New Year Resolution - Create Family Future Lifestyle Maps

PRLog (Press Release) - Dec 05, 2009 -
A new year brings New Year’s resolutions. Turn it into a family event. Create a Future Lifestyle Map as excerpted from the book, Follow Your Inner Compass Teen.

“Let the outrageous crazy adventures be ever present in your memory. These experiences bring joy, triumph and a pride of accomplishment. Imagine if we were to set out to create more of these experiences. Our lives would be a blast of fun. What experiences would you create?

Draw pictures of the 3 craziest, outrageous experiences you want to achieve in life. Maybe it is to produce a movie, a CD, own a billion dollar business, build a hotel. Whatever your experience is, draw a picture of it. Do not draw a career or a thing. Draw the ultimate experience you want to achieve. If you can not draw, cut out pictures in magazines and paste them on a piece of paper. Put all pictures into 1 picture. This is your Future Lifestyle Map.  Frame the picture and hang on the wall.

Be outrageous.    Be daring.   Become ridiculous. Have fun.”

Imagine the entire family sitting at the dining room table cutting out photos from a magazine to create their collages. There is an excitement in the air as parents and siblings learn about each other and their dreams. There is even more excitement as each family member explains their dreams and goals. “It is quite enlightening.  There is a simple understanding that keeps everyone focused, especially teenagers who are trying to find themselves,”   states Ida Byrd-Hill, author of Follow Your Inner Compass Teen. Parents can begin to have a different relationship with their children. Rather than parents continually harping on good grades and discipline, young people become motivated for getting those grades as most of their dreams and resolutions will be anchored to a career goal.

Follow Your Inner Compass Teen (www.followyourinnercompass.com) determines careers by personality type based on a Myers-Briggs type test and links it to a fictional or cartoon character with the same personality type. Young people can watch TV and see themselves.  They can also discuss their personality type with friends like a horoscope. The new question for 2010 will be “What is Your Personality Type?”

The Future Lifestyle Map began 5 years ago for my family when I required my children, Kevin and Karen Hill to take the Myers Briggs test.  We discovered radio and TV production would be a suitable career for Karen based on her personality type and video game design/ physicist for Kevin. They are in the 11th grade in a performing/ visual arts school and fully focused on college and career. The Future Lifestyle Map was perfected in a pilot at a Detroit alternative high school that obtained an 80% graduation rate and 85% attendance rate amongst high school dropouts and adjudicated youth.

Make New Year’s resolutions a fun filled family event by creating Future Lifestyle Maps.