MindMapSwitch

In preparation for the New Year, I am going to show you what you need in your mind map to define and monitor your goal.

Last week I asked you to brainstorm some ideas for your goal and a couple of days ago we looked at the first three branches in your mind map that lets us define your goal.

Now that you know what your goal is, our next step is to create the branches you will need to monitor your progress through out the year. These branches will be:

1. Skills
2. Milestones
3. Review

Shall we look at each of these new branches for your mind map?

Skills

The first branch you are going to add to your mind map is skills. Having a goal is great, but if you lack the skills needed to complete the goal, then you're leaving yourself with a big challenge ahead of you. To ensure that a goal is achievable we need to identify two sets of skills:

1. Skills you have that you need to complete the goal
2. Skills you don't have that you need to complete the goal

Create two branches on your skills branch and start identifying skills that you feel will be beneficial towards achieving your goal and the skills you feel you will need in order to achieve your goal.

Use images and colour to emphasize those skills you don't currently have. Making them stand out on your mind map will daw your attention to it and hopefully push you towards acquiring these skills in the path towards achieving your goal.

These skills will help you define the milestones that you will need to work towards in order to achieve your goal.

Milestones

Milestones are not overnight things. Achieving your goal is a marathon and just like runners you need markers set along the way to ensure you're heading in the right direction and getting nearer to the finish. So how do you define these?

Using your skills branch, you can easily deduce that the skills that you will need to work towards your goal. I prefer to use the first few months of the year to work on any news skills I need in order to complete my goal. Using these early months to build up your skills means that you can then focus on completing your goal in the later months of the year with the skills you already have.

How many milestones do you use?

Well, as you're working to complete the goal before the end of next year, I would suggest a milestone every month or every 2 months. You don't want to burden yourself down with a milestone every week. You just need to ensure that the milestone gives you enough time to complete it. It should be something descriptive, but no too focused on a single job.

Mind map your milestones using keywords for each milestone. For each milestone you could also use a map marker to indicate if that milestone has been successfully completed.

Review

What's a plan without a review?

In order to ensure that the goal is completed on time, you need to define 3 or 4 points in the calendar when you will review your progress to ensure that achieving your goal is on track.

In your mind map, create branches for each of the reviews you will need throughout the year. Add dates to the calendar to finalize your scheduled reviews. For your review, look at the progress you have made through each of your milestones.

How you review your goal is up to you, but on your mind map use mind map markers to indicate if a review results in progress being made. Each day, you will be able to glance at your mind map and see straight away if your on track working to achieving your goal.

What Next?

So there you have it. We have created our basic goal mind map for 2010. The next thing to do is to act on your milestones and start getting action lists going to complete your milestone.

Through out the year I am going to review my own mind map and post my thoughts on my progress here on MindMapSwitch. I'll also be writing about changes or tweaks I will make to my goal mind map as the year goes along.

Happy mind mapping and I'll see you all in the New Year!