MIND MAP YOUR NEW YEAR’S GOALS TO REALITY

Former Google career coach and job strategist Jenny Blake suggests drawing a mind map to figure out how exactly you plan to live a more productive or planned life. To be brief, perhaps you will actually accomplish some of those resolutions. This mind map helps you visually work through your goals and see them from a wider perspective and form connections between your objectives.

Blake suggests doing this on paper (your resolutions are easier to achieve when you can fight your on-screen addictions). Take a blank paper and jot down the year, e.g. 2017, on the very middle. Draw spokes to connect it to the various themes or objectives you have. For example, each of these lines could connect to career, skill building, family, fun, values and so on. Then, work on each objective. Start by asking yourself, "How is this important to me? What does success for this objective look like?"

The answers to your question should be written joined by further lines from the objective. For example, in family, you could see success as "Have one family dinner each week" or "Meet up with parents once a month".

Visualising and setting goals using mind maps help you brainstorm creatively. Needless to say, this is a very old-school yet effective method for any type of goal setting session or meetings in organisations as well.

The writer is a junior at the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka