Mind Map Your Way To Success – by Sue Courtney

So, If you are happy that you have written down all the goals you need right now (using the 4Ps), it is time to take action to create the life of your dreams.

Check your written goals to ensure they are sufficiently specific. A target weight is really necessary for weight loss goals, the specific make, model and colour is needed for a car, but for a house it might be better to state where you think you might like to live and focus on the feel of the home, leaving out the details (which can be put on your vision board). For my house goal I have worded it to say

“I am so happy and grateful to live in my wonderful sanctuary of a home where I enjoy frequently entertaining family, friends and clients and do wonderful, well paid work” because that is what I want. It covers all my requirements and leaves me open to how it is interpreted.

Hopefully you are visualizing and feeling the achievement of your goals daily and creating a vision board – always a work in progress as images are added and removed according to your current requirements.

The next step is to mind map the actions you will take to achieve them – because action is required. This is where the magic really begins.

On separate sheets of paper, write each goal in a circle in the centre of the page. Now chunk it down.

You are going to mind map all the actions you will need to take to achieve your goal and put them in circles around the centre circle. Join these actions to the centre goal, and also to each other if they relate, with a line. Then number each step in the order you will need to achieve them, maybe with dates to keep you on track. Put the dates in your diary and begin to take the first step today!

My mind map to create my book and CD set.

Photo by Alan Dent

It may be that you need to take a course or courses, so put that in a circle, plus the step of researching what course, where it is held and when it takes place. You may need to find extra money, do research on the internet or read some books. List all the steps.

Last week I mentioned experiencing your goal before achievement if possible – by taking the car for a test drive or viewing houses. This might be one of your steps on your mind map. It is often possible to do this for a job by asking if you might be able to shadow the person in your ideal job, for a day. If you fancy working in the film industry, why not join an extras company and spend a few days as an extra or a runner to see whether this really is the industry for you?

Once you have got your mind maps completed do all you can to stay on track. However, life will always throw up the unexpected – extra steps to be added to the plan that you initially had no idea about. That’s fine. Re-assess your priorities, slot the new steps into your schedule and push on to success!

The next tip for successful achievement of your goal is to step out of your comfort zone. This may feel safe but it is your worst enemy! If you want to achieve something you have never achieved before you are going to have to do things you have never done before – and this means venturing outside what feels safe and familiar.

Live here

Comfort Zone                                        Stretch Zone                                             Panic Zone

So, every day, do something different to get yourself used to feeling stretched. It doesn’t matter how small – maybe take a different route to work, try a different drink or meal, read a different genre of book – anything to get those stretch-zone muscles working for the important steps you need to take to achieve your goals. I’m sure you are familiar with the saying

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

You will have to become a different person and do different things to achieve your goals – if you could achieve them in your comfort zone you would already have done so!

I have this on my wall to remind me to be bold and try new things!

Photo by Alan Dent

Sometimes action steps will feel they are beyond your ‘stretch zone’ and in your ‘panic zone’. That is fine, they can still be tackled. You just need to chunk it down. Take steps back from the goal until you reach a step that feels like a stretch and do it. Then work out another small step and do that. In this way you will get there and still feel safe. If you are not sure whether you can do it, take the advice of Zig Ziglar:

“Go as far as you can see and you will see further.”

In this way, in small steps you change your stretch zone to your comfort zone and gradually bring your panic zone into your stretch zone. It is surprising how quickly you can achieve this.

I have done this on many occasions. When I first accepted a place on Jack Canfield’s Success Principles course I was so far out of my comfort zone it was a mere dot on the horizon! Now I am comfortable having coaches and mentors. I have moved my achievements out of my panic zone and into my comfort zone by taking action.

Make friends with your ‘stretch zone’ and it will enable you to do amazing things - in the words of Nike “Just Do It!”

Robin Sharma (author of “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” and other amazing books) offers this advice

“Dream big. Start small. Act now.”

I will share more tips next time, including how to deal with that voice we all have that tells us we can’t achieve things – because you really can!

I would love to hear what your goals are and what steps you are taking to achieve them, so please email me with your progress and any questions you may have.