Mapping Your Responsibilities

Now that you have a clearer idea of your purpose and ideal life, let’s switch back to thinking about reality for a while.  Don’t worry. We’ll be back to focusing on your dreams soon enough.

In this section, you’ll think through all of your different areas of responsibility. You can be as detailed or as high level as you’d like, and you can organize them however makes sense to you.

Some people prefer to think of their different areas as “accounts,” much like a bank account where you make deposits and take withdrawals. Using this method, some common categories would be:

- Self (as in physical and mental health)
- Spouse or significant other
- Children or other family members in your household
- Friends or other key relationships
- God
- Career or Business
- Finances
- Volunteer

Others use themes to describe their areas of responsibility in a meaningful way:

- Family/Parenting
- Personal Development (including spiritual development)
- Fitness/Health
- Financial Planning
- Relationship Building
- Career/Job (may have one listing for each)
- Business Ventures (may have one listing for each business)
- Giving/Charitable or Volunteer activities

The key is to start making a list that is meaningful to you, and to make notes underneath each heading of the types of activities and responsibilities that fit within that section.  This is also a good time to gather any supporting documents related to your responsibilities. Some examples could include: your job description(s), business plan(s), documentation of board responsibilities (if you serve on a corporate or non-profit board of directors), or other assignments from volunteer organizations.  If you’ve started a binder, you might include some document protectors here so that you can just slide your supporting paperwork in place.

At the end of this section, your goal is to have a clear map or list of all of your areas of responsibility. You should be able to identify all of the different “hats” you wear or roles you serve. Work on this step over the weekend, and we’ll dig into this area a little deeper on Monday.