Life Mapping Exercises

I’ve recently conducted two exercises to help me gain a greater sense of self-awareness about how I want to spend my time.

I’m sharing the two exercises I conducted in case they may inspire you to do something similar.

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Goal Setting

I recently conducted a goal setting exercise with one of my mentors Marshall.

The way it worked was we took about 2-3 minutes to write down as many goals as we could. Each goal was a simple thought and not too elaborate. The idea was to write down as much as you possibly could. It doesn’t matter the timeframe, category or how realistic they are.

After we created this list, we went through and ranked the top one’s we really felt were relevant to focus on in order.

I had about 7 goals that I chose to be my top goals of focus.

From there, we made each goal SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-based). We took the time to really blow out each goal and add as many details as we could around it.

When we completed this, I now had 7 goals that were top of mind for me. I’m going to re-write them down and put them on my desk so they stay top of mind.

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5 Year Visualization Exercise

I was going through a walk on the Little Island in NYC last week with with one of my closest friends Jake.

I was explaining to him that I had some free time on my hands but was having trouble to figure out how to spend it.

We sat down in the amphitheater of the park, and he walked me through a badass visualization exercise.

Imagine you see someone down a road. They are waving at you. You walk up to them to say hello, only to realize it’s you, but 5 years later.

Now where did you imagine this road was? What did you look like in 5 years? What were you wearing? Where did you come from and what were you going to do for the rest of your day?

Jake then said whatever you imagined that version of yourself wearing, go buy that outfit. Wherever you imagined yourself living, go move there. Don’t wait, start to live that life now.

A few days later, I started to think about every little detail of myself in 5 years. Now, not everything I wrote down was meant to be expedited to today, but it did help me get clarity about the things that I want to be working on right now.

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I’m always amazed that so few people take just a few hours every few months to think about their lives and what they want.

It’s incredible that such a short amount of time spent thoughtfully thinking about your life can change your trajectory.