Try a Mind Map to Find Something New About Yourself

Take this idea for what it is worth...It doesn't work for everyone, but for me it seems to do the job. When I am trying to regain some semblance of balance in my life (aka control the chaos), I sit down and map out some goals for myself. I have a notebook where I jot down all of my random tidbits including my goals. But, instead of creating yet another long list of to-dos for myself, I do two things.

First, I just write about how I envision my life at the end of the next month or thee months, or whatever the time frame is. I write about how I would like to see it. Then, I create a "mind map." I just draw a square in the middle of the paper and put "me." Then, I draw lines coming out of the box covering all different aspects of my life (or at least what is important to me at the time). I usually have family, personal, health/fitness, finance, etc.

Then each of these lines have lines branching off as well with specific things I want to do in this area, things I am worried about, what I would like more of (or less), just anything that is on my mind. When I am done, it looks like a spiderweb. Then in a bright colored pencil, I circle what seems to be pressing on me the most, what I found most interesting, what I would like to focus on, anything basically that gives me new insight that I didn't have before. And then I just focus on building these areas.

Who knows, maybe I make this way too complicated for myself, but mapping it out like this helps me see things differently. A lot of times, ideas will come, something will stand out and I find my answer on how to put balance back into my act. It is a free format; just write what comes to mind and run with it. Hope some of this helps spark a new creative twist to rediscovering yourself.

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