Mind-Mapping Your Goals as a Solopreneur

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey everybody. I'm back. Welcome back to compassionate side hustle strategy. I am Rochelle. I'm your host. And I have a few things planned for this season.

[00:00:50] And yeah, as usual. Things did not go to plan. And so I'm a little late and coming back, but I thought that a good way to kick us off would be to encourage you through a practice that I do pretty often. To admit what you want.

[00:01:05] And I know that that's really tough for some people because we just live in this culture. Where you must always be thinking about other people you must always be taking care of, aKA serving other people. I mean, like you take care of your own family and your own kids and you know, the people in your community, but at the same time, you're also kind of taking care of your boss and your supervisors and your coworkers in, in a way, right?

[00:01:31] And that's not the greatest environment to be in 24 7, where you're just expecting yourself to be there for people. It's a good characteristic to have, because obviously we're here to help each other. We need each other. And showing up for one another and helping out wherever we can is how I believe we can make the world a better place versus like, you know, accumulating wealth and supposedly demonstrating that more is possible. Because maybe we don't need more. Maybe we just need to kind of be there for each other.

[00:02:05] So all that to say that I think that it would be a good idea to sit back and just be honest with yourself about what you want.

[00:02:16] And this is a practice that I wasn't so good at before, just because we have an ingrained in our heads that we're not supposed to want a lot, especially with like the trend of minimalism. And of course, you know, you want to be grateful for what you have. You know, just the, the overall concept of not wanting more for yourself.

[00:02:38] And to an extent, yeah. But also maybe your level of more is actually not asking for that much. So what I like to do in moments like this, especially as we embark on like the beginning of the holiday season. And potentially whatever launches you have in mind. Or maybe you just want to kind of hunker down and take it easy until new year.

[00:03:04] This time of year is always one of those, like, do I do it or do I not? And I promised myself last year that I wouldn't be doing anything drastic this fall. And so that means that I have a month to convince my brain to do a thing and stick to it, and not come up with anything new and just to enjoy myself with all of the different things that I have to juggle as, as a business owner. So we're going to try that, right.

[00:03:28] But first you have to know what you want. And I say that as someone who knows a lot of people who are dedicated to doing things by the book. And I get that because, you know, that's just how we're trained, especially with the public education system here in the United States.

[00:03:46] You know, you are told from very early on in life until like they send you out into the world. You're told what to do. You're told what to do, when to do it, what's good enough and what's not good enough. And then we have a grading system, which I think we really needed to get rid of, like, why do we even have grades? But anyway.

[00:04:06] If you're brought up in that kind of system, or even if you're just very familiar with it, even if you didn't grow up here, it's going to take some time to remember how to ask yourself what you actually want. And so a good way to do that is through mind mapping.

[00:04:22] So for those of you who are not familiar with this, the idea of mind mapping is basically more of a graphic journaling technique, I would say. It's basically the bubble diagrams. So maybe in school you use these as like a brainstorming thing. The idea is that you have a piece of paper that's completely blank. And then in the center is the topic, whatever it is.

[00:04:44] And then you put a circle around whatever words are the topic, and then you put branches out, you know, it just lines to things that are related to that. And then for each of those branches, it's kind of like a sub idea of the main topic. And then from there, you branch out and add onto whatever else you want to put on to each of the subtopics.

[00:05:04] And actually, I like to use this method as an alternative to free writing as, as I'm journaling. Because when I'm journaling, I I'd say that I write pretty quickly, but I don't write fast enough to get down everything that I have in my brain.

[00:05:21] And I can definitely type fast enough, but, you know, typing it out just isn't the same, I think. And, you know, typing is a little too work-related for me.

[00:05:31] Like I try to not type things and make sure that I'm writing things out so that I know that it's coming from me and not from a place of production, if that means, if that makes any sense, it's like my, for some reason, for me typing is directly related to like production and work. And when I'm journaling I want to keep the focus on myself and my needs and my own thoughts and whatever scribble Scrabble is going on inside my body.

[00:05:58] So with the mind mapping sometimes when I'm journaling and the ideas just aren't coming out the way that I want them to, or they're, they're just not making sense or they're not coming out in a way that feels like it's soothing. You know? Or comforting for me.

[00:06:15] Because honestly that's the whole point of journaling for me is that. I have to feel better by the end of the process or else it wasn't really worth it. And so when that's not working, sometimes I go to mind-mapping. And I just try to get all of my thoughts out, not necessarily on straight lines, but maybe just like scribbled, scribbled out. With lines and circles and underlines, and maybe even like scribbling them out and then crossing them out. And that seems to be a lot more therapeutic than like free writing.

[00:06:48] And so what I recommend that you at least try this week. I mean, like, honestly, it's, it's not too bad and if you write big enough, then you can only fit so much on one page. But try it. And I have two suggestions for you.

[00:07:01] So the first one is going to be like the one where you kind of let loose and let it all out. And so what I mean is you can go ahead and do an entire page of mind mapping, mind map journaling out bad things. And I say bad in the kind of cheeky way where I'm like, Well, not, no, none of your thoughts are actually bad. But sometimes I'll get a sheet of paper or I'll open up, you know, just a blank sheet in my journal.

[00:07:28] And then I'll write in the middle: "things that suck." Or "things that make me really angry." Or "reasons why I'm really frustrated right now."

[00:07:37] And then from there I'll branch out and I'll say, you know what? There are multiple, there are multiple areas of my life that are really frustrating right now. Number one, number two, number three. And then those are all the sub bubbles around it.

[00:07:50] And, you know, the point isn't to like map out all the grievances that you have against the world. But it's actually helpful because then, you know, you see the problems and you'll probably also see how they're all interconnected. Like if you're saying that you're really frustrated with, you know, how, how messy your house is. But then another bubble says you're very tired. And so, because you're tired, you can't find the motivation to work out. And you also you know, aren't getting very good sleep. Even though, ironically, you're tired, but you can't sleep. And so like when those are related, you find out that, you know, one thing is related to another. Maybe you even have some things that are repeating themselves And different variations around the page.

[00:08:34] And then after that, you know, you, it's up to you, what you want to do with it. You can throw it away and be like, cool. Done.

[00:08:41] Or you can analyze it if you want, if you see like some commonalities among all of the bubbles and the notes that you wrote for yourself, and that's a good practice too. But the important part is to come back to the second part, which is to make more of a positive mind map.

[00:08:57] So what I'd love for you to do after you've gotten that out of your system. Maybe like, let it simmer a little bit if it's still too spicy and hot for you, and you're still thinking spicy and hot for you, that, that sounds like something entirely different. If it's still too sensitive. Then, you know, maybe leave some time or maybe go for a walk. But then come back and do a second one.

[00:09:19] And the second one I want you to have a lot more freedom with, especially since you just demonstrated how free you can be with your words with the other one.

[00:09:28] For this one, I want the bubble in the middle to be what I want. What I really want. And keeping in mind that there's no budget for this sheet of paper. There's no budget. There's no itemized list of expenses. There's no schedule. There's no project management timeline.

[00:09:51] It's just what you want, you know, like, have at it! You don't even, there's not even, and maybe this is a personal thing, but like, I kind of feel a little extra pressure when there's a vision board exercise, because I'm like, now I have to find the perfect picture out of this limited number of magazines that I have. But, you know, for a mind mapping exercise, where you're just writing out your feelings and what you want. It's just you and your words, it's just you and you know, maybe a, a pen color that makes you happy.

[00:10:22] And you can sit down and say, you know what, I want this and I want this and you know, what else would be good? This other thing. Actually, I'm going to scribble that out and I'm going to say, I want to, even more of that. And just let yourself do it.

[00:10:34] Like set a timer. And tell yourself you're going to keep writing for 15 minutes straight. And let's. Let's see what comes out. See if you can fill up the entire paper. Writing a small as you can. And just putting every single thing that you've ever wanted on the paper.

[00:10:53] And I think that honestly, that combination of the two mind maps, like the one where you're just like, I'm just going to have it out with myself in the universe and be like this, all of these things on this paper suck.

[00:11:04] And then moving on to the one where you're like, actually, You know, may I present: exhibit B, which is everything that could happen. Honestly. I mean, like, unless you're saying that you want like an alien body or something like that, but you know, aside from that, you can really have a lot of what you desire. And a big part of that is just letting yourself admit it.

[00:11:29] And sometimes you don't have the kind of support that you need to voice those kinds of things out loud. Or even, you know, even consider them because some of the-- you know, I fully acknowledge that not everyone has a supportive family.

[00:11:43] And so if you even utter the words of desiring something that, you know, they could never even fathom. Then you might get the kind of reaction that makes you, you know, back off a little bit.

[00:11:54] But creating that kind of safe space for yourself and saying, you know what? This paper is just between me and myself. And if I can get it down on paper, then that's the first step.

[00:12:07] Let the paper, the sheet of paper with all of your ideas and all your, of your wishes be the starting points. And then you can move on from there, whatever the next step is for you.

[00:12:18] I really hope that you'll take me up on this and you'll do both exercises.

[00:12:23] In fact, I challenge you to take a picture of it. And, you know, the positive one. You don't have to tell me all the frustrating things in your life. But your second one, the one that's a list of everything that you want. To take a picture of it and send it to me.

[00:12:37] You can either let me know on Instagram or you know, LinkedIn.

[00:12:42] Or if you want, you can email a copy of it, to my team. So you can email it to team T E A M at rochelle sanchez dot com and it'll eventually make its way to me.

[00:12:53] But like, I want to see this stuff. This is the stuff that we need to be talking more about that we need to be more open about. We definitely need to like saturate our worlds, our environments with this positive stuff that we're working toward, that we dream of so that, you know, there's just more of it than all the other yucky stuff that really belongs on the other sheet of paper.

[00:13:16] So I hope that you'll take me up on this challenge. Let me know how the process goes for you. And I hope that things are going well. Take this and make it yours. And I will see you in the next episode.