Category: Mapping Your Future

Milestone to Milestone

When we are planning a long trip, we can sometimes get thrown off track by how long it takes to go from the start to actually completing the journey.  The larger the travel or, the less experience you have traveling, the more arduous the trip may seem before you go. This is especially worrisome if you have not taken a trip like this before.

When I was a kid, going on a family vacation for two weeks across five or six states seemed almost impossible. I was never sure we would make it to the end of the day, much less through the entire trip and back home. Yet as we started out, even with all my doubts, I began to understand. We stopped every day for lunch. We stayed at a motel for the night. Ate dinner and saw a local place of interest or swam and watched TV. And we even made it to our destinations and back home in one piece.

When I was much older, I started traveling overseas to perform modifications and repairs on electronic equipment. The first few times were again a little unnerving, yet I soon learned how to journey, and how to get the job done and make all my connections. By the time I was through traveling I had been to five of the seven continents, most of them several times.

It is sometimes difficult and arduous to plan and take a trip somewhere new when everything is firm and in place. Imagine how much harder is to design a trail and find your way to where you want to be in the future. Some may call this impossible, yet, if you research and plan and calculate carefully, you can make it. After all, if you’re looking at a five or 10-year plan, we hope that you are still around in five or ten years to enjoy the outcome of your hard work.

Most young people fresh out of high school or college may have some concerns. However, if you’re willing to add in a little elbow grease and some research, most people can do this.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Two Significant Steps

As we go through our lives, there are many essential steps that we take.  Some take us towards the things we desire, and others do not.  Two steps are most important. The first step is when you’ve decided what you really want to do in life and put your foot on the path to making that goal happen. The second is when you’ve reached your goals and take your first step off the trail you have been following.

There is a lot of wisdom and work that goes into understanding and planning where you want to go in life and what you want to do. If you are planning this, you want to find information on your goals, talk with others, especially mentors and professionals in the fields you are interested in working. You want to think ahead and plan, knowing that the plans will change, and therefore you want to be prepared, so those changes are natural.

As you take this path which you have worked out, there will probably be obstacles that get in your way. You cannot let these obstacles completely derail you if you really want to obtain your goals. If you really want to get to your end goals, you may need to find ways around any roadblocks or washouts that could possibly block you from your desires. For this, you need to stay limber enough to adjust and adapt when those occasions arise.

The second most significant step that you will take is knowing when you have reached your goals, and you step off the path, or at least settle down and make camp. This is tricky. As you work towards those things you desire, other ideas and goals will spring up. You need to figure out which ones enhance and which ones detract from where you want to end up.

As you follow your plan to reach your goal, new goals will crop up. Sometimes these new goals push you further than you originally wanted to go on your outset. And some of these new goals may move you off your planned path altogether and onto new trails. Whichever of these comes up, only one person can make a choice to do one thing or the other. You.

Sometimes you find yourself stuck on the path and reaching for new goals only because you find a void in your life. When you get to that point, you must stop and consider what your original plans entailed and ensure that you are not just doing busywork to fill the emptiness left by the things you used to do.

Whatever you decide your next move should be, make sure it’s right for you and those who have made this journey with you.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Getting to Where You Need to Be

The question we look at often is why. Why this? Why me? Why now? Yet, many times the why is just superfluous.

If you have a situation going on, something out of the regular routine of your life, the real questions are what and how. What do I do about this? And, how do I do it?

You can spend days and weeks going over the why. As an after action report the why becomes essential because you have a chance to not get in the same problem area again. Until then, you need to improve the situation.

There are two ways to map your path out of any situation. You can start mapping where you are and plan towards where you want to be. Or, you can reach out ahead of yourself and figure out where you want to be, and then map backward to where you are. Here is a sample of each.

Mapping Forward

This is the situation I am in now (write it out). To get to where I want to go, I have to do A (write out whatever step A is.) Then I have to do B (write out whatever step B is.) And finally, I have to do C, and of course, you write out whatever that is also.

map a
map a

 

Mapping Backwards

Sometimes, mapping backward is more straightforward. You know where you need to be, so you start by listing that. Then you start working back. Before I can get to my destination, I am must do C, (write out whatever it is you need to do at step C.) Before I can get to step C, I must do step B. Don’t forget to record step B. The action between where I am now and step B looks like it may be too much of a stretch. I better put in a step A. We better record that one also.

 

map B

These are just Two of the avenues to get to where you want to be.  Wherever you are going, Have a good and a safe trip.

 

Transition

I’m a life coach. Although formally being a life coach is something new to me, it is something I’ve done most of my life. I did this as a team chief in the Air Force, a supervisor and a trainer at a high-tech contract manufacturing plant, and helping people to prepare for interviews and write resumes to gain new employment.  I have spent a lot of time as the coach, helping people to see their way to their own victories.

Life stage transition sometimes sounds like a big thing. It can seem like, “Oh my goodness! I am going to change and never come back to where I was.” The truth of the matter is we’re continually changing. As we grow and we learn more, or our circumstances change, or our needs change we find ourselves in the state of transition. Some transitions we can know about and plan for and some transitions we do not always see coming at us. And yet, transitions are a thing that we do have to face.

I am releasing a new course on life stage transition soon. It is a course designed, not to scare you, it is intended to help you understand, face things head on, and in doing so not spend extra time or money, you do not have to overspend to get what you really want out of the transition. Keep an eye on this blog, and I will gladly keep you in the loop as to when the course opens up, and how you can take the course.

I look forward to talking with you again tomorrow. Tomorrow I will show you some exciting new video from our course.

Have a great day.

Working Hard for You

Hi Everyone,

We are out working hard for you.  We hope to have your new online course out on Thinkific by next week.  I am looking forward to meeting you both one on one and in the course as we debut our pilot.

The video below gives you an idea of what the course will be about.

I am looking forward to showing you more tomorrow ~ Mike