Something that is helpful to do is use the process called the Road Map Principle. I’ve always really enjoyed using it. It’s a reality check if you use it effectively. I’ve come across it a number of different times. Florence Socvel Shinn talked about the square of happiness in her book, ‘The Game of Life and How to Apply It’ which is fantastic book and I would thoroughly recommend it to anybody who is on the journey of self-discovery.
Why is it called the Road Map Principle – Simple. Let’s say you were kidnapped and when you woke up you were in a room with no windows, one door which is unlocked and thousands of roadmaps all alphabetically organised. You go outside nothing is familiar, perhaps a foreign country, no Google Maps no signs Now, what is the first thing you need to know before you can go in and find the right Map to use to get you home? – WHERE YOU ARE
WHERE ARE YOU?
Once you determine where you are, then you can go inside and find the right map to give the route to follow to get where you want to go. So many people are right now totally lost because they are using a roadmap that has no relevance to where they are. How can YOU possibly get where you want to go without selecting the right map? You can only do so AFTER learning the TRUE starting point?
The Road Map Principle.
Get a blank piece of paper draw a large square in the middle of the page. On one side of the square write Health, then going around clockwise write on the other sides Love, Self-Expression and Prosperity. These are four straightforward areas, not too complex, because we’re sometimes not very good at actually self-assessments. We can either be too blind or too harsh and that’s not the point of this exercise. It’s just to take a look and go, “Okay, where am I right now?” Then you can choose the right map and plot the course to a better future. Those maps in that room can tell you all sorts of different ways to improve your life but the reality is if that you don’t know where you are right now then you don’t know which road map to pick. The Internet today is an incredible source of information, so much information. Using the Square of Life (as I call it) and assessing where you are in these 4 areas will enable you to use the most appropriate resources to get you to a better future. In other words, now you’ve got somewhere to start. You can actually work out a strategy to achieve the things you want.
In life, whilst we can’t see the prison that we are in, using the Square of Life we can actually work out how to get out of there and then not only to get out of there. It’s like in the movie, Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins actually tells the Morgan Freeman, who he has been in prison a long time, where to look for him when he gets out. He knew where he was going, he was always going to get to his destination. So, my question to you is what’s your destination? Where? And so, is there any way that you can actually ascertain how to get to your destination instead of where you are now?
