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Vision To Success Using Life Mapping
Success is more than economic gains, titles, anddegrees. Planning for success is about mapping
out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a
map, you need to define the following details:
origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks,
and route.
Origin: Who you are
A map has a starting point. Your origin is who
you are right now. Most people when asked to
introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m Jean and
I am a 17-year old, senior highschool student.”
It does not tell you about who Jean is; it only
tells you her present preoccupation. To gain
insights about yourself, you need to look closely
at your beliefs, values, and principles aside
from your economic, professional, cultural, and
civil status. Moreover, you can also reflect on
your experiences to give you insights on your
good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge,
strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection,
Jean realized that she was highly motivated,
generous, service-oriented, but impatient. Her
inclination was in the biological-medical field.
Furthermore, she believed that life must serve a
purpose, and that wars were destructive to human
dignity.
Destination: A vision of who you want to be
“Who do want to be'” this is your vision. Now it
is important that you know yourself so that you
would have a clearer idea of who you want to be;
and the things you want to change whether they
are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you
hardly know yourself, then your vision and
targets for the future would also be unclear.
Your destination should cover all the aspects of
your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual,
and spiritual. Continuing Jean’s story, after
she defined her beliefs, values, and principles
in life, she decided that she wanted to have a
life dedicated in serving her fellowmen.
Vehicle: Your Mission
A vehicle is the means by which you can reach
your destination. It can be analogized to your
mission or vocation in life. To a great extent,
your mission would depend on what you know about
yourself. Bases on Jean’s self-assessment, she
decided that she was suited to become a doctor,
and that she wanted to become one. Her chosen
vocation was a medical doctor. Describing her
vision-mission fully: it was to live a life
dedicated to serving her fellowmen as a doctor in
conflict-areas.
Travel Bag: Your knowledge, skills, and attitude
Food, drinks, medicines, and other travelling
necessities are contained in a bag. Applying this
concept to your life map, you also bring with you
certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These
determine your competence and help you in
attaining your vision. Given such, there is a
need for you to assess what knowledge, skills,
and attitudes you have at present and what you
need to gain along the way. This two-fold
assessment will give you insights on your
landmarks or measures of success. Jean realized
that she needed to gain professional knowledge
and skills on medicine so that she could become a
doctor. She knew that she was a bit impatient
with people so she realized that this was
something she wanted to change.
Landmarks and Route: S.M.A.R.T. objectives
Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track
while the route determines the travel time. Thus,
in planning out your life, you also need to have
landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your
measures of success. These measures must be
specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and
time bound. Thus you cannot set two major
landmarks such as earning a master’s degree and a
doctorate degree within a period of three years,
since the minimum number of years to complete a
master’s degree is two years. Going back to Jean
as an example, she identified the following
landmarks in her life map: completing a bachelor’
s degree in biology by the age of 21; completing
medicine by the age of 27; earning her
specialization in infectious diseases by the age
of 30; getting deployed in local public hospitals
of their town by the age of 32; and serving as
doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.
Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes
The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty
and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make
you lose your way. But oftentimes our plans are
modified along the way due to some inconveniences,
delays, and other situations beyond our control.
Like in any path, there are turns, detours, and
potholes thus; we must anticipate them and adjust
accordingly.