Category Archives: Meaning

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Getting Personal About Forward Story Through Mind Maps

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This article is part of a series that began with “Using Mind Maps to Develop Your Forward Story.” We have used fictional 18 year-old John as an example and have started building his Forward Story by using the creative tool of mind mapping. In the last article we continued looking at John in twelve years when he will be thirty, and we focused on his career realm. He defined his career ambitions in light of his commitment to his family. As a reminder of where John is so far with his age thirty mind map, here is the map with those two realms completed. (All images will enlarge when clicked).

John has set some excellent goals for when he is thirty. The statements contained in each branch feel right to John. He gets excited thinking about it. The old saying goes: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” John wants to be a mature adult, but he also wants to have some fun. He does not want to be a dull boy. He wants to enjoy life and to live in a meaningful way. So the next realm he will think about is what we will call the Personal realm. We include in this realm body, health, fun, the world, and spirituality.

Body/Health

John knows that thirty is still young, but he wants to take care of his health so he will be able to handle all of the other goals he has already chosen for himself. If he gains a lot of weight, develops diabetes, and suffers from heart disease (like his father has), he may not be able to take care of his parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, or his wife. He  has seen this happen to other friends and family members, so he is determined to make his health a priority.  John writes the following statements:

  • I will keep my weight under 190 pounds.
  • I will exercise at least three times per week.
  • I will eat a healthy diet, and continually educate myself about the latest in nutritional science.
  • I will get annual physicals from my doctor.

For fun John really likes playing guitar. He is currently a novice, but would like to be much better in twelve years. He knows he can do it, so writes the following about guitar and other “fun” activities:

  • I will be able to play guitar for my family and friends without embarrassing myself.
  • I will play in three charity golf tournaments each year for fun and to support good causes.
  • I will hunt annually with my Dad and brother.

Also in this personal realm, John needs to think about the larger world in which he lives. He is aware of people in other places and of his responsibility as a citizen of his own country. He writes:

  • I will regularly volunteer my time to help with our local food pantry.
  • I will mentor a young person through Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
  • I will financially support humanitarian relief efforts through world-class charities.
  • I will vote in local, state, and national elections as an exercise of my civic duty and of patriotic gratitude.

Finally, John will address spirituality. He is not quite certain where his spiritual life will take him, and he has a lot of questions. John considers himself a seeker after spiritual truth, so he has some expectations that by age thirty he may have found some answers to his questions. He contents himself with the following for now:

  • I will have an understanding of my own spiritual nature and the nature of God.
  • I will continue my spiritual journey with my wife and grow along with her.
  • I will find a good group of people/church to belong to and to do spiritual work with.
  • I will strive to be consistent in my religious beliefs and allow them to guide my actions in work and personal life.

Putting all of this together into his mind map, here is what John’s personal realm looks like at age thirty:

John’s final mind map for age thirty is pretty busy. Here is what it looks like all put together:

This branch of John’s map represents a lot of hard work in thinking, visualizing, and writing. As good as this is, this is what John envisions his life looking like in twelve years. In order for this to be more than a fairly tale, he has a lot more work to do to bridge the gap between now and then. So, as a reminder, the thirty year branch is only a small part of John’s overall mind map. Here is a visual reminder of what is left to define:

In our next article we will look at the way John’s closer timeframes relate to this age thirty branch.

How do you think John’s completed branch will affect his thinking about the next few years of his life? How is it likely to impact his behavior?

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Today I’m 50 – Now What? Maybe Write a Book!

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I recall as a kid being really excited about birthdays. What was not to love? My friends and family made a big deal out the fact that on that date some number of years before, I made my exit from one environment into another. I was the center of attention on that day each year. There were presents, there was cash, there were games, there was singing, and best of all, there was cake. Let them eat cake! What a great thing.

At some point in my adolescence I stopped getting so excited about birthdays. As an adult I observed the annual ritual with indifference as the various milestones clicked past like so many center stripes on a long road trip.

  • At 30 I remember feeling like a “real” adult.
  • At 40 I felt like I had gained some wisdom.
  • Now that I am 50, what do I think? What am I feeling?

According to the United Nations, the average life expectancy of an American male is 75.6 years. What does this mean to me?

  • The hypochondriac in me says that there are a lot of things that will probably get me well before 75.6.
  • The optimist in me says that I will live to be 100.
  • The realist in me says that this means I only have around 25.6 years left. Unless, of course, the Mayans are right (but that’s another story).

Which will it be? I have no crystal ball, so I have no idea. I am not losing sleep over it, either.

I began this blog on July 20,2010 with an initial post on narrative. Before now I have never promoted the blog. I have told a few people about it, and a few more have stumbled upon it, but I have not sought widespread readership. In the past 20 months I have written on a variety of topics all revolving around the idea that all people should be working on a story that looks forward, into the future. I call it a Forward Story.

As I celebrate my half century on the planet today I am taking the wraps off my plan to publish my first book in 2012 entitled Forward Story. While I have been sporadically writing the blog, I have also been working on the book. In writing style the book will be specifically targeted to young people up to their mid-20s, but it will have something to say to all of us, including those 50 and above. The fact is that regardless of your age, you need to have a story for where you are headed. Writing the book Forward Story has been a part of my personal Forward Story for a while now. This is the year to launch it.

This website will be the primary place to keep informed about the book. Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed or otherwise bookmark forwardstory.com. You can also follow us on twitter at www.twitter.com/forward_story The exact timeframe for publication is not set, but I am committed to publication before the end of the year. In the meantime, feel free to poke around the site and join in the conversation.

Regardless of how many candles you will find on your cake this year, I hope you are writing a beautiful and meaningful Forward Story. Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.

An Update: It took a lot longer than I hoped, but the book has arrived. You can get your copy here:


Forward Story: Write the Future You Desire

 

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Repetition & Learning

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Repetition is boring for most people. If we hear something over and over again, it gets annoying. Think of your least favorite television commercial and how you feel when it is repeated over and over again during a program or game you are watching. It can be like dripping water.

The same can be said for learning information. Once you have learned how to add 2 + 2, you are ready to move on to something more challenging. If your teacher began each lesson with how to add 2 + 2, it would become very tiring. Let’s move on to subtraction or multiplication.

For all we can say negatively about repetition, however, we have to admit it works. Advertisers know that even if you get annoyed at their ad that runs ten times during the game, chances are you will remember them when buying-time comes around. The guitar player knows that repeated practice hour after hour will lead to competence and fluidity in performance. The tennis player hits forehand after forehand after forehand. Why? Because repetition builds memory — in this case muscle-memory. Of course, it is important to repeat effective behaviors to avoid building bad habits. It is likewise important to learn accurate information in order to avoid believing what is false.

I have discovered that the more complicated a subject is, the more repetition I need in order to really get it. This is the reason medical school is not one semester long. It is the reason law school takes three years. It is the reason that becoming a master electrician is no walk in the park. Before I take a new medicine that my doctor has prescribed for me, I want to know that she really understands the anatomy of the human body, the chemistry of the drug, and why it is going to help me. I trust that she repetitively learned all she needed to learn to be competent to prescribe this medicine.

It takes patience and energy to learn via repetition. There is a biological function occurring as we learn. The brain is stashing information collected from our entire sensory system into various places for future access. The more complicated or unconventional the information, the more repetition is required. I have to give this biology time to work.

Two examples:

  • When I am learning how to effectively manage my personal finances I know that conventional wisdom will not help me. How do I know this? Most people are broke. What is “normal” is not working. To learn a more effective way of handling money requires repetition of some better way. This more effective way is not part of my cultural common sense, so I have to purposely and repetitiously learn this better way. If I stop listening to and learning the better way, I will fall back into the culture’s way, which I get through being part of the culture. As a matter of fact, the way I learned that cultural way of thinking and action about money came about through years and years of…repetition. I am only going to replace that way of doing things with something better if I use the same process — repetition. For me this means podcasts, blogs, books, and conversations with other weird people who are also repetitively learning a better way.
  • I am an American, and like many Americans I have struggled with my body weight. As with personal finances, what is normal in our culture is not what I desire. I desire to be healthy and thin. I desire to avoid the many negative health outcomes of being “normal.” How does a person break away from the cultural norm to begin eating in a different way and to get healthier? The answer is repetition. How many food messages does our culture (and agribusiness) repeat to us each day? That onslaught of information cannot be counteracted once and for all. It has to be counteracted continually and repetitively. Again, for me the repetition takes the form of books, blogs, podcasts, and conversations.

Whatever we want to learn is going to require energy. Our capacity to learn is rooted in language, which along with our large brains is our great advantage over the animal kingdom. We just have to be committed to learning the right things and be willing to put in the work required to make that knowledge an effective force in our lives. This is the reason that life-long learning should be an important part of your Forward Story and mine.

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Cliff Clavin & Meaning

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My wife sometimes lovingly (I think) refers to me as Cliff Clavin. The area in which I sometimes even remind myself of Cliffy is when I offer some shard of trivia I picked up somewhere in my reading or surfing. “It’s a little-known fact…”

"It's a little-known fact..."

If you have an insatiable and eclectic curiosity about the world, you are living in the greatest time ever to satisfy it. Never before in the world’s history has so much information been available to us. There is really no excuse for not learning anything you want to know.

As an example, if you are technically challenged and do not know what a hyperlink is, I can provide a hyperlink here to help you understand what it is. How cool is that? A hyperlink on hyperlink. In this fashion we can access vast amounts of information. Now that smart phones are becoming common tools, all of this information is literally at our fingertips. Cliff Claven would have been even more insufferable if he had possessed a smart phone.

Recently the thought hit me that while I can access anything I want to know, this information doesn’t necessarily produce meaning. Meaning deals with the end, purpose, or significance of something. Just because I can know in a few seconds about The Dardanelles or the Cilician Gates does not mean I can produce meaning in my life through that knowledge. At my fingertips is incredible information, but what we all really want is meaning.

Meaning has to factor into our Forward Stories. We want to write a future that is consistent with our understanding of why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing. If you have not yet developed an ambition that is in harmony with what it means to live, then be sure to make that a priority. Your ambition needs to be closely tied to what you think the meaning of life is. Perhaps a big part of your story for the immediate future (say, the next three months) is to focus not on information, but rather on meaning. When you emerge with a good grasp on meaning, then you will be ready to write a truly compelling Forward Story.

“If memory serves, the umbilical chord is 90% potassium.” -CC