Are you ready to work less, make more money, and have less stress, than learning to plan is the right thing for you!
Are you a high-achiever, working on your big dream, trying hard to change your life, yet in constant struggle with time and consistency? Planning can help you tremendously.
Why Smart People Plan Their Lives
By nature, I am not a planner. I love spontaneity, following my instincts, getting lost, and discovering new spaces, floating and moving with the flow.
However, I do believe that planning can improve our ability to reach our goals and get rid of unproductive habits.
Therefore, I decided to give it a try this year. I took a couple of days of solitude, away from my family and work to make my yearly plan.
Settling on the beautiful island of Ibiza, inspired by the magnificence and abundance of nature, I got as creative and sharp as possible.
I hope you can also feel the magic energy of this Mediterranean island in the short video below.
As promised in the video, here is the link to the micro-planning method I applied.
I chose this method because it is simple. It takes a larger vision and breaks it down into yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily check-in practices to plan and adjust as necessary.
Start With The Big Picture
The first step of making a yearly plan is defining your goal, your bigger vision, your purpose if you will.
What do you really want to achieve?
Don’t bother yet with how are you going to achieve this. Instead, spend some time pondering these questions:
- What do I feel deeply inspired by?
- What am I particularly talented at?
- What meets a significant need in the world?
Click here for more on how to define your purpose and spend time and the things that matter
Even if you are considering a career change, our career history is a great place to gather clues about your compelling purpose.
Look back at your career history, to find a thread that connects what all of your different roles have had in common.
The following exercise truly helped me shape my purpose:
Jot down all career experiences you’ve had to date. Notice what commonalities they have. Focus on the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences to extract the ingredients of your purpose.
Combining my career history insights with the paradise of unparalleled beauty on Ibiza, I came up with this purpose:
My purpose is to help experienced professionals define digital services and products that are aligned with their purpose and enable them to make their highest contribution and be well rewarded for it.
Don’t overthink it. Your purpose is something that evolves with time and you will have many chances to revisit it to match your growth and new insights.
Translate Purpose Into Plan
Now that you have a compelling purpose, you can make a plan for the year.
Identify one to three areas of growth that you want to focus on.
I like to approach this holistically, putting personal and professional goals in the same plan. In this way, I feel that I can fully engage in both places with all the qualities and skills I have.
For example, one of the focus areas in my plan is developing a coaching capability for my digital business.
Next to it is spending more quality time with my teenagers, who no longer need me for care, but definitely as a life coach.
As you can see, the coaching element is present in my business as well as in my family goal and this will produce synergy and acceleration in both.
Your year-long plan could include a job search, pursuing growth opportunities in the career or other interests you currently have, laying the groundwork for starting your own business, organizing an overseas trip, or whatever else makes sense for the current moment you’re in.
The following steps are breaking down the year plan into quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals. For details, on how to do that check here.
Before we separate, let me clear one major misconception about planning.
Include More Of Yourself
When we think of planning, we usually think of losing spontaneity and free time. We feel like we will become some kind of machine executing only todo lists and never having time for the fun stuff.
On the contrary, plans are not simple todo lists or braindumps of all the things that need to happen.
The first things in your plan should be those goals and activities that keep you well-nourished, happy, healthy, and productive.
Free open space for dreaming and creation, enough sleep, having a date, meditation, anything you need to function optimally should become part of your plan.
Don’t leave these activities for the leftover time, when all the “important stuff” is planned cause you’ll never get
your needs met.
When you put yourself as a top priority in your schedule, everyone else will get the best version of you.
I hope by now you are convinced of the benefits of making a strategic plan and building in planned checkpoints for course correction as new information arises and circumstances shift.
Though planning requires some effort and discipline, it is a crucial practice for success in life.
A plan that is a reflection of who you are and what matters to you will provide you with a framework to create the life and work you love.
Together we are stronger
Now that you are looking at your freshly made year plan, take a deep breath and wholeheartedly commit to sticking to it.
Why?
Because you know it is made to make your dreams come true!!!
In spite of the commitment, if you are anything like me, sticking to a plan is almost impossible without building a support group.
Join me in this Facebook group, where we can help each other stick to our plans. Together we can learn, keep each other accountable and find motivation when things don’t work out as expected.
I would love to hear about your plans! Speak soon!
Learn more about the opportunities of creating an online income stream. Achieve financial independence and freedom to live life on your own terms!
>> Click here << for a list of books that recently influenced me profoundly and are today part of my body and mind.
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