Overcoming Overwhelm

Do you have so many things you want to do like write a book, get a promotion at work, start creating that present for a friend, learn how to cook, get your motorbike licence, make some money with another side project, travel the world and so on and so on?

And of course you want to do all of these things on top of everything else you need to do like doing a great job at work, looking after the family, getting to all your appointments, making enough money to pay the bills and so on and so forth.

As we are all endeavouring to have a balanced and happy life, having so many goals and wishes may only bring us a sense of overwhelm instead of us confidently taking control of our lives and moving progressively closer to our dreams. So how do we take control and feel a sense of empowerment when that only seems like another thing to do. A Mind Map of my life has helped me a great deal so I believe it can help you too!

A Mind Map of Your Life!

The Theory:

Our unconscious mind will not let us rest if we do not gain accomplishment or progress with our thoughts. It is said that we have over 90,000 thoughts a day and out of those 90,000, most of them we thought yesterday!

By not only writing down your thoughts, but also generalising your life into it’s different areas, can stop you feeling overwhelmed for a number of reasons.

1. When we write down all of our thoughts and put them into different “life areas”, we can become aware of how our thoughts are linked to others and so we realise we may not have as many things to do as we feel when these ideas are just floating around in our mind.

2. You may also find that you are buliding a great relationship between your unconscious mind and your conscious mind because when you start to write down what is in your conscious awareness you will then become susceptible to new ideas and concepts you may not have been initially aware of.

3. Writing down your thoughts and in this case also your goals and ideas, is a great way to “declutter” your mind. Once you have your thoughts on paper your unconscious mind will stop throwing too many thoughts your way that you won’t be able to handle.

…so give it a go!

1. Take out a piece of paper and a great bold pen. Or print out the template from below as we have even created the template for you – yes we spoil you J You may want to use a bigger piece of paper – make it so that you will not be limited in what you can write down!
   
2. Write down the areas of your life by drawing lines coming off “me” in the middle of the page. By looking at our example of a life mind map, firstly write down the different “areas of life”, which you will see are health and fitness, career, family, relationships etc. Circle each area so that they stand out and you can see them clearly at first glance of the page.
   
3. Next, start with one area, for example, Health and Fitness and write down all your goals and tasks that you want and need to do around that area. So to go with the example you could write that you want to get to the gym, so you would write “gym” and then maybe you have thought that you have always wanted a personal trainer, so then draw a line off from the gym and write “personal trainer”. This way one thought and/or idea will lead to another, and remembering the more you write down the closer you are to a clearer mind. Also see our example which has Health and Fitness filled out.
4. Fill in every area of your life with everything you can think of that is relevant. Every dream and every wish you have thought in regards to this area, write it down. Everything you need to do in regards to this area, write it down. Don’t worry if things start to overlap in that you feel that “time for myself” could go under Health and Fitness and Spirituality – doesn’t matter – write it in both or write it in one of them, whatever will make it work for you.
   
5. Put it in a safe place. Now your mind map should be complete and you have all the things you want and need to do written out in front of you – until you think of something else. You may want to place your mind map where you can refer to it regularly. You may need to add to it too as new thoughts and ideas come to you.
   
6. Take action. Now that you have it on paper you are free to enjoy the fact that you have all these wonderful goals and all this potential to achieve all your dreams.  

Bonus!: Once you have done your mind map on your life areas you may want to:

• Replace your life areas with all your goals related to making money as an example. For instance, you may put in one circle – write a book then coming off from that you would write down all the things you would need to think about like publishers, illustrators, writing courses etc.
• Mind maps are limitless with what you could do with them. Replace your life areas with all your main tasks or belongings such as Living Environment/House, Car, Shares, Investment Property, Holidays etc. then you would write all the things you need to do and think about in relation to each. So off ‘house’ you could write, ‘buy new furniture’, ‘renovate bathroom’ and so on and so on.
• Have fun with them!

I would love to hear about your experiences with this technique. I hope this helps you as it helps me. Don’t let yourself being busy with life stop you from achieving all that you have wished for. Remember – you are limitless with infinite potential!

Lauren.