At about the same time I started to think about building an Internet website, I considered my personal strengths and resources. It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to make a list of all the things I have in my life, as well as the things I have learned and skills I can use. This could help me come up with new directions for my personal development. After I’ve started writing these things down, I decided to call it “Power Maps” as they outline my sources of power, and could also show me ways to turn my strengths into more powerful actions. In this brief article I will try to demonstrate how I do this, hoping you can do the same. I use my own Power Map as an example, so you also get a chance to know me better…
I began by writing down the major categories of things I do and am related to. Here is what I came up with:

Family & Friends
Places I know
My Studies & Work
Languages
My Hobbies & Pastimes

Try to make your own list now. It doesn’t have to be similar to the one I made or even have the same logic or structure. Just try to think of the major things that make up the person that you are.
Next, I added more details to each major category – ending up with many of the things I consider to be my sources of power and knowledge. This is what it looked like by now:

Family & Friends

My wife
My children
My mother, sisters & brother
My friends

Places I know

Israel
Europe
South America

Argentina
Chile
Peru
Bolivia
Brazil

South East Asia

India
Nepal
Thailand

My Studies & Work

Human Resources
Management skills training
Thinking, Innovation & Creativity
Philosophy
Computers

Web programming
Database planning
Online & computer games

Myself as an employee

Languages

Hebrew
English
Spanish

My Hobbies and Pastimes

Capoeira
Diving
Board games

Seeing all that I have in my favor, I already started to feel stronger!
If you want to get the same feeling – take a few minutes to list many of your own sources of power.

Turning power maps into creative action

Now it was time to start thinking how I could turn all those resources into something I could make or contribute. In other words – come up with new and useful things I could do with all I have. What I came up with was consisted of things I did before and could do better or on a larger scale; things I haven’t done before but believed I could do; and some other creative ideas that just came up.
In order to distinguish these action ideas from the resources I already listed, I use an undeline for the action items. I am sharing some of these with you:

Family & Friends

My wife
Help your wife pursue her dream
My children
Write children’s books
My mother, sisters & brother
My friends

Places I know

Israel
Knowing what it’s all about
Europe
South America

Argentina
Chile
Peru
Bolivia
Brazil

South East Asia

India
Nepal
Thailand

My Studies & Work

Human Resources
Management skills training

Tools for planning
Small Business Handbook

Thinking, Innovation & Creativity

Improved Memory Techniques
Building a Personal Thinking Center

Philosophy
Computers

Web programming
Database planning
Online & computer games

Principles of development
Review best games on the web

Myself as an employee

Languages

Hebrew
English
Translation tips
Spanish
Learning tips

My Hobbies and Pastimes

Capoeira
Diving
Board games

Playing tips
Designing & Inventing

Now I had something I could work with. There were other things on the list – this is just to show you the general idea. I am sure that if you try to complete your own Power Map now – you’d have many action ideas.

Bringing it all together

With such a detailed Power Map, you can start looking for practical ways to harness all that power to interesting development possibilities. The strongest creative ideas would be those that combine as many strengths and action items as possible. Consider the creative ideas website I have built (see resource box below) – it combines my power at: English, Internet, Creativity, Management training, and more.

I truly hope this can help you become stronger, more creative, and ultimately happier. If you liked this article and the Power Map tool, you should check out the Resource Box Below for a constantly growing source of ideas and creativity tools.