12/21/13: It's hard to know where to go if you don't have a destination. That is the Basic principle of this article. Most of my clients, people I know, and even myself at various times, have not had a clear vision of how we wanted to be, or what we wanted to do in the future. It leaves us lost and stagnant. The following article is a way to help develop a vision of where you want to venture next in your personal development by defining what you are like when you are at your best.Back to Basics
We are actually going to start with determining what to do when we feel at our worst, with a process I call "Back to Basics." When we are caught up in some type of ordeal or massive stress, it's easy to lose our bearings, and finding some type of grounding is essential to feeling better and maintaining our functioning in life. So this process is about stripping away the complicated situations and problems that might be taking place for a moment, and focusing on what really matters, and what your most basic level of functioning needs to be. Even if you're feeling good right now, it might come in handy to figure this stuff out too for when things may feel more out of control.

The major areas to focus on while you design your set of Basics are listed below. For each dimension, write out the answers to the questions. When we are at not doing well, I'd suggest submitting to this structure while the problems resolve.

1. Health: When should you go to bed and wake up? What foods should you be eating each day? How much should you be exercising each week?
2. Mentality: At the end of the day, what do you truly value? What are your priorities? How should you treat yourself and others?
3. Work/School: What are the most basic competencies you need for your job or school? What are the basic responsibilities you have for those that you should make sure to do?
4. Relationships: Who can you rely on for support and validation when everyone else seems to be against you? Who should you spend the most time with? Who should you talk to when you are struggling?
5. Other Activities: What are the other things you do that bring you joy and help you feel good? How often can you do them?
6. Healing: What things work for you to heal from pain or damaging experiences?
7. Relax: What can you do every day to relax and feel OK about yourself and things in your life?
8. Environment: What can you to do make your living space feel the most comfortable? Where can you go regularly that makes you feel good?
9. Avoid: What things should you avoid when you are in a bad place? What are you doing too much of that you need to cut down on?
10. Needs: When you are at your worst, what do you need the most? What is the best way to get it? What do you need to be able to stay functioning at the most basic level in your life?

Your Best
Now that the basics are dialed in, pause and give some thought to the best (healthiest, happiest) that you have been in your life; not in a single moment, but overall. Where were you living? What were you doing? Who was in your life? What were your habits? How was your diet? How were you doing it? What were you not doing? What were your worries? What mattered? How did you feel about yourself? What were you priorities? What were you planning for? What was meaningful to you? If you can't think of a time, that is alright, but means it is even more important to carve out a vision for that in the future.

So what we want to do now is take that information and translate it into a realistic and even improved future version of yourself. If you have some ideas already, I'd suggest getting out some paper and writing them down (or sending yourself an email). If you need more structure for it, or want to see some ways researchers conceptualize this, keep reading.

Mental Health
A recent effort to help people with this task has been developed by Daniel Siegel, a neuropsychiatrist (and emerging psychology superstar) that has been dedicating his time toward healthy mental functioning. He has proposed a structure of 7 ways to spend your time each day for optimal brain functioning. Having too much or too little of these things is like having too much salt or not enough vegetables in your diet.

1. Focus Time: this part of the day should be about being productive and focusing on tasks you need to complete. Specifically, it should be in doing one task at a time, rather than multitasking.
2. Play Time: this about being spontaneous, creative, and playful. For most adults this is far and away the least time spent. There is also excellent neurological research from other people that demonstrates how important it is to retain a sense of play and fun.
3. Connecting Time: this is the part of the day where we join with other people and nature, and want to contribute to them. You can read more about why this is important here: Universal Relationship Needs.
4. Physical Time: this is about taking some part of the day for exercise, aerobically if possible, which has benefits to both your mind and body.
5. Time In: this is when we take time to reflect inwardly on our thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness is a great example of doing this, you can read more about that here: An Introduction to Mindfulness.
6. Down Time: this is taking time to relax. My most driven clients have difficulty doing this at all, whereas others have problems breaking free from this. If you struggle with the latter, check out Mastering Motivation.
7. Sleep Time: sleeping is essential for mental and physical health. You can read more here: How to Sleep Better.

So if we go back to the original point of this article, one way you could structure your own vision of you at your best would be to take each of the 7 categories and get a sense of how they could all be incorporated in your life everyday. I'd also suggest adding in answers to the following questions as specifically as possible:

When I am at my best:
1. How do I feel about myself?
2. What are my daily and weekly habits?
3. What is my diet like?
4. What are my priorities?
5. What are my relationships like?
6. What types of relationships would I have?
7. How am I handling adversity?
8. What am I like at work/school?
9. What am I doing with my hobbies?
10. What am I thinking about most of the time?
11. What is my living space like?
12. What would others notice about me?
13. How am I handling my emotions?
14. What am I not doing?

Beyond just defining some of these things, I'd suggest visualizing yourself in the future living these things out. That picture and the feelings that come with it can be even more powerful at helping us than words and ideas.

Next
Once you have all of these things figured out, and have a clearer vision for where you would like to take things, it could be time to set some personal goals (How to Set Goals), or find some ways to start moving toward being you at your best by reading things like: Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes, Build a Coping System, Increasing Happiness, and How People Change.