Life Map: Follow Your Dreams

Perhaps you have heard of creating a life map as a means of achieving your goals in life? Creating a life map for yourself (also known as life mapping) involves taking a long, hard look not just at your career and your career goals, but also at every other aspect of your life.

“You are here!” You have surely been in a mall or some other public place and seen a map of the building with a little icon stating “You are here!” to designate exactly where you are standing right now in relation to every other location in the mall. Well, this same rule applies to life mapping.

Where you are right now in terms of your career, your personal life and other areas is your point of origin or your starting point of your life map. You are surely further along in achieving your goals than you were a few years ago, but you may not yet be where you want to be.

Take a look at your values and beliefs. What do you hold dear? What excites you? What bores you? To build the life of your dreams, it helps to “follow your bliss,” as Joseph Campbell famously stated. If you ignore your true desires in life, it is bound to come back and bite you in the form of a boring job that you despise or a dead end relationship, or some other unwanted result.

Be honest with yourself. Don’t give yourself rote answers or say what you think others will want you to say. What do YOU want to achieve in life? It takes courage to be true to yourself and your life dreams, especially if the people around you tend to be discouraging rather than encouraging. But if you don’t pursue your dreams, if you don’t at least give your dreams a shot, you could live to regret it.

Example: Let’s say your dream is to write a book but everyone around you thinks that pursuing such a dream is a waste of time. Try to shut out the “nay sayers” and stay true to your vision. You may succeed or you may fail, but at least you stayed true to your own vision of what you want your life to be and you tried.

After all, what is life without some risk taking? Take a chance on yourself and say yes to the idea of achieving your dreams. Create a life map in your mind or on paper and then try your absolute hardest to fulfill those dreams