Who this is for
Something you genuinely wanted has not moved in months. It is still on your list. You still say you are doing it. Nothing happens, and each time you think about it you feel slightly worse, which makes thinking about it less likely.
The instinct at this point is to make a better plan. That is almost always the wrong move, and this template is built to prevent it. You already had a plan. A second one, made by the same person about the same situation, will stall in the same place — because the plan was not what was missing.
The centre of this map is a diagnostic question, not an objective.
The branches
What actually stopped. Be precise about the last real activity. Not "I lost momentum" — what was the final thing you did, when, and what came immediately after it? The stall usually has a specific moment, and people rarely look at it because looking is uncomfortable.
Which kind of stall this is. There are only a few, and they need opposite responses:
- Unclear next action — you do not know what to physically do. Cheap to fix.
- Blocked by something external — waiting on a person, money, a decision. Not a motivation problem at all.
- Hidden dread — the next step involves something you would rather avoid. Usually a conversation, or being visibly bad at something.
- It stopped mattering — the honest and most common one, and the hardest to admit because you have told people about it.
Do I still want this? Given permission to be a real question. Wanting something eighteen months ago does not obligate you now. A goal you have outgrown is not a failure — it is information, and abandoning it deliberately frees more energy than restarting it would.
The smallest possible restart. If the answer above was yes: what is the most embarrassingly small action that would constitute movement? Ten minutes. One message. Opening the file. The size is deliberate — a stalled goal has accumulated dread, and dread is proportional to the size of the step you are contemplating.
What I would have to give up. Time comes from somewhere. If the goal stalled because it never had a real slot, restarting without finding one recreates the conditions exactly. This branch names what gets displaced.
Reduced scope. Often the original goal was the problem — too large, defined by a version of you with more available time. What is the version worth doing at the capacity you actually have? Half a goal, achieved, beats a whole one permanently stalled.
How to use it
Import it, mark "which kind of stall this is" as Focus, and do not touch anything else until it is answered. Every other branch depends on it, and the responses genuinely diverge — an external blocker and hidden dread look identical from the outside and require completely different actions.
If the honest answer is "it stopped mattering," the correct outcome of this map is to Archive the original Growth Path. That is a successful use of this template, not a failed one.
No dates until something has moved twice. Dates on a stalled goal are how it stalled.
What to add once it is yours
Name the actual goal, the actual last action, the actual date. Vagueness here is protective and it defeats the purpose.
Attach Proof to the restart, however small — a branch cannot be marked Proven without it, and after a long stall the first piece of evidence is disproportionately valuable because it breaks the story that nothing ever happens.
Signs it is working
- You named the kind of stall honestly, including if it was dread
- Something moved within a week, however small
- The scope is smaller than the original and you are at peace with that
- Or: you archived it deliberately and felt relief
Signs it is not
- You built a detailed new plan and have not acted on it
- The stall type is still unidentified after a fortnight
- The restart action is not small — it is the original next step renamed
- You are unwilling to consider that the answer might be no