Mapping The Journey

"So," I continued, "let's go back to the hero's journey. Your soul presents a range of quests to your mind, and your mind chooses which quest to embark upon. Next, you need a map of your journey. Traditional goal-setting instructs you to draw a map based purely on external action. This produces results to an extent, but correlation is not causation. Physical action might correlate to results, but they don't cause results. There's a more efficient way to map the journey, like this…"

When mapping the journey, you want to chart a course between Who You Currently Are and Who You Desire To Be

"First, you need to identify your current location. What is your current self-concept? Who are you? What do you believe? This model represents the current 'shape' of your Markov-blanketed Self. Let's assume I start my journey with the belief, 'I am a small circle.' My external reality confirms this belief.

Next, you need to identify your destination. Most people define their destination by what shows up in their external reality. For example, 'My business is making over a million dollars each year.' To map your destination, you need to distinguish between a symbol and its meaning. Making a million dollars per year is a symbol of an idea about yourself. That idea might be 'I am a successful entrepreneur,' or 'I am abundant and free,' or 'I am making an impact.'"

Things show up in your external reality as symbols, to assist you in experiencing your self-concept. Therefore, you want to identify what the external symbol feels like to you, and focus on becoming that version of yourself.

"When you're mapping out your destination, focus on who you would be if you already had the external symbol. Who would you have to be to own a million-dollar business? What would you believe? How would you act? What would you say? How would you dress? What environments would you find yourself in? What habits would you have? How would you spend your time? How would you react to challenges? You can map out a new version of yourself, as if you were an actor doing character research before playing a role in a movie.

Once you have your starting location and your destination, the gap between the two represents the journey. The archetypal hero's journey involves a departure from a safe and comfortable existence when the hero answers the call to adventure. By definition, embarking on your quest involves venturing out of comfortable order and into uncomfortable chaos — because if something were already known and comfortable for you, it would already be your reality."