What You Need to Know to Build Your Wilderness Map

Rad Watkins — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 14:12:55 +0000

Last week we talked about how having a map is pretty essential when hiking in the wilderness. We also talked about how many of us feel that we don’t really need a map to get through our own lives. Finally, I told you I would talk about some ways to map out your priorities and build this tool for your Earthly travels.

The first thing about mapping a course is understanding that it can have many different outcomes, so you need to know where your destination is. In planning, you need what we call a “vision”. So craft a vision statement for your life. Think about who you are, what you stand for, and what you want to be known for.

Major Objectives, Goals and Tasks

From there, you need to think about a few major objectives in your life; those will be the big, key steps you need make to lift you to your vision. If you want to be a loving person, who helps others, and makes the world a safer place for people to ride bicycles, than what are a few of the big steps that will get you to be this person. What are some of the general themes in your life? These are objectives you want to accomplish, they should steer you.

Each objective needs goals. The goals can be compared to splits in the trail. They become the place where you decide if you are going to move to the next level. There is an old saying that you should make your goals specific, timely, and measurable. Here is the thing about goals, and we could go on about this topic for months, but it is better to have them and not quite achieve them (but get close), than not have them at all. So don’t beat yourself up if you don’t make your goal, just keep moving in that direction. Less Brown once said “The problem in the world is not that people set huge goals and fail, it is that they set small goals and succeed.” I love that!

Finally each goal needs tasks. That’s what life is, tasks. These are flexible and dynamic, but need to get done. So, the tasks are your to-do list. Many times this list is in our head, and that can be a mistake. It is harder to prioritize when the list is in your head. Have you ever procrastinated? That is because you don’t have your list laid out. When a deadline comes, whether it be taking out the garbage as the truck is pulling up to the curb, or getting a document out by the boss’s deadline, it mandates a priority. People who procrastinate don’t mandate their own priorities so they are constantly reacting. It can work for some people but it is hard to chart your own course.

Figure out your tasks. When I have people work together with this sort of planning, one could literally blindfold the other and give them the tasks to go from point A to point B on stage. That is the power of laying out your tasks and having a step by step process.

Join Me in the Wilderness!

I hope this helps you understand how to map your way through the wilderness of life. These are all concepts that I learned working in strategic planning for institutions and natural resources. I have crafted a system that I use for personal strategic planning. I would be glad to share it with you in more detail. Perhaps you and your friends want to visit me in Northern Wisconsin where we could all take a walk in the woods and lay out a map for your journey through the wilderness. Just let me know. I will be waiting under the third tree from the fork in the trail.

Happy mapping,
Rad

Mapping the Wilderness

Rad Watkins — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 13:39:29 +0000

By: Rad Watkins

As you hike in a wilderness area you wind around this bend and that. You zigzag up switch backs, and maybe even traverse talus slopes. The real decisive point in your whole journey comes when you hit the split in the trail and the signs point to two different destinations. How do you know where to go?

Well, if you were at all prepared for your trip, you brought a map, or at least looked at a map and planned your route. That’s what you do when you go hiking. If you’re in big wilderness country and you have not planned a route, then your decision at that simple split in the road may be the difference as to what state you wind up in. It can be the difference to whether or not you get water that day. It could be the difference between sleeping on an exposed snowfield or in a nice sheltered forest. In big wilderness you NEED a map.

Do You Have a Map? You Need One!

I don’t think I am saying anything shocking here, but ironically, as we move through our lives, we rarely have things mapped out. We wind through this challenge and that. We zigzag between career and home-life. We traverse financial obstacles, but we really don’t have any sort of map. And let me tell you something, we are in BIG wilderness!

Isn’t it funny that on a little recreational escape we will plan meals, make sure our pack has everything we could need, and even carry things for emergencies, yet… in daily life, we just sort of head off. In the book Animal Leadership: Leadership Learned from Wildlife for Leading Yourself and Others, I describe the four animal personalities. The Eagle is the one with the most planned out vision, whereas the Wolf is probably the most spontaneous and carefree in daily actions (if you want to see what you are take the FREE test at www.AnimalLeadership.com). Maybe some Eagle-people do have a plan for their lives, although I doubt many, and almost certainly most Wolf-people do not. Do you?

Map Your Plan, Prioritize

As a natural resource professional, I have studied plenty of plans. For a couple of years, working as a Senior Scientist for a consulting company, all I really did was write strategic plans for citizen groups who were looking to manage local resources. The concepts applied basically boil down to knowing your priorities, identifying your resources, and deciding what actions you will take. This is the map to negotiate the wilderness. Yet, how many of us lay that out for our own lives?

Mapping out your priorities can be one of the most important things we do. Steven Covey, the designer of the famous Franklin Covey Planner, talks about sharpening the axe before you begin to chop the tree. It is defining our priorities that he refers to. It is mapping our course which makes the difference in what we are really capable of achieving. Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, yet some people never have time while others accomplish great things. Some can have a blast spending time in the wilderness, while others just feel lost.

There are many great tools for designing your map. I’ll talk more about that in next week’s blog. For now, I want you to ponder the idea of even having a map. Do you? Do you know where you’re going, or even where you’re hoping to wind up? Let’s build a map together. Let’s become determined to achieve some direction so we can enjoy our travels through this beautiful wilderness. Let me know what tools you come up with to build your map. There is nothing like looking out from a mountain top to a vast sea of wild, especially if you decisively and determinedly got there, and know how to get down.