikes me that the question has the potential to be a great way to explore the career and the life you want to create from here. Ask yourself, "If I were starting over today, what would I create?" Explore the answer across multiple fronts. What would be important to you? What would you aspire to?

When you are finished exploring that, ask yourself, "How well does my current life stack up against this? Where am I strong? Where could I use some work? Where are the opportunities to align myself more with what I would create if I were at the starting line today.

Here's the punch line. You ARE at the starting line today. Perhaps you're not starting over, but you are starting. And you have a choice. Either you coast into the future on autopilot, fueled by the momentum of the past, or you stop and say, "What do I want to create from here? What steps - even small ones - can I take to make that happen?"

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

New Year's Resolution alternative: 52 New Week's Resolutions

'Tis the season for well-intentioned resolutions that ultimately go splat. This year, instead of making a flurry of New Year's Resolutions that never see the light of February, try something different. Resolve to make 52 New Week's Resolutions.

A new week's resolution is just what it sounds like. At the beginning of the week, you commit to something for the duration of the entire seven days. Maybe getting some kind of exercise each day, or reading a self-development book for half an hour each day, or eating your vegetables.

At the end of each week, you review how you did on staying true to your commitment. If you succeeded, celebrate. Acknowledge that success. Then make another resolution for the next week.

During the course of those 52 weeks, you might have the same resolution for several successive weeks. For example, if you are working on developing a new habit, it might be helpful to make that habit the focus of your resolutions for at least four weeks (since they say it takes 28 days to develop a new habit that sticks).

You can use resolutions to build on previous weeks' resolutions, or you might use them to give yourself a taste of something new. For example, you might commit to refraining from complaining for an entire week. It's a great small-scale way to explore something without having the daunting weight of forever-n-ever. You can see what it's all about, and decide what about it - if anything - you want to carry forward.

Why bother with new week's resolutions? Here are a few reasons.

You have more opportunities for success

When you make a New Year's Resolution, you have one chance for success, and 365 opportunities for your resolution to join the vast majority of resolutions on the failure pile. But with a New Week's Resolution approach, you have 52 chances for success.

Success builds on success. The more you succeed, the more confident you feel that you can continue to succeed.

Odds are good that you won't hit the mark all 52 times, but achieving your resolution most weeks will still have a cumulatively positive impact. Let's say you fail to keep your new week's resolution six times. You still have 46 weeks worth of success. Not too shabby!

You have frequent opportunities to refocus

When you're in it for the long haul, it's easy to veer off course. Setting a new resolution each week gives you the opportunity to check in and ask, "How's this going?" You only have a week's worth of veering off course before you check in and course correct if necessary, rather than potentially many months' worth.

You are more aligned with the reality of change

As I've said many times before here, real, substantive change doesn't typically happen with the flip of a switch. It happens gradually over time. We take a step, get a result, learn from that result and then put that learning to use as we continue forward. It's an iterative process.

Setting yourself new week's resolutions lines up with that idea. It lets you keep taking steps towards change, building on them as you go, rather than decreeing that a change has taken place and getting frustrated when you discover that, no, actually it hasn't.

Renewed commitment built into the system

Let's face it. Most of us have woefully short attention spans. Sure the resolution seems compelling on January 1st, but what about August 1st? By then it's likely to be ancient history. Making weekly resolutions keeps your focus fresh and current. And the best part is, you don't have to wait till next year to commit to positive change again. It's a continual part of your life.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

What is your theme for the new year?

When it comes to making positive change, it's easy to get fragmented and disjointed. There are so many ways we want to make our lives better and we try to take them all on. The result is often a little bit like those fireworks that spin on the ground, throwing sparks off in all directions but not going anywhere.

What if, instead of a random hodge-podge of well-intended but potentially ineffective positive efforts, you created a unifying theme that ties it all together? What would your theme for 2010 be?

For me, the theme that comes up is "compassionate self-discipline." One of my big challenges is staying focused and disciplined. Too often, when I resolve to "be more disciplined," it takes on the feel of a harsh, angry taskmaster. I realized recently that I need to weave a sense of compassion into my self-discipline efforts, or it will never be sustainable.

Other themes might be "feeling energized," "fun fitness," "relationships with integrity," "unleashing creativity," etc. You might identify one theme for your professional life and another for your personal life, or you might find one that feels relevant across the whole spectrum.

Creating a theme for your year turns your year into a "project." It creates a unifying theme for your positive change efforts. It helps you focus your energy in a common direction, rather than letting it fly off in all directions like that spinning firework.

Once you identify your common theme, you can start asking questions, like:

• What would help me align with that theme?
• What am I currently doing that is at odds with that theme?
• What new habits would help me develop that theme?
• What changes would help me move toward that theme?
• What do I need to learn to breathe life into that theme?
• What books can I read that have to do with that theme?
• Who can help me develop that theme? 
• What are some related topics that would support my mastery of this theme?

With a focused theme, the year becomes a space for you to take an immersion course in the theme you choose. It is a time for you to both learn everything you can about that theme and to practice putting it to work in the real world. 

Each year has the potential to be a learning labratory. You can design your "course curriculum" for the year by asking questions like the ones I mentioned above. 

What is your theme for the new year?

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

The power of the crossroads of possibility

Each and every moment, you are at a crossroads with an infinite number of paths. Make one choice, and you head one direction. Make a different choice, and you zip off in another direction. When you look at it that way, the potential malleability of life is mind-boggling.

And yet most of us fool ourselves into an artificially narrow view of possibility. We make assumptions about the way things are and - poof! - a path of possibility disappears. We persist with limiting beliefs that have no basis in our current reality. Poof! There goes another path.

What would happen if you really and truly looked at each moment, not as simply a continuation of an inevitable single-track path, but as a crossroads jam packed with potential directions?

What if you trained yourself to stop and ask, "What are the possibilities here? Where am I going? Where do I want to go? What choices or steps can I find right here and now that would lead me - even incrementally - towards that goal?

One way to start harnessing the power of the crossroads of possibility is to watch for times when you feel limited and make a game of finding options. Or watch for limiting ways you spend your time (mindless TV, or example, or listening to people complain) and explore other ways that could lead you in a more positive direction.

Try this: For the next week, practice noticing crossroads moments. Find moments when you can say, "Is this leading me in a direction I want? What other options are there?" It could be something as simple as being tempted to turn on the TV and tune out, but instead grabbing a book that is helping you explore a new direction. 

The power of the crossroads of possibility isn't in making one monumental choice to take a new direction (though that certainly does happen). The real power, and what makes it so relevant to everyone regardless of their current life circumstances, is in the cumulative potential for change as the choices you make at each of those crossroads add up. 

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, the saying goes. And each single step starts from a new crossroads of possibility.

Where is your journey taking you?

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Increase your potential with trips off the beaten track

Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something you have never seen before.

~ Alexander Graham Bell

Habit and routine play a positive role in life, to be sure. They help us move forward without wasting energy on mundane recurring choices. But too often they take on a life of their own.

When habit and routine define your path rather than enhance it, it's easy to get bogged down in a rigid, limiting rut that ultimately narrows down your possibilities. Every day becomes a carbon copy of the day before. With no new inputs, the potential for new outcomes dwindles and life decays into a stultifying, enlessly repeating loop.

Yikes! But what is the solution? Sure, it would be nice if you could just take the plunge and break free of your daily routine, never to be shackled again, but that's not always possible. What then?

Try making a habit of taking day trips off the beaten path. Find ways to add new inputs into your system on a daily basis. Make a list of ways you can shake things up, learn something new, stimulate a different way of thinking, or approach things in a different way.

Try this: Brainstorm ways you can take day trips off the beaten path. Trade tips with friends and colleagues. Create a list (and keep adding to it over time) and commit to doing one thing from the list each day.

Here are some ideas to get you started (there are a bazillion more than this, so don't stop here)...

• Talk to people who have taken a drastically different path than you. Make it your mission to learn one thing new from each of them.
• Talk to someone who has recently made a huge change in their life. What have they learned? What helped them succeed?
• Buy a magazine focused on a topic you know nothing about. Buy a different one each week and learn at least one new thing from it.
  
• Approach a problem using an approach that isn't familiar to you. If you are typically analytical, take a creative approach. Ask people whose standard mode is the creative approach for help. If you are typically creative and intuitive, spend some time tapping into the analytical side.
• Get out of your comfort zone. The first thing here might be to explore what your comfort zone is (through journaling, for example), then brainstorm ways to step outside it.
• Change your surroundings. It always amazes me how much a simple change of scenery - even one as simple as a trip to a coffee shop to work - can stimulate my brain.
• Look at the world from different perspectives. Take an opinion you don't agree with (for example, a political opinion), and try to understand where people who hold that opinion are coming from. You don't have to agree with them, just try to create a deeper understanding of why they think the way they do.
• Take a class that is complementary to your path. Make a list of skills are knowledge you would like to gain that is outside the immediate scope of your current focus, but relevant. Pick one you find especially interesting and take a class to learn more. 
• Take a class on something that has absolutely nothing to do with anything you currently focus on.
• Read. Read. Read. (Did I mention, read?) This is one of the easiest ways to, as the quote above says, "dive into the woods." 

This is just an off-the-top-of-my-head list of ideas for how you might take day trips off the beaten track. I would love to hear more ideas. What ideas do you have?

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Start something new...and embrace the mess!

Beginnings are always messy.

~ John Galsworthy (Winner of the 1932 Nobel prize for literature)

If you have a dream you have yet to take action on, there's only one place to start, and that's at the beginning. The trouble with beginnings is that they often feel like going down a bone-jarring back-country road when what we really want is to be flying down the autobahn at mach speed.

We strike out towards our goal, only to find out there's a lot we don't know. We feel like a newborn foal wobbling around on spindly legs when we're more accustomed to feeling like a thoroughbred racing down the track.

Sometimes those first steps we take work, sometimes they're shaky, and sometimes they just go splat and we have to go back to the drawing board.

Face it. Beginnings are messy. And for most of us, that's an uncomfortable place to be.

Here's a revolutionary idea - when you try something new, don't fight it! Accept the messiness. Embrace it even. Don't make it personal. Beginnings are messy for everyone!

Create a new story around it. Rather than seeing it as a threat to your ego that likes to have everything under control and mastered, look at it as a big sandbox where you get to play, discover, and play some more based on what you learn. 

You can organize and prepare to your heart's content (a great procrastination tool!), but as soon as you start taking actual steps, you'll discover that it's just not neat and tidy. Messiness is an inherent part of starting at the beginning.

Given that, doesn't it make sense to change your story so you can benefit from the richness of that messiness, rather than let it tense you up and slow you down?

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Positive change tool: The End-of-Day Review

If you've ever tried to make a positive change in your life - maybe shifting a negative habit or a limiting belief - you know that it can be easier said than done. It would be nice if we could just flip a switch and be New & Improved (with 30% fewer calories!), but life typically doesn't work that way.

Think of making a positive change in terms of creating a new habit. Maybe you want to stop being so self-critical, or stop being such a perfectionist, or stop being so argumentative (or any one of a bazillion other changes you might want to make).

Make change a process

Instead of expecting yourself to make that change all at once - both noticing when it happens and immediately swapping out the new for the old - think of it as happening in stages.

Notice: First things first. If what you're trying to change is such an ingrained thing that it's what you naturally do without even noticing it, your first task is to start noticing it every time it happens. A habit is mighty hard to change if you don't notice what you're doing.

See the alternative: Noticing it consistently is a good start, but it's not enough. You have to be conscious of the alternative. 

Implement the alternative: Ultimately your goal is to put the new alternative into action. But even if you do a) notice it and b) see the alternative, it can be a challenge to make that change on the fly. Especially if what you are trying to change is an ingrained knee-jerk reaction.

Do an End-of-Day Review

A great tool to facilitate that positive change process is the End-of-Day Review. It's a way to take your change out of real-time and give yourself more time with it. It's simple. Every day, at the end of the day, spend a few minutes looking back at your day and ask, "Where did the old habit pop up?"

If you're in the "noticing" phase, don't worry about anything else at first. Just start training your brain to recognize when it happens. The more you practice you have seeing it in your End-of-Day Review, the more readily you will recognize it when it actually happens.

If you're trying to get better at seeing the alternatives, The End-of-Day Review is a great place to explore that. Each time you see the old habit cropping up, ask yourself, "What would an alternative have been? How could I have reacted to that? What are some different ways of looking at that?"

The more practice your brain has running through positive optinos, the more readily it will be able to gravitate to those options when it really counts.

Thought replacement: Make the positive habit-forming

Yesterday I wrote about the value of noticing whether your thoughts are negative, wasteful, necessary, or positive. Today I want to share a simple exercise to help you start habitually moving your thoughts in a positive direction.

Each time you find yourself thinking a negative or wasteful thought, stop and find a positive thought to replace it with. The positive thought might be related ("OK, what's good about this situation?") or it might be a complete tangent.

When you do this, you're accomplishing multiple things...

Loop interruption: Negative thoughts have a funny way of taking on a life of their own, feeding on themselves in an endless loop. With this exercise, you stop them cold. You interrupt the loop and replace it with something beneficial.

Awareness: Nothing focuses your attention on what's really going on in your mind like having to take action when it's less than preferable.

Positive practice: Not only does this actively break the negative loop, it also gives you practice finding the positive.

Try this exercise for a day first. Journal about how it went. What did you notice? Was it easy? Was it hard? Are you more positive than you realized? More negative? Was it easy or challenging to find positive replacement thoughts?

If you find the exercise beneficial, commit to doing it for another day. If you find yourself wanting more, commit to it for a week.

Bit by bit, your positive habit will start to grow.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst