Part 6 Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes

The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make you lose your way. But oftentimes our plans are modified along the way due to some inconveniences, delays, and other situations beyond our control. Like in any path, there are turns, detours, and potholes thus; we must anticipate them and adjust accordingly.

Part 5 Landmarks and Route: S.M.A.R.T. objectives

Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track while the route determines the travel time. Thus, in planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. Thus you cannot set two major landmarks such as earning a master’s degree and a doctorate degree within a period of three years, since the minimum number of years to complete a master’s degree is two years. Going back to Jean as an example, she identified the following landmarks in her life map: completing a bachelor’s degree in biology by the age of 21; completing medicine by the age of 27; earning her specialization in infectious diseases by the age of 30; getting deployed in local public hospitals of their town by the age of 32; and serving as doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.

Part 4 Travel Bag: Your knowledge, skills, and attitude

Food, drinks, medicines, and other travelling necessities are contained in a bag. Applying this concept to your life map, you also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. Given such, there is a need for you to assess what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way. This two-fold assessment will give you insights on your landmarks or measures of success. Jean realized that she needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on medicine so that she could become a doctor. She knew that she was a bit impatient with people so she realized that this was something she wanted to change.

Part 2 Destination: A vision of who you want to be

“Who do want to be?” this is your vision. Now it is important that you know yourself so that you would have a clearer idea of who you want to be; and the things you want to change whether they are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you hardly know yourself, then your vision and targets for the future would also be unclear. Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Continuing Jean’s story, after she defined her beliefs, values, and principles in life, she decided that she wanted to have a life dedicated in serving her fellowmen.

Life Mapping: A Vision of Success Part 1

Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. Planning for success is about mapping out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.

Origin: Who you are

A map has a starting point. Your origin is who you are right now. Most people when asked to introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m Jean and I am a 17-year old, senior highschool student.” It does not tell you about who Jean is; it only tells you her present preoccupation. To gain insights about yourself, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic, professional, cultural, and civil status. Moreover, you can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection, Jean realized that she was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. Her inclination was in the biological-medical field. Furthermore, she believed that life must serve a purpose, and that wars were destructive to human dignity.

Don’t believe Everything you hear

Why There Is More Opportunity today, Not Less

I was reading in a success mag a story about why there is more opportunity today than ever. The story is by Blair Singer is a trainer, speaker and creator of Sales Dogs, a methodology that offers sales and communication success, and has helped thousands increase their income worldwide.

In Blair’s article he starts off with a pop quiz “ok, here’s your pop quiz of the week, the terms: inflation, recession, deflation and depression. Are they economic terms or are they psychological terms,

I would like to hear what everyone things about this quiz.

Tony Robbins Leadership starting point

I have read a lot of store about leaders that have had to go through so much, but that is what made them who they are today. A good example of a great success story that I read last week is about a man by the name of Tony Robbins you may know of him, but have you ever heard his leadership starting point.

He lived in a small 400-square-foot apartment in Venice , Calif. It was there where he was reduced to washing dishes in the bathtub. He was 30 pounds overweight, had a dead – end job, and in relationships that weren’t working.

“I was extremely unhappy, and couldn’t stand who I was because I knew I had the potential to be so much more,” he says. “I think there are many people who can relate to what I was experiencing the pain of being in a rut and feeling like there’s no way out.”

“There are many people who live in what I call ‘No man’s land,’ a place where you’re not really happy, but you’re not unhappy enough to do anything about it,” he says.

He had to hit rock bottom, and that forced him to take action. That was his leadership starting point. He had to use the negative feelings to fuel him to do better. He had no choice. He had to change.

One day his car run out of gas, and it was not because he forgot to put gas in it. It was because he had no money. After walking home there was a note on his door that said that he had 30 days to get all of his stuff out. What a day that was for him. When he hit that threshold of pain he could no longer live the way he was living his life, he made the change.

He decided at that time that he was going to go for a run, and he run until he thought he was going to cough up blood. He picked up a journal there on the beach, drew a line in the middle of the page, and on one side wrote everything he would no longer stand for in his life. This was virtually everything he was living at the time. However, on the other side he wrote everything he was now committed to.

This is a great story. Sometimes you have to hit the wall of unhappiness before you make the change that you need to make before you will change. However, way wait your leadership starting point can start today.

That is what this blog is all about getting started!

That change has resulted in big business for Robbins, who serves as chairman of five companies all geared toward his creed of improving the quality of life for people around the world. Robbins Research International Inc., based in San Diego, stages more than 100 events a year, offers professional coaching services, and a variety of multimedia programs, including his best-selling the Ultimate Edge and Personal Power CD programs, which have sold more than 35 million units worldwide. He also created the award-winning Namale Resort and spa in Fiji , where he also spends a few months each year.

But none of the success he enjoys would ever have happened if he hadn’t been able to find a way to break through his own limitations. He had to get clear about what he really wanted, and harness the fuel of human emotion to force himself to consistently take action to make his dreams a reality.

You can read more about Tony Robbins in the Success magazine January 2009