The M.A.P. Maker

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!

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

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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!

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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?

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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.

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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

Adjust and adapt on the path to your dreams

A venture capitalist once told me, "I can tell you one thing about the business plan of anyone who comes through that door...it's wrong."

His point wasn't that the people who were seeking investment were bad at planning, or stupid, or unreasonable. It was that the business plans inherently represented best guesses. And as the companies move forward in the real world, the reality they encounter gives them more information that either confirms the plan or shows its flaws. And based on that information, they adjust and adapt. 

As this VC saw it, the company is rare that has the dream, executes it, and ends up with exactly what they intended. They have to make course corrections all along the way.

It's the same in our own careers as well. Often success isn't a matter of identifying a goal and rigidly grinding away towards it. It's identifying a goal that inspires you, taking steps towards that goal, and adjusting and adapting based on what you encounter.

Part of that process is taking the time to stop and evaluate. "What do I know now that I didn't know then?  How does that affect what I'm doing? Are there steps I'm taking that aren't working? Are there steps I need to take that I'm not currently taking? Does my goal need to be revised? Are there opportunities I see now I didn't recognize before?"

The more you can pay attention to what's happening and adjust and adapt accordingly, the greater your potential for turning that dream (or something like it) into reality.

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Do you know "how-to?"

When it comes to achieving our goals, identifying the what-to's can be crucial - that is, identifying what smaller steps will lead you there, then taking them to reach your goal.

But what about the how-to's?

In one chapter of How to Change the World (one of my current morning reading books), the author describes how, in the early days of Ashoka (an organization that supports social entrepreneurs with new, paradigm-shifting ideas), they grappled with exactly what constituted a "new idea."

It turns out that the new idea is not one thing; it is a product of "how-tos." A new idea might include these considerations: How to better use local resources to solve a problem? How to overcome cultural obstacles? How to get legislation passed? How to finance an organization? How to train others to do the work? How to motivate clients and staff?

That paragraph got me thinking about how important the how-to concept is to our own individual efforts. Understanding the steps to take to reach our goals is great, but the path isn't always clear or easy. The how-to's give us some tools to help us navigate the landscape along the way.

Our own personal how-to's might give us an understanding of, for example:

• How to overcome obstacles that come up
• How to plant seeds for the future's potential
• How to create an environment that foster serendipity
• How to stay energized

None of those are specific steps along the way to reaching your goals. They're more meta-steps that help you get the most out of your journey.

When you have identified your how-to, you have a template you can apply to many different situations, which can have a simplifying effect on some of life's complexity. There are a bazillion things that could get in your way, for example, but many of them can be overcome by taking the same basic approach. It takes some of the guesswork and uncertainty out of the picture.

How do you create your how-to's? Questions are a great place to start. Take "overcoming obstacles," for example. You might ask yourself:

• How do I typically approach an obstacle?
• What problem-solving techniques work best for me?
• What questions do I need to ask any time I'm confronted with an obstacle?
• How do I identify what I need to know in order to overcome this obstacle?
• What are the resources that help me overcome obstacles?

When you have a conscious picture of how you do something, you can put less energy and time into wondering what to do and more energy and time into moving forward.

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM