You can get where you want to go faster and easier – with fewer wrong turns & less mistakes – when you have a plan, the right resources and good guidance.

Imagine you had a map leading you to your big fat, juicy dream.

What would it look like?  If you used one of the other traditional goal setting methods, you would line up all the things you want to achieve and tackle them one at a time. It would go like this: Start a business. Work til it’s successful (enough). Find a partner. Work on the business even more. Get married. Find a starter home.  Start family with a pet. Work even more. Have a child. Somewhere along the way, you have worked on your Spiritual Practice.   

This is a simple example – rather vague, actually – of what a map should look like.  I call these HEARTMAPS because they don’t have to be logical. You can create your own map any number of ways, but I highly recommend you make one. 

How to Route a Course

1. Start with your Destination

What is your big fat juicy dream?  I have a very clear image of what my dream looks like, but like they say, a picture is worth a 1000 words, so I like to name my dreams – it’s so much easier to talk about it with my support group or to mention it in my journal.

2. Next, chunk your Dream down

Break down big goals into smaller, more manageable pieces.  I want to call special attention to this:  Many other goal setting methods want you to tone down your goals to ensure they are achievable.  They do this so for the sake of claiming a high success rate.  But this is a horrible way to do it.  If you want to run across America, I AM NOT GOING TO TELL YOU it can’t be done.   I’m gong to tell you to chunk down that big ass goal gown into more manageable pieces and then do the chunks one at a time.

Be sure you have determined which pieces or aspects of your goals leading to your Big Dream are non-negotiable. For example, Integrity is very important to me – doing what I say, and saying what I do is how keep straight with God – so accepting any kind of assistance that would look anything like cheating,  lying or hurting someone is just not going to happen.

Make a list of each Chunk – Write it on your map.  Each chunk becomes a milestone.

3. Analyse each Chunk

This is the problem solving phase of your journey.  This is where you will spend the most time and energy.  Understand: What is stopping your from achieving your dream or goal? What stands in your way?  How are you stopped? Is it a real obstacle or challenge or are you imagining it (false beliefs)? How can you solve this problem? What do you have to start doing? Stop doing? Do instead? If you did it, would that get the ball rolling – would you start seeing progress on your dream?

You will REPEAT STEP 3 over and over again on your journey.  As you make progress, your problems will change.  Keep solving them. That’s how you will move forward.

Progress towards your dream is what matters most. Standing still is frustrating, painful and can be very painful.  Progress towards your dream – step by step – there’s real joy in that.

 

It’s the Journey, not the Destination that matters.

The final step in the DARE process is to Execute. 

If you did the Routing step correctly, then you’ve already started down the road to your Dreams.   

Progress on your dream is what matters most.

Working on your goals is like traveling on the path of your journey – every little step gets you closer.  But, with every forward step, you may need to re-evaluate the landscape, your energy, and consult your map before you take another step.   This is one reason why I highly recommend you journal your journey.   Later, this journal will tell the story of how you did it.

Life is a journey. You will get to the end no matter what. But on the way, you get to decide all the details like direction and destination.  Choose to follow your dream – create a life you love living.

There’s a song by RUSH called Free Will that says, “If you choose not to decide. You still have made a choice.”