The M.A.P. Maker

Create a positive reference guide to yourself

When it comes to pursuing (and achieving) your dreams, self-belief plays an enormously positive role. But even the most confident of us can occasionally get caught up in a downward spiral of self-doubt. So what to do?

One idea is to create a positive guide to yourself. Start by asking some questions:

• What have I done that I am proud of?
• What have I achieved?
• Where have I succeeded?
• What have I done well?
• What would others say I have done well?

The answers can be big things or small things. Basically what you're doing is creating a list of positive outcomes.

For each of the things you come up with, ask yourself, "What is it that allowed me to do that? What skills do I have that helped me accomplish that? What characteristics do I have? What knowledge do I have?"

Start building a picture of not only what you have done well, but also why you have been able to do that. The more you understand about why you have succeeded in the past, the better equipped you are to see how those things might apply to success in the future.

This exploration focuses your attention on the positive, but more than that, it creates a positive reference guide to yourself that you can refer to in the future. You can pull it out when you're starting to feel down on yourself, or any old time you want a reminder.

Try this: Instead of doing this in one positive binge, try making it an ongoing part of your weekly habit. Start by making the list from the questions above (and any others that come to mind) and each week pick two or three to explore.

By making it an ongoing habit, you incorporate a regular, systematic positive focus into your week.

--

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.

Your mistake has a gift for you. Will you accept it?

In a M.A.P. Maker podcast a few months ago, Howard Behar (former President of Starbucks) talked about the value of what he called "celebrating failure." Here's what he had to say:

So when you do something like that, you’re forced to ask yourself the question, what did I miss there? And I think that if you can celebrate that – and I don’t mean you go throw yourself a big party and say, “Yay! We were a failure! Isn’t it wonderful?!” I’m not talking about that. But I’m talking about celebrating the fact that we tried something, and it didn’t work, and then understanding what we did, how we would have made it better, and what changes we would have made.

Like them or not, mistakes often come bearing gifts if we're open to receiving them. Today, over on the US News & World Report blog, I explore that idea, inspired by one of my favorite quotes from Miles Davis: "Do not fear mistakes. There are none."

Read: What if you'd made no mistakes in 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

Creative problem solving workbook (free)

There's never a time when problem-solving isn't a good skill to master, but in a career environment as challenging as today's, it becomes absolutely vital.

Here's an interesting workbook focused on creative problem solving. It takes you through several different aspects of problem solving, including:

Mess Finding: an effort to identify a situation that presents a challenge.

Data Finding: an effort to identify all known facts related to the situation; to seek and identify information that is not known but essential to the situation is identified and sought.

Problem Finding: an effort to identify all the possible problem statements and then to isolate the most important or underlying problem.

Idea Finding: an effort to identify as many solutions to the problem statement as possible.

Solution Finding: using a list of selected criteria to choose the best solution(s) for action.

Acceptance Finding: making every effort to gain acceptance for the solution, determine a plan of action, and implement the solution.

--

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

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Crossroads: How to achieve your dreams one choice at a time

Lately I've been working on some aspects of my life that haven't been working for me. Habits, ways of thinking, etc. that simply haven't been leading me in the direction I want to go.

I haven't been making big sweeping changes. I've been working on creating a better path one choice at a time. As so often happens, I started thinking of an analogy for what I've been doing.

It occurred to me that every time I was confronted with the choice of whether to pursue the old mode that wasn't taking me where I want to go, or the new mode, I was in essence at a crossroads. And depending on the choice I made, I was taking a step toward the life I want or a step away from it.

After I started thinking about that, it wasn't long before I hit the whiteboard to sketch out a visual. I scribbled something like this:

For me, it was helpful to see a visual of the idea. Every point along the way has the potential to lead me toward what I want (the green) or away from it (the brown). But not only that, the visual reinforced the notion that, even if I slip, movement towards where I want to go is only one choice away. In fact, every crossroad is the potential beginning for an endless series of positive choices.

It's unrealistic to think that every step and every choice is going to lead you in the right direction. But keeping this crossroads concept in mind can make it easier to consciously take a path that leads to the life you want. You end up with something a little like this.

 The beauty of this approach is that it really focuses your attention on the question of, "What choice am I making right now? Which direction am I choosing right now?"And it's the cumulative effect of those individual choices that takes you where you want to go.

You can apply this at any level, from the macro (would taking this job lead me in a direction I really want to go?) to the micro (e.g., creating a new habit). 

Where are the crossroads in your life? What choices are you making?

--

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 "Just one more"

I have a simple three-step plan for turning your dreams into reality. Want to hear it? Here you go:

1) Work your ass off.
2) Keep working your ass off.
3) Work your ass off just a little bit more.

A positive mindset is a great way to maximize the potential for manifesting the life you want, but if you want to maximize the likelihood, your best bet is to pair that up with some good old-fashioned hard work and persistence.

When it comes to hard work and persistence, this post on about the "just one more" solution (always making one more effort) got me thinking about how powerful a just-one-more-attempt approach can be.

Why do I love the idea? Two reasons. First, it keeps you in the present. Just one more isn't about the ten attempts you made in the past or the ten more you might have to make in the future. It's about focusing your effort on the here and now.

When you stay in the present, you can focus all your energy on your immediate efforts without having it drained off by the frustration of past and potential future efforts.

Second, just one more is always doable. It's simply one more step, and that's how your dreams are likely to unfold - step-by-step.

What about your life? Is there anyplace where you can say, "Just one more?"

--

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 use questions to create a positive perspective

If you've been reading what I write for any stretch of time, you know what a huge fan I am of questions. I think the question mark is the single most important piece of punctuation on the planet.

A couple days ago I wrote a post about using negative thoughts to launch a positive perspective. In it, I mentioned the idea of asking questions to help you find the positive. I want to take a deeper look at that idea.

Questions are inherently about opening doors. As tools to help you build a positive perspective, they can shift your focus and open your eyes to things you may not have been paying attention to.

Here are some questions to help you shine a light on the positive in your life.

• What's good in my life right now?
• What do I appreciate?
• Whom do I appreciate?
• Who appreciates me?
• What small thing am I thankful for?
• What big thing am I thankful for?
• How am I fortunate?
• What has happened today/this week/this month that's good?
• What brought me pleasure today?
• What do I like about myself?
• What do I like about the people around me?
• Where is the beauty around me right now?
• What one thing in my immediate surroundings can I admire and/or appreciate?
• What sense can I enjoy right now? (Do you hear birds? Smell something good? See something aesthetically pleasing? Feel something soft?)
• What memory brings a smile to my face?
• What am I proud of?
• What positive thing would people say about me?
• What is giving me energy today? What could be giving me energy if I let it?
• Where is the smile waiting to happen in my day?

Sometimes the positive perspective comes from shifting the meaning you attach to the negative experience. Here are some questions to help you find positive meaning in challenging circumstances.

• What can I learn from this?
• Where is the gift here?
• What message does this have for me?
• What does this help me see that needs changing?
• If I had to find a positive way to look at this, what could it be?
• What is this forcing me to do that I've been avoiding?
• What insight is this giving me that will enable me to be more _____ in the future? (Fill in the blank with the relevant characteristic)
• Who can I help as a result of having had this experience?

It's not all just about sitting and noodling about positive things in your head. You can also take specific steps to help bring a more positive perspective into view.

• Who can I reach out to for a positive connection?
• Who can I tell that I appreciate them?
• Who can I ask for positive feedback?
• Who can I help? How?
• What can I do right now that I enjoy?
• What can I plan that I enjoy?
• Where can I spend time today that makes me feel good (e.g., the park, your favorite coffee shop, etc.)?

I would love to hear your take on this. What questions would you suggest to help create a positive perspective?

--

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

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

How to get traction from your action

One of the joys of self-employment is that I get to do whatever I choose. That's also one of the perils. It's too easy to get caught up doing things that have the flavor of work, but are really just ways to chase my own tail. They might be fun and interesting, but aren't actually taking me anywhere.

One of the questions I have started asking regularly when choosing how to spend my time is, "Is this moving me forward? How?"

Asking that question forces me to be honest about what I'm doing. I don't even want to think about how many hours/days/weeks I have spent taking action that amounted to little more than fun busy work when I shine the light of that question on it.

Asking how ties my activity directly to what it is I say I want to accomplish. It takes away the wiggle room and ensures that how I'm choosing to spend my time really is moving me towards what I want to achieve.

That's not to say I have to be rigid about it. I can still choose to spend my time in ways that aren't directly moving me forward, but when I do it should be a conscious choice and not a way to fool myself into thinking I'm doing something productive.

Try this: For a week, do an end-of-day review each day. Look at how you have spent your time and ask yourself, "Is this moving me forward? How?"

--

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).

--

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

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

How to thrive with a positive personal ecosystem

With all the bad news in the media, it's easy to get sucked into a sky-is-falling view of the world. But guess what? Despite all the gloom and doom, positive things are still happening all around us.

People are still making money. They're still happy. They're still experiencing positive personal growth. People are still finding bliss.

Are people experiencing bad things as well? Of course. But why would you choose to let that define what you are going to experience in your life?

Just because challenging things are happening doesn't mean they have to happen to you. And if they do happen to you, just because other people are wailing and gnashing their teeth about how horrible they are doesn't mean that you have to respond that way.

Take a cue from Pigpen

Remember Pigpen from the Peanuts comic strip? Everywhere he went, a cloud of dust and dirt would follow him. He had his own personal environment that didn't seem to have anything to do with the environment around him.

You can do the same thing, creating a positive personal ecosystem that surrounds you as you move through your life. Except instead of a cloud of dust, it's a cloud of positive perspective and positive experience. 

How? The first step is being consciously aware that you're doing it. Choose to invest in creating it. Once you do that, here are some ideas that will help form and strengthen that positive personal ecosystem.

Keep things in perspective

If negative things are happening in your life, don't let them fill any more of the picture than they really merit. Too often we let whatever challenges we're experiencing swell to fill the room, leaving precious little space for us to experience what's good.

Imagine it as a pie chart, with individual slices assigned to all the things in our lives, good and bad. When you lose perspective, the negative slice takes up almost the entire pie. But if we look at it realistically, there is typically a lot that is positive that we're essentially ignoring because we're choosing to wallow in what's wrong.

Make sure your slices of the pie are in line with reality.

Focus on the positive

It's easy to focus on the negative. It's the whole bur-under-the-saddle thing. It hurts, so it grabs your attention. But what you focus on will determine how you see the world, so make it a habit to spend time every day focusing on what's positive in your life.

Use your commute to take mental note of what's good in your life. Write a list every morning, or every night. Schedule a regular time with a friend to get together and talk about nothing but what is right in your life.

Surround yourself with positive people

I can't stress this enough. In a way, you will become the people you surround yourself with. If everyone around you is negative and pessimistic, it will drag you down. If the people around you have a positive attitude and believe in their potential to create a vibrant, fulfilling life - regardless of the circumstances - you will start to live up to that.

Use tools to build it

There are many different tools you can use to build that positive personal ecosystem. Explore meditation. Pray, if that's something you do. Keep a gratitude journal (or a positive journal). Experiment with EFT. 

Anything you can use to help build the positive and eliminate the negative in your mindset is a potential tool.

Look for the possibilities

Create an outlook that is jam-packed with possibilities and potential.

Make a habit of looking for possibilities. When you're faced with an obstacle, trying brainstorming as many ways around it as you can. Do this for big obstacles and small ones. Take advantage of any opportunity to exercise this part of your brain.

While you're at it, look for possibilities even when you aren't encountering obstacles. Many life-expanding opportunities zip right by us, simply because we're not paying attention.

The more possibilities you see, the more choices you have. And the more choices you have, the less likely you are to feel trapped and stuck. And ultimately, the less likely you will be to fall into a victim mentality. You'll be driving the bus instead of sitting in the back breathing in exhaust fumes.

Plant seeds

Don't sit around and wait for the positive to unfold in your life. It might happen, but it's a lot less like than if you actively cultivate it. Look for ways to create fertile ground and plant seeds of potential. Maybe that means building relationships. Maybe that means letting people know what you want to do. Maybe it means telling the world what you have to offer - and doing it consistently and persistently. 

The more seeds you plant, and the more work you do to create fertile soil for them to take root in and grow, the more potential there is for the positive to come into your life. It's simple math.

Feed the positive

Make a conscious choice to feed your positive outlook by what you expose your brain to. Watch inspiring movies. Read motivating books. Attend inspiring talks. Continually exposing your mind to, "Yes!" helps create that positive perception of the world. 

Eliminate the "junk food"

The flip side of that coin is cutting out the emotionally toxic junk food. Violence and bad news adds nothing to your life. There is no upside to it. All it does is contribute fear, anxiety, and doubt. Stop watching television news. Even better, cut out TV altogether. Choose not to watch movies that reinforce a dark view of the world.

Care for yourself

Your body and brain is the factory that is creating your experience of life. And for a good experience, that factory needs proper maintenance. Eating well and incorporating physical activity into your life will support your ability to feel good.

Do good

Study after study has shown the benefits of doing good. Volunteer. Give. Spend time focusing on helping others. Not only does it feel good, it takes your mind off whatever difficulties you might be experiencing and helps put things in perspective.

Have a vision

I can almost guarantee that you will feel bumps along the way. But if you have a vision for the life you want to create and the difference you want to make, those bumps will be easier to tolerate. It might not take away the pain, but it will give you something positive to focus on as you move through them. 

As Nietzsche said, "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

So there you have it. This by no means an exhaustive list of ways to create your positive personal ecosystem, but it's a good place to start.

How about you? What has been effective in feeding your own positive personal ecosystem? What approaches do you take? Do you have thoughts on any of these that I listed? Other suggestions? I would love to hear your ideas.

--

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