When you want to clarify your thoughts and straighten out everything you’re thinking, there are three different techniques you can try. Next time you’re having trouble getting your thoughts organized, try one of the techniques. If that doesn’t work, try another technique. You’re bound to have clearer thoughts sooner or later.

Tip #1 - Talk to yourself.

People have this misconception that if you talk to yourself, there must be something mentally wrong with you. Not always! Talking to yourself allows you to actively hear and listen to what you’re thinking, which often leads to brainstorming to yourself out loud. As a result, you get a broader picture and better grasp of what you’re thinking.

There are two ways of talking to yourself:

• Talk to an imaginary audience. Pretend your overlooking a crowd of 5,000 people who are dying to hear every word that comes out of your mouth. What would you say to them? How would you acutely describe what you’re thinking? Don’t worry about how many times you retread the same topic. They love every word you’re saying!
• Talk to the mirror, as if you’re giving an interview. Pretend you’re being interviewed, and the interviewer is asking you specific questions regarding the topic you’re thinking about. How would you respond to his or her questions? Stand in front of a mirror, and pretend you’re looking into a TV camera while answering the questions. Give clear answers to the questions you ask yourself.

Tip #2 - Talk to somebody else.

Take a friend out for coffee, and unload everything you’re thinking on them. Make what you’re saying as organized as you possibly can. By explaining all of your thoughts to another real person, you’ll make attempts to make whatever you are thinking the first time it comes out of your mouth. You end up putting everything you’re thinking into “compartments” - you essentially organize everything in one swoop.

The downside to talking to another person? People can be judgmental. They aren’t exactly impartial when it comes to their opinions and beliefs, so if what you’re wrestling with is a red button issue, talking to others may not be recommended. Also, you might end up getting unwanted feedback - people also love to tell you what they’re thinking, even if you don’t want to hear it.

Tip #3 - Get it all on paper.

Throwing everything from your mind on paper works wonders. It clears up your mind, forces you to connect ideas in new ways, and lets you see your see your thoughts in new perspectives.

• Mind mapping and concept mapping - You make “maps” of ideas, connecting your ideas and thoughts in various ways. Work best for ideas whose relationships you want to explore, connect together, or brainstorm.
• Mind dumping - You literally “dump” all of your thoughts onto paper, making a running list of bulleted points on whatever you are thinking. Works best for concepts you have a lot of thoughts and ideas for that you want to get out of your head.

Clarifying your thoughts might be irritating at first - it can get rather time consuming - but in the end, you’ll get rid of all of your mental clutter and have some solid, tangible ideas to work with. Happy mental organizing!

How to Perform a Mind Dump

1. Decide what topic you want to mind dump. Your topic can be anything from goals you want to complete one day to little things that need to be fixed up around the house.
2. Grab a piece of paper and a pencil, or sit at your computer with an open document.
3. Start writing everything and anything that has to do with your topic in a bulleted list form. The length of your list points doesn’t matter; you’re more concerned with having a running list of everything you are thinking. This is the time to declutter your mind. Get everything you’re thinking in a written form.
4. Stop writing when you feel you have written everything possible, and there is no more to be said.
5. Go through your newly made list, and sort through everything you’ve written down.

By putting all of your thoughts and ideas into a paper-and-ink form, you can detach yourself from them. Instead of having lofty ideas stagnating in your mind, they’re now solid theories on paper. You can look at what you wrote from an objective viewpoint, and then take actions on the ideas with the greatest long term benefits.

My Personal Example of a Mind Dump

A few weeks ago, I was starting to feel bogged down with mental clutter regarding this blog. I was thinking about basic blogging questions everybody goes through when they create a blog: How am I going to get visitors? What style of articles do I want to write? What topics do I want to cover? I had ideas for these questions in my mind, but the more I thought about solutions, the more solutions I imagined. My mental capacity for blogging was hitting the ceiling point.

It was then I learned about mind dumping, and I immediately put it to the test. I opened a Microsoft Word document, sat at the computer, and gave myself as much time as I needed to write down everything I was thinking about pertaining to my blog, in quick, snappy phrases and sentences. Even if what I was thinking seemed trivial, I wrote it down anyway. The list ended up topping about 90 different items, which I then sorted through and transferred to my main blog documents. The end results? My brain was mentally decluttered, I felt more creative afterwards, and I was able to test out and implement many of the solutions on the list, without fretting over forgetting to try out something.

Mind dumps don’t take long to perform. Spend five minutes right now, and mind dump something that’s been taking up your mental RAM. Then look at your list and analyze it. You’ll be surprised to see what you’ve been thinking all along.

But have you ever thought about the phrase “fall back” before? It’s sort of a strange phrase when you mull over its meaning for a bit.

In real life, what happens when you literally “fall back”? Normally, you’re walking, and something happens. A crack in the sidewalk or a slippery surface catches you by surprise, and you lose your balance. You fall backwards due to disorientation, then you get back up, brush yourself off, and continue on your merry way.

In regards to the actual phrase “fall back”, what does that mean? Quite different than its real life counterpart. Figuratively speaking, falling back on a Plan B means giving up on your Plan A. Something comes up - generally something unforeseeable - and instead of immediately getting back up and moving onwards, you stay on the ground and settle for the cushion you laid out for yourself in advance.

Why the major discrepancy? When toddlers learn how to walk, do we chastise them for falling backwards and yell at them, “Don’t learn how to walk! Stick to crawling instead! You might hurt yourself!” Obviously not. But this is precisely what we do with our careers and lives! When we fall backwards and hit an awful snag, we decide to cushion ourselves. We whip out our Plan B when our Plan A was still a toddler. We end up regretting and thinking about all of the “what ifs?” if we succeeded with our Plan A, just like a toddler might do if he or she never learned to walk.

An interesting point to think about is this: what if your backup plan fails? What if the cushion you made for yourself deflates, and you’re now seated on rock hard cement? Your right back to where you started from. It’s as if you’re at the end of your Plan A all over again! I believe that’s a more risky spot to be in. Backup plans can take all shapes and sizes - in the forms of college degrees (which take years), to internships, etc. That’s years shaved off of your life that you could have been living out your dreams.

This begs the question…

Is there a viable alternative to backup plans?

If it’s risky to rely on a backup plan, what do you do? Rather than having a true “backup plan” for the future, I believe your personal toolbox of your various talents, skills, and resources are infinitely more important. Furthermore, the knowledge to synthesize everything together to create solutions to tricky problems will lead you farther down the road of life than any backup plan.

A backup plan can always fail, just as much as your main plan of attack can fail. Just because you have it there doesn’t mean it will always be there for you. What happens if jobs in your Plan B market dry up? What happens if your Plan B income stream suddenly disappears? Your knowledge and problem solving skills will always be with you; nobody can take that away.

This is the reason that most people without backup plans end up being far more successful than those who spend a few years going to college for a Plan B degree, or learning unnecessary skills to get a backup plan ready. People who know how to assess their talents and creatively solve problems know that their dreams aren’t worth giving up on. A solution might be right around the corner, but it could take years to get there. A backup plan would mean giving up - that’s not acceptable to these gifted people. They know that falling back just means getting up again… not settling for a deflating cushion that’s offered to them by other people.

Take a quick moment now and think of the skills and talents you have. Can you improve on those to make your life more fulfilling? When life knocks you down with a strong gust of wind, can you confidently get back up and march on to your dreams? Or will you drag out that cushion and always wonder what your dream would have felt like?

The bulk of the storm only lasted an hour, but the aftermath effects were enormous. 20,000+ people were left without power. Majestic trees that used to stand tall, reaching for the sky, were laying on the ground, snapped at the base as if they were twigs. People’s gardens and flowers were shredded to pieces from the immensely strong winds, and some homes were damaged by large branches falling onto the roofs. As of the time I write this (Sunday morning), there are still nearly 9,500 people without power - going on five days today.

I was one of the people who lost electricity Wednesday night; I just regained it back last night. Of course, it’s not fun to live without power - no working coffee maker means no coffee! - but life goes on anyways! I spent the days organizing my desk and work areas, and various spots around the house that needed a little bit of attention. It really got me thinking though: what can I learn from this dim situation?

The answer? Not much. For one, I’m a bit more prepared for unexpected emergencies like that now. But losing electricity reminded me of starting over in goal setting. Instead of being able to flick on the light switch and immediately do something, I had to find another route to accomplish the same task: light a candle, shine a flashlight, or don’t do anything altogether. Starting over in goal setting is akin to that - instead of doing something the way you planned, you have to plow out a new path to take. This takes us to today’s article: successfully starting over. What does it take?

Successfully Starting Over - Tip #1: Find out which goals aren’t working for you.

A lot of people have this hammered-in-their-brain viewpoint that once they start a goal, they have to finish it. It doesn’t matter what the goal is or why it was set - the goal has to be finished at all costs. Sure, sure, there are reasons abound why this thinking is so pervasive, but I believe a better thing to do is analyze your goals every once in a while and ditch or modify what’s not working.

Why would you throw away or change up your existing goals, anyways?

• Your goal isn’t in align with who you are. If you used to be an extreme environmentalist who always picked up trash along the highway every Saturday (your goal) - and then suddenly did a 180 and now love to litter, would you still cling onto your old goal and pick up other people’s garbage? Probably not. If a goal doesn’t truly match up to your values anymore, it’s probably best if you threw that goal away.
• Your goal isn’t something you want to achieve anymore. If you decide to master German one day, then several months later decide your time is better spent doing something else, why continue on to mastery of that language? Ditch the goal.
• There’s a better way to accomplish what you want. There’s nothing wrong with taking shortcuts. If you can get to where you want to go faster than anybody else with a simple trick, go for it! Don’t do something just because everybody else thinks it’s the “best” way. The “best” way can often be improved.
• You can’t get to where you want to go with your goal. Sometimes you start a goal, you get half way through it, and you realize you veered off course and you won’t end up at the destination you want. Is this a problem? Depends how you look at it; if the destination is similar, there’s nothing wrong with keeping that same path. But if it’s too far off course… then maybe you should look into a different plan.

Once you’ve identified the reason for abandoning or modify a goal, the next step is to figure out how go about doing one or the other.

Successfully Starting Over - Tip #2: Figure out a way to make those goals work.

There are three different methods you can use to change up your non-working goals:

• Ditch and don’t replace. Ditch the goal, and don’t replace it with another goal. You’ll end up with a half-completed goal and nothing else. Works best with goals where replacing the goal would seem awkward and not needed, such as learning a new language.
• Ditch and replace. Ditch the goal, and replace it with another goal that’s more suited for your current needs. Works best for goals where you might be veering of course and need a better goal more aligned with with you want.
• Don’t ditch, replan instead. If you’re faithfully following a plan and the plan isn’t working, perhaps a better plan is in order. You can scrap your current plan and rework something new, or you can modify your existing plan. Works best for goals where you know something can be done better, but you need to throw solutions at the problem until several work brilliantly, such as blog marketing.

Successfully starting over requires you to take both tips into consideration. You have to take a good look at your goals - each and every one of them - and see what works and doesn’t work. If a goal doesn’t work, you can go through the three methods listed above and try to make it work for you. Take a moment and think about the goals you have in life at this very instant. Are all of them working out the way you want them to? Or can you make slight improvements to your plans here and there to get a more desired outcome?

A Little Sidenote:

While my power was out, this site received a record 441 visitors in one day on Friday (according to Feedburner)! Isn’t that amazing? And I wasn’t even here to witness it! Thank you to all who are reading the blog - 441 visitors in one day for a blog that’s not even a month old is kind of ‘wow’ to me. Keep on sharing the blog with people who’d find it useful!

But what about that other 10% of goals? Surely there has to be a way to achieve those goals - many people have set tough goals that were achieved. What were those people doing differently than the others? The answer is simple: they were assessing their resources before they made their plan.

Assessing what resources you have at your disposal before you plan out your goal aids you in several ways. You’re more likely to make informed decisions and better plans to achieve your goal quicker. You’re also more likely to get better, more specific help from others than if you were to blindly run head first into a plan.

Assessing resources comes in two main steps:

1. First, you have to take a good look at what resources you have to work with.
2. Next, you have to decide on if you want to improve what you have, or get another resource that you need.

Look at what resources you have to work with.

The resources at your disposal will always fall into one of five categories: your personal skills, your personal resources, other people’s skills, other people’s resources, and your environment.

1. Your personal skills. Your personal skills are the skills that are unique to you. This can range from things like self discipline, to mastery on the bass guitar, to being great at calculus.
2. Your personal resources. Your personal resources are the material objects (and related items) that you personally own. This includes things such as owning TV, having a high speed internet connection, and so on.
3. Other people’s skills. Other people’s skills are just that - other people’s skills. When assessing what resources you have, we normally look at what skills other people have that you don’t have.
4. Other people’s resources. Same as above - this category consists of other people’s resources.
5. Your environment. The last category is your environment. It includes the city you live in, what kind of weather you encounter throughout the year, what kind of people you run into, and so on.

When people claim there are a variety of ways to achieve the same goal, it’s because they are looking at solutions through various resources. For example, if I wanted to take a set of great pictures of myself, I could filter my problem through the different resources:

1. My personal skills: I can set up a timed camera to take the pictures and do it myself.
2. My personal resources: I can spend money and buy a new, updated camera to use.
3. Other people’s skills: I can pay to have my pictures taken at a professional place.
4. Other people’s resources: I can borrow somebody else’s camera and take pictures myself.
5. My environment: I can leave the city and find somebody who can take the kind of pictures that I want to have.

Most of the time, after assessing what you have, you can get a pretty clear idea of what would be the optimal action to take. This method can also be used for brainstorming - you can brainstorm three different solutions, and get an even wider variety of solutions. (As a side note, each category isn’t all inclusive; as you can see, there’s a little bit of overlapping in between.)

How can you improve on what you have and get what you need?

Sometimes the resources we have aren’t up to par. We might be lacking in something to make our dreams come true. If I wanted to be the world’s best public speaker, but I have severe stage fright, that’s a severe handicap that I need to overcome before I can continue.

Finding the solution to overcome your problems can be tricky, but often times the solution is right under your nose. For improving personal skills, there are a variety of ways to achieve a level of competence. You might take guitar lessons if you would like to be a folk singer. Or, you might join Toastmasters if you want to become better at speaking. The library is full of books devoted to anything you want to learn; perhaps a trip out to your local one is in order. Improving personal resources normally involves money - it’s all about getting or upgrading what you own. If you want to become a top chef and you’re cooking ware is looking falling apart, maybe an upgrade is needed before you can seriously go on.

Improving other people’s skills is a bit trickier. Sometimes this includes shopping around at different places - as with the example before, if you want to become a folk singer and need to learn guitar, maybe you have to go around to six different guitar teachers before you find one who’s skill and experience is what you are looking for. The same applies to other people’s resources - you may have to knock on five of your friend’s doors before you find the item that you’re looking for.

Changing your environment is the easiest category to immediately change - anybody can get in their car and start driving anywhere, whenever they want to. Becoming a famous actor or actress is a dream for many, but you probably won’t have much luck fulfilling that dream in Kansas; you’d have better luck in Los Angeles or New York City.

Take a moment now to look at one of your main goals, and brainstorm different solutions based on the five types of resource categories I’ve listed. Are there several different solutions you can employ to achieve your dreams quicker?