Creating Your Own Life Plan

Sometimes, when I discuss career opportunities with my friends, I mention that I only chase those that fit into my life plan. Friends are often surprised to hear that I have a life plan, because this is not something that everyone does. However, I find that having a life plan not only gives me great focus, it also makes doing little tasks less mundane when you know how they fit into the bigger picture.

I have written before about the importance of having a purpose with your life, which is not quite the same as a life plan. If your life were a business, the purpose would be the vision of the company – the grand plan to be the best possible version you can be, and to do good in the lives of others. The life plan is the day-to-day running of the business, doing the little things that ensure you can reach your vision and purpose.

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1. What are my priorities?

We all know that we have priorities in our lives, but we never stop to make a list of them. They can be anything, including family, friends, career, hobbies, or even going on a nice holiday every year. They are the things that make you tick. Once you write these down, you have a clear idea of all the things worth working towards. More importantly, you can also identify all the things you do that don’t contribute to your priorities and try to find ways to eradicate them from your life. I would suggest writing down ten or less priorities, otherwise there is a good chance you won’t get to everything.

2. Where am I going with my priorities?

Once you have written down your priorities, imagine the future of that priority. Some are simple. For instance, if your studies are a priority, you can imagine getting your qualification after a set number of years in the future. You can then cross this priority off your list. Some are more complex and may be priorities for the rest of your life. But what those priorities look like in the future might change from time to time.

3. Back to the present

Dreaming about the future is easy. Working towards it every day is the hard part – and the reason you need a life plan to help guide you. For instance, if your health is one of your priorities, you may decide to achieve this priority, you have to go jogging three times a week. Now your life has action points! And this is the entire point – developing the small things you can do every day to achieve your plan, things that will turn into habits over time.

4. Review

Your life goals change more regularly than you may think. Some fall of the list when they are achieved and with others you find that they just aren’t the priority you once thought they were. I would suggest reading your life plan once every three months, just to see if anything has changed and, importantly, if you are still sticking to the daily tasks you set yourself in line with your life plan.

A plan is nothing more than a combination of goals - what you want to achieve, and actions - how you’re going to achieve it. Like most amateur goal-setters, I started with nonsense like, “I want to make a million bucks a year, five years from now!”

I don’t set goals for things I don’t control anymore. But it was a good goal at the time because it helped me think differently. To make large sums of money, you can’t be an employee. You have to be an entrepreneur.

When we make plans, we naturally want to achieve many things. You might want to build a website, hire people, build products and services, and so forth.

Can you do all of that within a year? Probably not. So you have to decide what you will focus on first.