The process of life planning is the best way for you to transform your life. Don’t let lady luck be the determining factor in how your life works out. There is a popular adage often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
Are you living the life you want or have you given up believing that you will ever achieve anything significant in your lifetime, just settling for mediocrity? Now you just find yourself going through the motions as you try to simply survive.
Well I want you to wake up. It’s never too late to create a happy or successful life. No matter what’s gone before nor how things are right now, it’s the right time for you to create a life plan. Follow the process of life planning that I’m about to show you and you’ll have a blueprint for the rest of your life.
A life plan is simply a guide that you will create to provide yourself direction, meaning and purpose that if carried through will deliver exactly the life you planned for. Why do so many of you play Russian roulette, and leave your future to chance?
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.” Daniel H. Burnham
If you believe that you should have control over your life – you’re right. If you think there is a better way than living in a state of constant victim-hood, you’re right again. And if you have tried the self-help path before, but still feel lost – then it is time to stop struggling and start living. There is a way to overcome all of your challenges. And it is not complicated. It simply means you spending a small amount of time on the process of life planning.
Are you ready to begin to manage your life so that you can be more productive, balanced, and create lasting fulfilment?
If yes, then you need to spend time on life planning, writing and following because a life plan is one of the best things you can do for your life. Do I need to say that again?
We are not talking about a huge, multi-page business plan. A life plan is really just a summary of where you are now in all the areas that matter to you, where you want to improve, what you’d like your life to look like in the future and the specific actions necessary to take you from where you are to where you want to be. That is all it is, simple but powerful.
Life planning is a process by which you will take stock of your life, clarify goals, determining a life vision, and identify the steps needed to move forward. Let me break down each step.
1. Take stock of your life,
You begin the life planning process by assessing where you are in life right now. It gets you into perspective, where you can see beyond the day to day grind and truly review with clarity how things are for you in your life right now. A great way to do this is to look at the important areas in life and give yourself a score for each area. How satisfied are you in each of these life areas on a scale of 1-10? Take a few minutes and rate yourself in each area (Remember, you are rating your level of satisfaction)
The areas that I consider are the following:
1. Health & Fitness
2. Emotions
3. Relationships
4. Finances
5. Career/Business
6. Family
7. Friends
8. Self-Development
Doing this is going to give you a good idea of the areas you need to focus on, that are holding you back. You’ll see clearly where you need to improve and grow. If you don’t grow, you die – it’s as simple as that. So start analysing each area, and be honest with yourself, as there’s no point denying how things are. Be brutally honest, and get ready to change what’s wrong.
2. Clarify goals,
Everybody wants to feel good. Everyone wants to have an amazing job, financial independence, travel the world, have amazing relationships, and look fantastic. Deny it if you want.
By assessing your life you will have seen some major things you want to change. If you successfully change them, then life will get far better. To determine what your goals are you need to first be clear on the things you want to change. Grab a piece of paper and for 5 minutes write down what you want to be different in your life one year from today. Maybe you would like a different job, to lose weight, a promotion, more savings, to be able to stay at home with your kids, a stronger marriage, and better friendships, less debt, a cleaner home, or a closer relationship with your partner.
Once you have worked out what you want to change, now convert these to positive goals.
It is so important to clarify your personal goals, because you can achieve what you set your mind to, and you will accomplish the goals that are important to you. But, the first step is to write your goals down. Make your goals SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
Let me give you a few clues to try and reveal your goals.
- How much do you want to earn this year, next year and five years from today?
- How would your health be different if it was perfect in every way?
- What is it you want to be doing every day in your career?
- What makes your relationship perfect?
Your life needs goals to give you a purpose and direction.
Think these through and then get your goals down.
3. Determining a life vision
Knowing what you want to change and the goals you want to achieve you can now to create a compelling vision of who you’ll become and what you want your life to ultimately be like. This is a very powerful part of the process, as your ultimate vision is what will drive you and really excite you – it gives you something to look forward to on a continual basis.
Take a moment and answer these questions.
- What is the ultimate vision for my life?
- What do I want my life to be about?
- If there were no limits, what would be possible for my life?
- What do I want for each area of my life?
- What will I accomplish?
Try to incorporate all senses in your vision to make it most effective. What do you see, hear, smell, taste and feel throughout this ideal life vision? Perhaps the best way to look at the concept of a life vision is as a compass to help guide you to take the best actions and make the right choices that help propel you toward your best life. Create in your mind a vision of your perfect future.
“Vision is the spectacular that inspires us to carry out the mundane.” Chris Widener
4. Identify the steps needed to move forward.
Now you need an action plan to take you from where you are to where you want to be – in all areas of your life. This may involve specific action items you will be doing to reach each of your goals.
We are talking about the specific actions you need to take to make your goals and vision a reality. What would be the plan that, if you followed it, would guarantee that these goals become a reality? This is essentially the steps, the strategy, to reaching your destination.
Ask yourself these questions and get out your notebook to write down all activities you need to take.
- What is my action plan for making these goals a reality?
What specific actions can you commit to in order to end up at your envisioned future?
What steps would I have to take?
This is a simplified version of the process of life planning, but if you follow it through you really will have the key parts of a life plan. Now all there is for you to do is follow through on it.
To help you create your life plan, I’ve written The Single Page Plan, and you can buy the book or kindle at amazon. Read it and create a powerful single page plan for life, the best life plan you can ever make. Best still you’ll get the key elements onto one page, that’s your Life Plan on a single page.
photo credit: homethods Writing Planning – Credit to https://homethods.com/ via photopin (license)
