Week 1: Map Your Path + Day 1: Journal Brainstorm

No matter how old you are, the rest of your life is an unknown that stretches out in front of you. Where will it take you next? You cannot see the future, but you can have a guiding vision of how you want to live and act, who you want to serve, and how you want to grow. 

This week you will learn the habit of mapping your path. Life presents you with decisions every day- too many, too quickly; it helps to have a map to refer to. Your map will be a collection of ideas, beliefs, and possibilities that will inform your daily choices. Some of these are not really new ideas; you are already using them as a guide. But this week you will get them down on paper in a form that is a useful reference.

The alternatives to mapping your path are to wing it - be completely spontaneous - (great for ducks but not always for people), or let others choose for you, but your life journey is too important to trust solely to chance or the advice of others. No one else can draw a map for you; you need to create your own vision, and discern your own path.

Some of you are happiest trusting your instincts and intuitions on life's path, paying subtle attention to the Inner Guide with very little thinking and planning, and that is absolutely fine. Please try this habit in the simplest format you can, because it will help to ground you. 

Some of you, like me, are happiest when you plan for every contingency: Please don't allow yourselves to get stuck on this step... at the end of one week, move on! 

The Mapping Habit has several parts, which we will take one day at a time. Once created, you will need to develop the habit of checking your map regularly to get your bearings, and make adjustments. We will revisit your map often in the course of this book.

A note about discernment:

You will do some deep discernment as you work through this book: Discernment is the process of making important decisions in your life, such as choosing what values and principles will guide you, what career you will have, and who you will live with. The way to become an expert in discernment is to:

-Develop your practical wisdom - your ability to make judgments and take actions that contribute to a life of excellence. You will collect information, reflect, and weigh all the possibilities. 

 

-Seek a leading of the spirit (God or Inner Guide) with an open mind and heart. You will listen for insight and intuitions - your felt sense, answers to prayers, symbolic or dream messages - and then patiently labor to understand them.

 

-Seek clearness by inviting thoughtful questioning (not advise) from some people you trust (I'll explain a useful clearness process in Week 8). 

Discernment takes time, attention, creativity, and an open mind. As you work with building the habits in this book, I wish for you the patience to discern wisely.

Day 1: Journal Brainstorm

Today you will begin the first phase of discernment, drawing on your practical wisdom: You will collect information, reflect, and weigh the possibilities, and you will do this with journaling and brainstorming.

Journaling (writing in a journal) is a broad subject with a variety of purposes, including getting to know yourself, clarifying your thoughts and feelings, getting organized, or creating a record.

Brainstorming is a technique created in 1941 by an advertising executive to give his employees the freedom to think outside of the box without fear of criticism. The rules of brainstorming are:

-Generate as many ideas as you can- quantity over quality.

-Silence your inner critic, and get a little crazy.

-Combine your crazy ideas or use them as inspiration for new ideas.

Sit down with your new journal notebook and your favorite pen, and on page one write, "My Future", or some other heading that you like, and add the date. You’re going to work at this a little every week, so set yourself a time limit today if you need to. This exercise has three parts, so allot 5 -10 minutes for each part: 

• Part One - collect information. Brainstorm some lists of goals, dreams, and exciting ideas for your future. Just write whatever you think of, without judgement; put down everything you really want to do, and everything you only dream of doing, and include at least a few crazy, improbable ideas. 

Use these broad categories (and leave a little room to add more ideas later):

-Self-care and life-style

-Love, social skills, friends and family

-Career/work, retirement, life path

-Creativity and self-expression

-Activism and service

-Knowledge, skills, and growth

-Home and garden

-Travel

-Others that I didn't think of

• Part 2 - reflect. On the next page, write about your most important reasons for living and what your best life would look like, with no barriers: How you want to live and act, what you hope to see and experience, who you wish to live with and work for, and how you want to grow.

• Part 3 - weigh the possibilities. Take a break for a few minutes. Get a fresh cup of tea or go outside to look at the sky, then come back and read what you wrote. Write a brief summation, combining all your best and craziest ideas into one fat statement.

• Extra Effort: Let these lists and ideas percolate in your brain today and add a postscript before you go to bed.