How mind mapping can help you "unpack" your big dreams

Many people have big dreams of their ideal profession, the novel they'd love to write or the business they'd love to start.

But their imaginations tend to compress those thoughts into attractive, hazy pictures that mask the incredible amount of mundane work required to actually get there.

• Do you really want what you THINK you want?

• Are you comfortable trading passion for hard work to make it happen?

• And how can you find out without actually jumping into it?

This article does an excellent job of explaining how to "unpack" these dreams to really figure out if you ought to pursue them.

Not surprisingly, a mind map is an excellent companion for this journey. It gives you a powerful way to:

• Break bigger ideas down into their component pieces,

• Play "What if?" with future scenarios,

• Capture and organize research about your Really Big Idea

• Brainstorm new possibilities around it

• Build action plans and priorities

• And much more.

Sure, you could unpack your life-changing idea in a lengthy document or a note-taking tool. But they're not designed to dissect, manipulate and achieve clarity on your ideas and thoughts the way a mind map can.