Create a Mind Map to Visualize Your Goals for the Year

 

If you’re like me, you’re excited and ready to take on 2020.

I’m sure you’ve experienced the typical beginning-of-the-year adrenaline rush where you feel ready to take on the world and nothing seems impossible.

Fast forward 3 months and you’re lucky if you even remember half of your goals for the year. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Sure, you’ll still get a lot done for the year, but will it be the important things? Or will you get distracted?

Last year I tried something new.

I created a simple visual map of my goals for the year and made sure I would see it often to remind me.

That way if I strayed from my original goals it would be intentional, not accidental.

It worked so well last year that I’m doing it again this year, and I wanted to show you how to do it too!

Here’s my vision mind map from last year:

 

Click the image to enlarge

 

How to create your mind map

1. Choose your medium

If you typically prefer pen and paper, you can easily draw your mind map on a piece of paper or a whiteboard and print the photos you’d like to use to visualize your goals.

If you prefer software, here are two suggestions:

2. Choose your categories

You can see from the screenshot that there are seven main branches that come out from the center of my mind map:

  • Marriage & Family

  • Health & Fitness

  • Skills to Learn

  • Knapsack (my business)

  • Home Projects

  • Things to Buy

  • Places to Go

These are the categories I used to group my goals last year. This year I added a finances category, but of course you can use whatever categories you’d like.

3. Add your goals

If you already have your goals for the year figured out, awesome! Just add them right in as sub-branches to your main categories

If not, set aside some time this week to think through what you’d like to accomplish this year and add your goals to your map.

4. Add inspiring photos

This is the fun part! Adding images to your mind map will make your goals easy to visualize and help motivate you.

You can add photos that you’ve taken yourself or get them from somewhere like Unsplash. Or even pull them from a Google Image Search since you’re not publishing this anywhere.

On my mind map I added some photos of what I’d like my house to look someday. I also added an actual photo of my family for the family category to remind me of what’s important, and so on.

Now that you’ve created your mind map, lets make sure you it actually does you some good!

How to use your mind map

I recommend reviewing your mind map at least once a week. I typically read through mine every Monday when I sit down to list my top 3 priorities for the week.

If I didn’t have this reference it would be much easier for me to get distracted with something that seems urgent, but isn’t really important in the big picture.

Since my mind map is digital, I keep it in the dock on my computer so it’s always one click away.

If you have a physical copy, you may want to post it where you do most of your planning or thinking time.

Good luck creating your mind map and let me know how it works for you!

 
Entrepreneurship, Life HacksBenjamin ManleyGreat ToolsComment