Mark McClure Today

To help you with your goal setting for 2008 and beyond, here’s a free goal setting template from my goal creation maps course.

Please feel free to download it for your own personal non-commercial use.

It’s a 162 KByte Adobe Acrobat pdf file and should print out on letter or A4 paper in landscape format.

To download it, move your mouse over the image and right-click it - then save it to your computer by selecting “Save Link As…” from the drop down box.

You can of course create your own map layout using mindmapping software (I use MindGenius from a company called Gael Ltd., who are based in Scotland.) Pencil and paper will also work fine and I have created many maps that way.

An important benefit of mind maps for goal setting is that the keyword structure helps to organize thoughts and ideas (the starting point of goals) - but in a flexible manner that allows you to draw the map however you choose. (though this may be one of the limitations of current software tools).

Here is how to make use of the map template for setting your own goals:

1- Create your own bio-map using single keywords. One of these will be a desired major goal and another will be from a prior success experience.

2- Identify a single keyword for each major category of your life as you would ideally like it to be - you can call this your “vision” for that category.

3- Focus on one of these categories and observe the current roles you’re playing and the new roles you might need. Add these as keywords to your map. (This category should be the one you identified in the bio-map.)

4- For the specific category above, the vision keyword is the major goal - or olympic goal. There are 3 other possible goals you might consider: Personal Best, SMART goals and DUMB goals (yes, really!). Identify a keyword for each of these that expresses an aspect of the main (OG) goal.

5- For the other (generally supporting) categories repeat the exercise steps above. This can be done over time rather than being completed at one sitting.

6- Complete your map using colour or other annotation.

I will have more to say on creating goal maps in future posts.

- Mark McClure