connecting with your spirit 173
goals, dreams, and course can be one of the most effective ways of
harnessing them and grounding us.
Diagramming Your Dream via a PERT Chart,
Conceptual Mapping, or Growing Your TreeDiagramming and mapping strategies help people identify and
address the what, why, when, where, and how to manifest their
desires and goals. Because most of us are visually oriented and
procrastinators by nature, it really is a powerful tool to see how we
might imagine getting from our present point A to where we want
to go, point B. Engineering types may prefer the diagramming and
mapping approaches to growing their tree, so both will be described
and illustrated for you to practice. Then you can choose the one
that most appeals to you.
I was introduced to the Program Evaluation and Review Tech-
nique, or PERT, charting by my brother about fi fteen years ago, as
we discussed my many imagined challenges of writing my fi rst book
and getting it published. He said that practically all businesspeople
have PERT charts, which outline and connect strategies to get any
big project off the ground and to help them brainstorm about its
preferred process and direction. You map out each of the known
steps that are necessary to accomplish the end product, by orga-
nizing needed actions into arenas (departments), sequencing, and
dating the specifi ed actions ’ completion. When we adopted this
technique for Ricers at the Rice Diet Program, it evolved to address
all of the dimensions of our lives that needed attention.
These charts can be designed any way your brain is inspired to
create them, but I often illustrate mine by putting a circle, approxi-
mately two inches in diameter, in the middle of the page that iden-
tifi es the goal. My fi rst book was titled Heal Your Heart , so that was
in the middle circle of my PERT chart. Then I drew straight lines
out from the circle, with each of these lines denoting, or serving
as the axis for, arenas to be addressed. My fi rst line held “ all major,