“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there.” – George Harrison
It’s a paraphrase of the classic scene in Alice in Wonderland between Alice and the Cheshire Cat, and it’s so true! If you don’t know what you’re choosing to move toward, create, manifest in your life, then you’ll just wander down any easily available road and likely not achieve much.
Such wandering, while occasionally surprising and exciting, can also be a big drain on your energy and a waste of our precious time in this life to create what we want, to affect change on things that matter to us, to life fully and intentionally.
I think there’s a corollary to this phrase, however. “If you don’t know where you are, you won’t know how to start.” – Erin Elizabeth Wells
In other words, if we don’t take the time to reflect on our current lives, our current patterns, habits, and commitments, then we will struggle to figure out what specifically we want to change and how to change it.
Think of it like planning a road trip using a map. Just having the map isn’t good enough. You need to know two things: 1) where you’re headed and 2) where you’re starting from.
Knowing where you’re going is about creating a motivating vision that pulls you magnetically toward it. Knowing where you are is about charting your course and building your ability to take action.
There’s a great book about creating change called Influencer: The Power to Change Anything in which the authors explore a model of techniques that are used for changes both small (getting to the gym regularly) and large (eradicating the Guinea Worm disease across dozens of countries). I’m not going to dig deep into their model today (although I love it.) However, they focus on both building the motivation for change and the ability to do the needed actions to change.
When it comes to energy management and shifting your daily life rhythms from being exhausting and draining to becoming focused and empowering there’s one tool that I consistently use with my clients to build motivation and ability…
The Life Rhythm Map
The Life Rhythm Map creates a visual representation of the flow and patterns of your regular daily and weekly life.
With this one exercise you can become visually clear on where you are and where you want to be. In other words, you can begin to see specifically what you might want to change to move closer to the life patterns you want.
To get your Life Rhythm Map template, and join the free Optimize Your Energy mini-course, click the button below.
Many productivity experts have advocated using mapping techniques like this to see where your time is going. I think it can be used for so much more!
- Compare your current daily rhythm reality to your ideal
- Figure our your ideal “life balance” recipe of activities
- Recognize if you’re missing any important types of time
- Improve the fit between your daily patterns with those of your partner/spouse
- and more… as you can see during the mini-course.
Our lives are lived day-by-day, but mostly we just zoom from one activity to the next with very little consideration or reflection. Too often we’re living completely reactively. Which means that we’re either wasting tons of time and energy, or simply not focused on working on the projects or activities that are most important us.
It’s time to end that old pattern by becoming clear about where we are and where we want to be.
That’s why I love the Life Rhythm Map (LMR), we can use it to reflect on our daily patterns, commitments, and decisions. It visually illustrates what’s happening in our lives, and it can become a road map to how we want to be living instead.
For example, right now you are never getting to your workout. Using the Life Rhythm Map, you’ll start by first seeing where your time is going. Then, you’ll be able to consider various options.
- Where in your daily/weekly rhythm could your workout possibly fit? First thing in the morning, lunch time, right after work, before bed, on which days of the week?…
- Which theory would you like to try for a few weeks to test? – 1st choice: after work Mon, Wed, Thurs
- What are your back up/ recovery plans if you miss one? – Miss my afternoon exercise, then I’ll get up 30 minutes earlier tomorrow and do my workout video or Daily Burn first thing.
You can also create the ideal version of your Life Rhythm Map. When you consider your ideal next to your current you might discover either how close you are to living your ideal, or it will highlight the dramatic changes that you would want to make to move closer to that ideal.
Then, you can start asking good questions about how you might get closer to that ideal. What specifically would become different? What action could you take today or this week to begin moving toward it?
Your ideal LMR becomes your motivating vision; what you’re moving toward. Your current LMR shows where you’re starting and gives you the ability to choose intentionally what you’d like to change. See! Motivation & ability, starting point and end goal, all by using this one tool.
So, request your Life Rhythm Map template below, and start the free Optimize Your Energy mini-course to learn how to use this amazing tool in your life!
Image used under License Agreement: ©Joan Swanepoel / Stockfresh
