The M.A.P. Maker

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

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

Aim for your dream: Out of reach doesn't mean impossible

There is nothing like a dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.

~ Victor Hugo

If you want to ensure that your life is dull, flat and uninspiring, just repeat this little mantra over and over: "My dreams are out of reach. My dreams are impossible."

A silly idea, you might think. Nobody would consciously try to deflate the potential of their dreams like that. And yet that is precisely what so many people do unconsciously. They look at their dreams and assess them as impossible, or unrealistic, or pie-in-the-sky. And they do it over and over again.

Imagine a world where everyone took that approach. Nothing new would happen. No ideas would ever be developed. Life would be flavorless and dull. We would all be stuck in an endless grey loop of what has always been. 

Here's the thing. Dreams are inherently out of reach. That's where they belong! If they weren't, we would simply call them the next logical step. And yet, the fact that they aren't readily accessible is often used as irrefutable proof that they're impossible.

That's flawed logic. There's a big difference between out of reach and impossible. Unfortunately, many people see them as the exact same thing.That's no surprise, really, since often the only difference between out of reach and impossible is what happens in the space between our ears. 

What is impossible today is impossible tomorrow. It doesn't change. But what is out of reach today might be a little closer to within reach tomorrow, and even closer next month. Think of a ship sailing toward the horizon. How much farther can it see once it reaches the original horizon? What is within reach is always expanding.

Dreams expand your potential. They give you something to grow into. They give you a sense of direction that matters. They also take time, and effort, and persistence.

The question to ask about your dreams isn't, "Can I easily achieve it?" It's, "Can I take a step in that direction?" And then, "Can I take another one?"

Achieving the big dream is almost less important than what happens when you commit to moving towards it. Committing to that direction and taking those steps opens doors, creates connections, and yields results you would never have imagined when you were sitting in the status quo. 

--

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

Big Dream Guidance System

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

~ Michelangelo

Stop for a minute and really think about this quote. Apply it to your own life. How high are you reaching? Where are you selling yourself short? Do you have aspirations you won't let yourself pursue? Most of us have potential that far exceeds the goals and dreams we actually allow ourselves to have.

Part of the reason we don't aim as high as we could is that the idea of having a target that is so far beyond the horizon we can see feels scary. What if we fail? What if it really is out of our reach? What if we aim at it and fall short? "See? I told you it was all just an unrealistic pipedream!" Ouch! With thoughts like that, no wonder we avoid the big dreams. 

The Big Dream Guidance System

One way to shift how you think about those big dreams is to see them as a way to define the direction and scope of your efforts. Think of them as a guidance system, rather than goals that must be achieved. 

For example, my big dream might be to be able to reach millions of people and help them create a life that lights them up while making a difference that inspires them. The idea of that many people making the world a better place by living a life they love is incredibly energizing.

To be more specific, I might want to have a string of best-selling books. I might want to be one of the top speakers in the world, touching thousands of people at a time. I might want to be a regular on Oprah and other talk shows.

If I look at that as my Big Dream Guidance System, it tells me that my primary focus - regardless of scale - is to help people make the world a better place through a career and a life they love. That is a constant whether I am doing it at a local level or an international level.

It also gives me a scope: writing and speaking. Again, these are things I want to focus on regardless of the scale I achieve. And as I focus on the things within that scope, I can see that other things I might find really interesting and fun - travel photography, for example - won't necessarily fit. That focus keeps my energy moving in a direction I really care about most.

Step by step with sub-dreams

Having that direction and scope then allows you to dream targeted "sub-dreams," smaller-scale dreams that aim your energy in the direction of your big dream.

One of my sub-dreams might be a single best-selling book. Or even just having a book accepted by a publisher. Or writing a book - published or not - just to show myself I can do it.

This is similar to the idea of identifying a big goal and chunking it down until you get manageable bites. But in this case, it's about harnessing the energy inherent in dreams.

You may never reach your big dream. But when you use it as a guidance system instead of a goal, that doesn't really matter. What matters is that it helps you plot a course for your life that will leave you feeling energized, inspired, and engaged.

--

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

Forecast your future with a letter to yourself

You've probably heard of the idea of writing a letter to your future self as a goal-setting tool. It's a way to say, "Hey future me, here's my intention for what I want to create in (1/5/10/etc.) years time. Here's the life I'm aiming for."

One of the challenges, of course, is remembering the letter once you write it. You know how it is. First it gets tucked safely away. Then it gets put somewhere else in a fit of organization. Then you move and it's somewhere in a box in the back of a closet. Then you forget about it entirely.

One way around that is FutureMe.org. You can write yourself an e-mail, set the date you want it delivered, send it on its way, and sit back and wait.

Imagine sitting down and writing yourself one to be delivered in one year, and then another in five years. What would you say?

The great thing about this kind of exercise is that it isn't just about goal setting. It's also about self-exploration. It forces you to sit down and say, "OK, what is it really that I want to create? No vagueness - get specific!"

And to do that, unless you just pull random ideas out of the air, you have to have a good understanding of what's important to you. Who are you, and who do you want to be? What do you want to achieve? What do you care about enough to turn it into your future reality?

Give it a shot. Who knows what you might discover!

--

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 not to measure success

Do you ever compare yourself to others and feel like you just aren't measuring up? Alexandra Levitt recently wrote about the perils of basing your internal feelings of worthiness on how you compare to others.

What's the danger of that? As she notes, there will always be someone who is "better" than you in any given category. So it's a game you can't win.

That got me thinking about another aspect of it, which is that when we compare ourselves to others, we typically aren't comparing ourselves to reality. We're comparing ourselves to our idealized version of what we think we see.

We often don't have the full story. For example, we see people's ultra-success, but don't see the warts-n-all reality behind the scenes. We don't see the bumps and bruises they've had along the way, or we don't see the fact that behind the face of public success lies a personal life in shambles.

So we end up comparing ourselves to a one-dimensional caricature, and then wonder why we come up short.

Looking at others can be good for goals and guidelines, but it's a poor way to measure actual success. Instead of an external measuring stick, try an internal one.

Start off by spending some serious time taking a 360-degree look at your own definition of what success really means in your life. Don't just blindly accept the definition you've been handed. What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? What's important to you? Do this for all facets of your life, not just work, because it's all interconnected.

Use benchmarks and measure your progress. Take stock of where you are today, set a goal, and then regularly check in to see how you're doing.

And while you're at it, take time to CELEBRATE your positive progress (but that's the topic for a whole new post).

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Need simple steps to re-energize your career?
Get started with 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work!

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

You can't do it all (right now).

Do you ever find yourself trying to accomplish so much that life leaves you feeling a little dizzy? You're spinning madly, trying to do more and more and more, all the while stretching ever thinner.

It's tempting to try to cram as much as we can into our bucket o' life, but the reality is, when it's full, something has to give. Something is going to spill over the side. That might be our relationships, our health, the quality of our work, some other adverse effect (or a combination of all of the above).

Over on Self-Help Daily, a post on accomplishing more by doing less got me thinking about a time in my own life when I was addicted to the high-energy pace of the 70-hour work week lifestyle. I wanted to think the volume of my bucket was bigger than most, but the truth was that it was sloshing over the sides at every turn.

One day a friend sat me down and said, "Curt, you're trying to do everything, and you're not doing anything well." Not what I wanted to hear, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was true.

I ended up making a list of all the things I had on my plate and forced myself to prioritize them. I divided my life into two-week segments and assigned tasks to the current segment, then the next, and so on.

Then, when I was tempted to try to do this, and this, and this, oh, and THIS TOO, I could say, "That would be nice, but it's not time for that yet." I was able to focus on a smaller range of tasks and do them better.

How could your life benefit by prioritizing and living it one chunk at a time?

--

Need to re-energize your career?
Get started with 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work!

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

8 simple questions to move you towards your dreams

Despite our best intentions, it can be easy to get blown off course from our goals and aspirations. The busyness of everyday life gets in the way. Or we start habitually doing things or acting in ways that are counter to what we say we want. Or maybe other people's thoughts and opinions start to influence our choices in a negative way. 

Whatever the cause, that drift is a normal part of the journey. It would be nice to be able to be on target, on purpose 24/7, but frankly, that's unrealistic. At the same time, you don't want to wander so far off course for so long that you completely lose sight of your dreams.

The solution? Check in with yourself on a regular basis so you can correct your course.

Here are eight simple questions to help you do a status check on your progress. They can help you catch yourself before you drift too far off course. They can help you identify what's happening in your life that is feeding the dream, and what's happening that is detracting from it.

Most importantly, they give you insight that you can then follow up with one of the most powerful questions I know: "What can I do about it?" That might mean, "How can I change what's wrong," or it might mean, "How can I build on the positive?"

What/who in my life is energizing me?

Take stock of the things in your life that are giving you energy. If you look at everything that happens over the course of a week, what activities leaves you feeling energized? Who is it enjoyable or inspiring to spend time with?

What/who in my life is draining me?

Instead of coasting along, unconsciously letting activities or people suck your energy away, this question is aimed at helping you shine the light on those energy leaks so you can plug them.

What am I doing right?

Sometimes we forget to acknowledge the great things we're accomplishing. We do something and our attention turns to the next item on our to-do list, without ever pausing to celebrate what we're doing right. More than that, our attention can be consumed by where our performance is less than preferable.

Between the two of those, it's a wonder we ever feel capable of moving our dreams forward.Reinforce your efforts by spending time focusing on what you're doing right.

What is distracting me from what's important?

How much time dribbles away in activity that is either standing still or backsliding? Where are you focusing your time and attention that is simply distracting you from what is really important.

These things might be clearly negative (spending five hours a day watching TV, for example), or they might be masquerading as something positive (overcommitting with your volunteer work, for example).

The key is to look at everything you do and ask, "Is this moving me toward my goal, or is it distracting me?"

What step do I need to take that I've been avoiding?

Are there any steps you know you should be taking, but that you're procrastinating or avoiding altogether? What are they? Make an inventory, pick the one that would be most beneficial, and commit to doing it.

Not only will this move you forward, it will also eliminate the seeping energy drain that comes from that little voice that keeps saying, "I know I should be doing this, but..."

Who do I appreciate?

Your journey isn't just about you. It's also about the people who support that journey in many different ways, both professionally and personally. 

It's easy to take the people in our lives for granted. Don't. Take a look at who you appreciate. Then - and here's the best part - tell them.

Who needs my help?

It's not just a one-way street. Just as we can open ourselves to help, there are many ways we can help others as well. Maybe big, maybe small.

Not only does this keep the cycle of giving going, but research also shows that there is a very real personal benefit to helping others. It also keeps you from getting so caught up in your own process that you lose perspective.

What do I need to know?

Finally, look at where you are and where you're going and ask, "What do I need to know?" What knowledge do you need to be able to take the next step. What lack of knowledge is keeping you from taking the next step?

So there you have it. Eight simple questions that - if you ask them regularly and follow them up with the power question, "What can I do about that" - will keep you focused and moving towards your goals and aspirations.

--

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: Make 52 "New Week's resolutions"

Do you make New Year's resolutions? What's your success rate on actually following through on them? If it's anything like the statistical success rate of the general population, I'm guessing it's pretty dismal (and if it's not, kudos to you!).

If you really want to make an impact on your life, make one resolution this year, and one resolution only...

"I resolve to make 52 New Week's resolutions in 2009."

You can read more about taking a New Week's resolution approach in my post over on the U.S. News & World Report blog.

Wishing you a rich, fulfilling 2009. May it bring you precisely what you need.

--

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

Readjusting dream logistics (292 days at sea - and counting)

Turning a big dream into reality isn't just a matter of deciding where you want to go and setting the controls to autopilot. It takes hard work and persistence. More than that, it takes a willingness to adapt on the fly as you encounter unexpected obstacles.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is running into an obstacle and letting it stop them, rather than saying, "OK, what are my options now?"

My friend Erden Eruc (pronounced air-DEN air-ROOCH) is a master at asking that question. He is currently on a quest to circumnavigate the globe by human power (by bike, foot, and ocean rowing boat), with a summit attempt on the highest peak of each of six continents in the process. He is also the founder of a non-profit called Around-n-Over, focused on using the journey to educate and inspire kids (I'm on the Around-n-Over board).

Since a first meeting about his dream in 2003, I have watched him pursue it with dogged tenacity. Nothing stops him. He has bicycled from Seattle to Alaska in the winter and climbed Mt. McKinley. He biked across the US. And he rowed across the Atlantic from Portugal to the Caribbean islands. Through it all, he has found ways to make the logistics (financial, bureaucratic, health, equipment, etc.) work in the face of what seems to me crazy odds.

One of the things I find most inspiring is the way he deals with obstacles, either finding ways around them, or - if they really are insurmountable obstacles - asking, "What's the spirit of what I'm trying to do," and adjusting his efforts accordingly.

Right now, Erden is 292 days into a row across the Pacific. His goal was to row from San Francisco to Brisbane, Australia. Unfortunately, unusual winds and currents have prevented him from being able to get south of the equator.

Recognizing that there was nothing he could do about where the winds and currents were allowing him to row, he came back to the spirit of his dream - a successful, safe, human-powered circumnavigation of the globe. As it became clear that Australia was not going to happen, he readjusted his sights, now aiming for the Phillipines en route to landfall on the mainland of Asia and ultimately on to Everest and beyond.

As he describes it in his dispatches at sea...

It would have been nice to reach Australia as was the original plan with this long crossing, which is progressing mostly at the whim of the Pacific. Yet a door closed creates other opportunities to be pursued.

If Erden had a rigid attachment to his expectations of exactly how the journey needed to unfold, this leg of it would already be considered a failure. He didn't reach his goal - Australia. But by keeping it in the context of his bigger vision and the spirit of the dream, and adjusting his plans to adapt to reality, he continues to move forward towards ultimately making a dream reality.

Because his dream is so big, how it unfolds may end up looking completely different than the original plan (it has already changed numerous times along the way to adapt to various unforeseen challenges).

But that same bigness creates an enormous canvas for Erden to paint the spirit of the dream. In the end, it's not the logistics that matter, it's what the journey is about.

As I mentioned, Erden's non-profit, Around-n-Over, was founded with a focus on educating and inspiring kids to dream, believe, and achieve. You can see the education portal here.

If Erden's efforts inspire you, find out how you can support his journey and Around-n-Over here.

www.around-n-over.org