Category Archives: Planning

30 Days of Hacks, Habits and Humor Day 1: Assess and Amplify Your Achievements

December 6, 2023 Published by: gracebc813@gmail.com

Over dinner the other day, I mentioned to my beloved that I did not feel that I had gotten much done this year. I bemoaned the plans that stalled and complained that despite my efforts, I had made no progress on my business. I explained that nothing I had planned to do had really been finished and many things on my list in January, were still there today. I was getting worked up as the observation morphed into a full-on pity party.

I looked up to see disbelief cross his face. He was shocked and was not having it. “No accomplishments? What about getting your A1C down?” “What about getting your parents’ house cleared? He quickly listed several others, and sat back. “Have you forgotten how often you showed up for stuff–supporting siblings, children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and even a few strangers? “His frustration was palatable, particularly since a lot of the things he mentioned required sacrifice on his behalf as well.

(“Uh, oh, I forgot about those things,” I thought and then silently wished I had not said anything.)

“You need to give yourself a break!” Conversation ended. Pity party over. I admitted that perhaps a lot had been accomplished. I had risen to the occasion when I needed to, and that meant that some of my plans had been waylaid. Nevertheless, a lot had been accomplished. I had just forgotten.

So, as we approach the end of another year, it’s the perfect time to recall, celebrate, assess, and amplify our achievements. While it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle of daily life and constantly strive for the next goal, taking time to acknowledge and magnify our successes is a crucial step toward building a foundation for success in the upcoming year.

Assess: Reflect and Celebrate Your Journey

Before diving into amplifying achievements, it’s essential to pause and reflect on the journey. Sit down with your calendar, journal, and any other system you use to document your days. Even Google Maps, your photos, receipts, or your social media page can provide valuable information. Consider the goals you set at the beginning of the year — big and small. What milestones did you reach? What challenges did you overcome? What unexpected events changed the trajectory of your plans? How did you adapt? What new plans and goals took predominance?

By reflecting on the highs and lows, your actions and reactions, you gain a holistic and realistic view of your achievements. This sets the stage for a meaningful celebration.

Why Celebrate?

Celebrating achievements isn’t just about patting yourself on the back; it’s a powerful tool for motivation and self-esteem that will inspire you for the next year. When you take the time to acknowledge your accomplishments, no matter how small, you’re reinforcing positive behaviors and fostering a sense of pride in your work. This, in turn, boosts your confidence and sets the tone for continued success.

Don’t skip this step! Most of us never look back and say, “that was good,” or “I did that well.” As one friend of mine observed, even the Creator celebrated his great works. Scripture says that he looked around each day, studied what he had created, and proclaimed that it was good. So, no excuses, put away the false humility, and celebrate your wins!

The Amplification Process

Now, let’s delve into the process of amplifying your achievements. It’s about more than just acknowledging success; it’s about sharing, learning, and using those achievements as a springboard for future endeavors.

1. Document Your Achievements:
Start by creating a comprehensive list of your achievements throughout the year. Don’t limit yourself to major milestones; include the smaller victories and moments of personal growth. Aim for a list of at least one per month. This list becomes a tangible reminder of your capabilities.

2. Share Your Successes:
Don’t be shy about sharing your achievements with others. Whether through social media, a blog post, or a conversation with a friend, vocalizing your successes amplifies their impact in your own mind, and solidifies their importance in your own heart. A bonus is that your successes will inspire those around you. Your journey might be the catalyst for someone else’s motivation.

3. Analyze the Why and How:
Dive deeper into your achievements by analyzing the strategies and skills that led to success. Understanding what worked well provides valuable insights for future endeavors. Did meticulous planning contribute to a project’s success? Was effective communication a key factor? Was it a solo or team effort? You’re equipping yourself with a toolkit for future success by dissecting the elements that led to achievement.

4. Express Gratitude:
Acknowledge the support and contributions of those who played a role in your achievements. Expressing gratitude not only strengthens relationships but also builds a supportive network for future endeavors. Consider sending thank-you notes or text messages, acknowledging their role in your Christmas letter, or organizing a small appreciation event (in person or virtual) to show your gratitude to those who supported you this year.

5. Create a Visual Celebration:
Remember that list of your accomplishments? Turn your list into a visual celebration. Create a vision board or a digital collage or even a screen saver showcasing your successes. Visual representations can serve as daily reminders of your capabilities and aspirations, fostering a positive mindset.

Move Forward with Confidence and Take Action

2023 was a year of the unexpected for me. Deep pain and loss coexisted with great anticipation and joy. This is the human experience.

So, as an end-of-the-year hack, assessing and amplifying your achievements becomes a powerful catalyst for future success. By consciously celebrating and sharing successes, confidence and motivation are boosted and others are inspired. The process of reflection, analysis, and goal-setting transforms individual achievements into a blueprint for continued growth and accomplishment in the coming year.

Cancel the pity party! Take an hour or two today to assess and amplify your achievements—your future self will thank you for it.

P.S. This post accompanies an episode from The 3-Minute Booster, “Hacks, Habits and Humor: #1 Assess Your Achievements” a daily video podcast by Gabriel Pecher and Grace Carter that can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/100093836490522/videos/683537120573853
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Living Planning Productivity Uncategorized

Lessons from the Musical “Hamilton” – #1: “My Shot”

February 21, 2021 Published by: gracebc813@gmail.com

In the opening of the musical Hamilton, the last stanzas of the song are:

And I am not throwin’ away my shot
I am not throwin’ away my shot
Hey yo, I’m just like my country
I’m young, scrappy and hungry
And I’m not throwin’ away my shot
We’re gonna rise up (time to take a shot)
I am not throwin’ away my shot
We’re gonna rise up (time to take a shot)
I am not throwin’ away my shot
We’re gonna, rise up, rise up
It’s time to take a shot
Rise up, rise up
It’s time to take a shot
Rise up, it’s time to take a shot
Rise up, take a shot, shot, shot
It’s time to take a shot, time to take a shot
And I am not throwin’ away my
Not throwin’ away my shot*

This tune really just grabs me, and takes me down memory lane, not so much in terms of the historical accuracy of the refrain, but down the memory lane of my own life. How many times have I had an opportunity and squandered it? How many times have I wished to make a move, but was gripped by fear, and let the opportunity pass? How many times have I acted too quickly, taken the next step a bit too soon, and lost the opportunity? This phrase, “I am not throwin’ away my shot!” is a wartime metaphor for the age.

Both taking and failing to take a shot can be “throwin’ away your shot”

Growing up, my next door neighbor would grab his shotgun on New Year’s or the 4th of July and shoot into the air. We were instructed to stay inside to avoid the horrific fall out from the eventual effect of gravity on a bullet. The noise could be deafening, and to young children sobering and frightening. My Great-grandmother would comment, that the old man is just “wasting his shot.”

In one of the only times I remember holding a gun, my Grandfather was teaching me how to shoot, more particularly how to hunt. When a rabbit appeared at the edge of the forest, he whispered to me “shoot,” but I did nothing. I watched the rabbit wander out into the field, still in my line of fire, but simply could not pull the trigger, feel the kick of the weapon and watch the fall of the creature. The rabbit scampered back into the woods oblivious that its life had been spared. Of that, Grandpa said, I had just “wasted my shot,” noting that “when you are hungry enough, you’ll take the shot.”

Back to Hamilton, one might guess from a historical perspective that a “shot” in a musket or pistol during the Revolutionary War, at least on the Brown (or Blue or Gray) Coat’s side, was an exercise in frugality and opportunism. There were concerns about munitions running low. Wasting a shot that was not certain to hit a target could be costly later on. And missing the target was possibly a precursor to being shot and killed or desperately wounded yourself. The decision to spend a shot was a serious, considered decision, and eventually, the war’s tactics adapted to the revolutionaries’ hesitancy to waste their shot. They became strategic, they adapted better recognizance and spy networks, and used their knowledge of the terrain to change the ways of battle, adapting new warfare tactics.

How a simple question can become a measure of effectiveness

More than just in war, as dramatized in the musical, not throwing away one’s shot is a metaphor for decisions in many aspects of life. Wasting the shot are the ways in life that we miss opportunities, squander our time, and pass on the great chances. Throwing away the shot are ways that we avoid risk, waste money, and resist commitment.

Hamilton and his crew were determined as they stood on the precipice of adulthood, that it would not be said that they threw away their shot. Rather they embraced life, took chances, made some right choices, some regrettable choices, but in the end, faithfully embraced the call on their lives.

When you look at your plans in the various areas of your life, are you focused on making the best of the shot you have? Have you been squandering your opportunities? Did you waste your shot by taking an ill-advised long-shot? Are there any shots in your proverbial musket that you should have fired, but are still holding on to? It’s not too late to adopt this measure of effectiveness – ask yourself, “did I throw away my shot today?” Aim to consistently (and honestly) answer “no.”

I’d love to hear how this resonates with you, as well as any of your take-aways from the tune.

*Songwriters: Bootsy William Collins / Joell Christopher Ortiz / Kejuan Waliek Muchita / Lin-Manuel Miranda / Roger Troutman / Tariq Trotter / Albert J. Johnson
My Shot lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Rights Management, A Side Music LLC D/B/A Modern Works Music Publishing

Fitness Living Planning Social Commentary Uncategorized

Four Lessons to my 20-Year Old Self

February 14, 2021 Published by: gracebc813@gmail.com

I am the firstborn of my generation which made me the playmate of my older Uncles and Aunt. They were between 5-15 years older than me so they were my playmates, babysitters, caretakers, confidants, and teachers. There was also a fair amount of teasing and “Mikey” moments -activities that might in some cultures be classified as torture. I love my Uncles – the young ones were my father’s brothers and they watched over me as I grew up, gave me a place to stay when I was in college and grad school, and have been my lifelong friends. The funny thing about aging is that there seemed to be a lot more years between us when I was in elementary school, and they were in college than there seems to be now. I’m in my sixties and my Dad’s two remaining brothers are approaching their 80s.

So during a conversation recently, one who has struggled with the family disease – diabetes – for a long time, and has suffered from serious complications for the last several years confessed something that made me pause. He said, “had I known I’d live as long as this, I’d have taken better care of my body!” We laughed, but I quickly wrote that down because it was both a warning and an inspiration.

Youth is the time when experiments, the feeling of indestructibility, and societal pressures lead to developing habits that profoundly impact health. Overeating, overworking, and not exercising; drinking and clubbing, minimizing sleep, and becoming a couch potato often define early adulthood. Who as a 20 or 30-year-old even thinks about what it takes for the body to thrive to age 90 or 100? Yet that is a reasonable life expectancy for many people born after 1990. For a fascinating discussion of the impact of this increased life expectancy on individual choice, societal expectations, and relational dynamics read The Hundred-Year Life, by Lifton Gratton and Andrew Scott (Audible edition 2016).

In my 20s and 30s, I recall giving little consideration to the strength my body must possess in order to live well into my 90s. But now, as I approach “retirement” age, I often think about how to maximize my resiliency for the next 30 or 40 or 50 years.

Lesson One: Don’t Smoke

So what would I tell my 20-year old self about keeping my body healthy? First, don’t smoke. I learned to smoke as a freshman in college and by the time I was 20, I was hooked on nicotine. It held me in its grip until I was 38. I finally quit because I could no longer assume the risk of getting lung cancer – I had two children depending on me. In addition to the long-term effects on my lungs and heart, I calculate that my pack-a-day habit for 20 years cost me over $15,000 in today’s dollars. So if I knew then what I know now – I’d say don’t smoke – ANYTHING- tobacco, vapor, marijuana, – reserve your lungs for one thing – good clean air. Breathe deeply and enjoy the miracle of oxygenated blood, and put the money you save in as high a risk growth fund as you can find. After all, if you smoke, you can’t possibly be averse to risk.

Lesson Two: Exercise vigorously and frequently

The second thing I would tell my 20-year old self is to never stop exercising. As a young person I was active, and I love to get out and run, play tennis, hike, walk, and then I got a car, children, and a sedentary husband, and my life changed. I would tell myself that it is important to keep the stamina and endurance of youth by engaging in every kind of exercise, strength, stretching, aerobic, anaerobic, and just plain play. Make movement and play a part of your life, and model it to those in your sphere of influence, especially your children.

Lesson Three: Love my Body

The third thing I would tell my 20-year old self is to love my body. From the tweens on, women, in particular, struggle with negative thoughts about their bodies. A lot of this comes from nothing but societal conventions about what “looks good,” rather than any understanding about what “is good.”

In my early twenties, I had never been overweight, and had naturally gravitated to a healthy diet, and yet I gained upwards of 70 pounds in my first pregnancy. “Baby fat,” stretch marks and shifts in my body’s shape surprised me and tanked my self-esteem. It started the ups and downs of dieting and body drama. The reality is that with time and a return to normalcy, my health was restored. But my body was forever changed, and I would tell my younger self not to obsess about it. Such change is expected and should be celebrated and appreciated.

Lesson Four: Guard my Heart

The last thing I would tell my 20-year old self is to more carefully consider the company I keep. I drew like a magnet either mean, indifferent, lackadaisical, selfish, egotistical, and arrogant suitors or those who were depressed, unfocused, misdirected, or criminals. As I look back, my sense of my own value as a person was lowered by these associations. I’d tell my 20- year old self to guard my heart with diligence. I’d remember that I have too much to offer to settle.

Here is the good news, even if you are a smoking, couch potato, who hates her body and can see the carnage of bad relationships in your life, don’t fret. It’s not too late to commit to living a long, healthy, vibrant life until you die full of years. Make a plan and start taking the small steps necessary to make your dream a reality.

How about you? What are the lessons you would tell your younger self? What are you doing to ensure that you are primed to thrive into your elder years? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Living Planning Productivity Uncategorized

A Simple Exercise for a Massive Mindset Shift

January 31, 2021 Published by: gracebc813@gmail.com

There are few exercises that immediately bring an “aha!” A couple of years ago, I had such an experience as I did a 5-day “transformation” course. Most transformation courses I’ve taken are about transforming your body, or your diet. This was intriguing because it was really about transforming mindset.

Why Mindset?

Mindset is one of those things that pretty much exists in the background. Not many people think about it, yet, it is the controller or governor of a lot of decision-making, particularly risktaking. In her book Mindset (2015), Dr. Carol Dweck suggests that having either a growth mindset or a fixed mindset is the major difference between successful people and those who experience less success.

But changing your mindset is like changing your cadence if you are a runner. It takes a lot of hard work to change the patterns of movement embedded deep in your brain. And, the change may garner a minor improvement in performance, rather than the monumental result you want. So why bother?

Here’s why. An incremental change of just 1% each month will compound over time to produce massive changes. So really all that is necessary is a small change to your mindset to begin a transformation in what you believe is possible, and by extension, what you see in results.

A Simple Exercise to Start a Mindset Shift

According to Coach Dov Gordon of Alchemist Entrepreneur, when asked what we want to accomplish, we temper our response with what we secretly believe is the maximum of what we can accomplish. In other words, we unconsciously reinforce a limiting or negative belief. To counteract this and intentionally build a growth mindset, he suggests the following exercise:

1. Make a list of those things that you think you can’t have, can’t accomplish, or can’t be.

Don’t think about it very deeply, just write a list of those things you really think are not going to happen for you in your business, personal or other, aspect of your life. Now, review your list—does it seem familiar to you? Spoiler alert! Embedded in that list will be the things you have said that you DO want. That list reflects your mindset about your dreams and desires.

The second part of this exercise will intentionally facilitate the incremental change of mindset. Ready?

2. As you review your list, begin to plant seeds of doubt about the things you have listed.

For example, if you wrote that you don’t believe you can reach your ideal weight – a seed of doubt may be to recall past success and rewrite it to reflect an incremental change. The “I can’t lose the weight” limiting belief is reframed to “with good eating habits, daily exercise, and accountability, I can reach my goal weight.” There may be several reframing statements that come to mind, write them down.

You have taken the negative inner thought, applied doubt to that negative thought and in so doing you have shifted your thinking – you have articulated the possibility. This is an important reframe. By articulating the possibility, you increase the probability.

You can Change Your Mindset

I encourage you to take the time to go through your entire list of limiting beliefs and apply doubt to those negative thoughts. From “I can’t build a successful business that exceeds my current income” to “I have a plan and by executing it I am well able to double my current income.” In the 3 or 4 minutes, it took for me to write my list of “can’ts,” 11 negative beliefs stuck out. By changing my mindset about them – they can become 11 big audacious goals.

Don’t talk yourself out of it by focusing on the simplicity of this exercise or by doubting the effectiveness of a mindset shift. Carol Dweck says that those with a growth mindset, “value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome. They’re tackling problems, charting new courses, working on important issues. Maybe they haven’t found the cure for cancer, but the search was deeply meaningful.” (Dweck, 2015).

Do you need a mindset adjustment? Try this exercise and let me know how you have reframed your negative beliefs in the comments below.

Planning Productivity

From “Flash in the Pan” to Accomplishing Your Grandest Goals

January 3, 2021 Published by: gracebc813@gmail.com

January 3, 2021

Welcome and Happy New Year! I started this blog on my 60th birthday. My goal was to build a platform for self-expression and encouraging others as I explored this decade of my life. I planned to publish twice a month. It was a “flash in the pan” – a “sudden spasmodic effort that accomplishes nothing.” In short, a complete failure!

Try as I might, I just couldn’t bring myself to write and publish my work. Instead, I spent hours studying topics to write about. I spent money on courses and books about how to write and build an audience. I went to seminars and talked about wanting to write. I hired coaches and explored the ins and out of a lot of things –except why I couldn’t press the “publish” button. The result was NOTHING! In the 4 four years since my launch, not a single piece was published.

REFRAME AND OVERCOME FEAR

Why? The first and obvious reason was FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real) – fear of revealing myself as a writer. Fear of criticism, and of internet hate mail. Fear of going viral, and fear of no one ever reading a single word I write. Fear of embarrassment. Fear of being discovered (and of not being discovered). In the end, fear kept me from posting any of the many posts I wrote.

Instead of allowing my imagined fears to continue to hold my dream hostage, I reframed FEAR to a new acronym: Face Everything And Rise, and used it to propel myself beyond my fear. Instead of convincing myself that the evidence behind my fear is false, I decided to face it, accept it, and rise above it.

TAKE APPROPRIATE, CONSISTENT ACTION

The second impediment to producing my writing was ACTION – For a writer, the action is obvious – writers must write. Writers make a habit of writing. I have a day job, so action requires setting routines and practices to find daily opportunities to write. Morning? Evening? Lunchtime?

I experimented and found a slice of time in the evening after work, and after dinner. I calendared the appointment with myself, just before bed, and committed to a tiny writing goal of 50 words a day. Over time this morphed into a morning pages practice of 750 words a day. This month, I’m committed to taking action and writing 500 words a day toward my writing projects.

DON’T WAIT FOR YOUR UNIQUE VOICE

The third problem keeping me from writing was VOICE –writers write in a unique way -how did I want to express myself? A writing instructor talked about finding “voice”- and then left me on the road, without much of a clue about where I would find my voice. A writer without a voice is SILENT. So I went looking for mine. I compared myself to others – some write with a familiar, homey voice, others in an academic voice, with authority backed by copious research. Still others possess the voice of the sage, preacher, or activist.

In looking for a voice to imitate, I finally figured it out! Voice comes as you write – as you write more and more, your voice and style develop! Voice is a product of writing. If I write, the VOICE will come. If you speak, if you develop, if you make music or widgets- your unique market presence will develop as you take action, experiment, and grow.

NO AUDIENCE, NO MATTER

The fourth reason I could not write was that I had not identified an AUDIENCE. There is a conundrum posed by philosopher George Berkeley, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” So it is for a writer without an audience. Who exactly am I writing for? What are their interests, concerns, and problems? Some writers have an avatar of their ideal audience to remind them who they are writing for. I wonder if I’m in their audience avatar and if they would be in mine? Is there another road that I need to travel to find my “tribe?” Perhaps, but one thing is for sure, a fearful, inactive, silent, non-writer will never find the audience that is waiting to hear what she has to say.

I know I’m not the first writer to have these problems so I’m in good company. Almost every blogger I follow has admitted to facing fear and trepidation about writing and publishing. They admit they have felt insignificant and unqualified to write about the subject that was their niche. But they decided that the FEAR could be transformed and defeated by ACTION. They learned that consistent action develops a keen, unique VOICE, that speaks volumes to their peculiar, hungry AUDIENCE that reads, responds, and benefits from their observations, insights, and encouragement.

How about you? As you push into the first quarter of this year is there something that you just never got around to doing last year because you were hampered by fear? Did you start a project, business, or side gig, but quickly became sidetracked by inertia and inaction? Was there a project that you just couldn’t start because it didn’t feel like it was uniquely yours – it didn’t have your voice? Maybe you have a business with few or no customers or clients – you lack an audience? What can you do to push beyond these four impediments to moving ahead? I’d love to hear your story in the comments below.

Have a great week!

Grace

Living Planning Productivity

Living without a Plan? Why you Need a Life Plan Before 2016 Ends!

November 27, 2016 Published by: gracebc813@gmail.com

Its the season for assessing, planning and dreaming! Does this sound like you: Bucket list? Check! New Year’s Resolutions? Check! Agenda? Digital Calendar? Nozbe? Evernote? Outlook? Check, check, check! All of these systems have one thing in common – they are missing the anchor of an overall life plan.

For a whopping 92% of folks success with resolutions is limited. Only a few weeks after the roaring New Year’s start the list is forgotten, the resolutions abandoned, the agenda and calendar reduced to nothing more than appointment reminders — all until this time next year, when the list is rewritten, the resolutions recommitted, year after year, season after season.

I am writing this post only a few days after visiting the ancient Mayan ruins at Chichen Izta and Tulum in Mexico (right). The Mayan people believed in cycles. Their calendar of days, months, years and generations reflect an understanding that just as the moon moves around the Earth, and the Earth around the sun at a predictable clip, life too, can be viewed in seasons and cycles.

I recently reviewed my long abandoned Franklin Planner goal setting pages. Some of these entries were written as far back as 1991. I wanted to encourage myself by looking at how much I had progressed, but instead it was a sobering wake-up call. Some of my “goals” were still on my list, unmet and some unaddressed, after almost 25 years! Hello, reach goal weight? Some had fallen off the list, with a check mark signaling “accomplished” – stop smoking – yay! – gone in 1994. Others, had been lost in the busyness of life: write a daily devotional for my children started in 1993; mentoring young lawyers… umm-still a strong desire, but no plan. I was bummed AND inspired.

How about you? Is your bucket list just a list of stuff you’d like to do, but really have no plan to do? Does your commitment to your New Year’s resolutions make it beyond the end of January? If you looked back 5, 10, 15 or 25 years- would you be able to say that you worked your plan or did your plan get waylaid by the demands of the day – the busyness of work, the rearing of children, the getting a business or career off of the ground? When I was a praticing attorney, I assisted clients with estate plans – comprehensive planning to address what happens during the end of life and beyond. Most people think about their will and end of life directives at some point, but incredibly, very few people of any age spend any time thinking about and preparing a plan for living the life they want.

Before you waste another moment’s energy with New Year’s Resolutions – let me suggests another approach. Just like in an estate plan, we begin with the end in mind. Daniel Harkevy and Michael Hyatt’s book Living Forward: A Proven Method to Stop Drifting and Get the Life you Want (2016) challenged and inspired me to draft a life plan and then begin to work that plan. So what exactly is it? A life plan is a living document you will tweak and adjust as necessary for the rest of your life. It is:

A short written document (8-15 pages long)
Created by you and for you;
Describing how you want to be remembered;
Articulating your personal priorities; and
Providing specific actions to take you from where you are to where you want to be in every major area of your life

What kind of life is it that you really want to lead? Are you doing the things that will get you there? What do you imagine people will say about you when they eulogize you? This is a bit morose, but an important exercise in Living Forward to gain clarity about the life you are living is to imagine what will be said at your funeral if you continue along your current path. More positively, how can you influence how you are remembered by those you care about? Will your children say you were a great provider, but they didn’t really know you? Will your dreams of being a world traveler succumb with you because you never got around to getting a passport? Will you have forsaken significant relationships in pursuit of perfection? Or will they remember you as always full of money-making ideas, but falling short on implementation? The more honest you are in writing these eulogies from the perspectives of those who matter most to you, the better able you will be to make a life plan that inspires you.

When I prepared an estate plan, I gave my clients an extensive questionnaire to complete to begin the planning process. It would take them some time and thought to get through it. Similarly, drafting a life plan is not a 10 minute frantically written wish list completed at 11:50 on New Year’s Eve. This is a thoughtful, multi-phase process. In Living Forward, a full 8-hour day is suggested to prepare your initial draft, followed by daily, weekly, quarterly and annual reviews.

One thing that intrigued me about my old goal setting lists is that several aspects of life were never on the lists. When I was a single, self-employed mother, I did not set goals about things that were not in someway related to making or spending money. My goals were strong on work and on my children, not much on relationships, friendships, hobbies or self-improvement (beyond losing weight). The Living Forward method suggests attention and planning in every area of life, so that financial planning and business planning can be a part of the life plan, but they are not entire life plan. Through an assessment tool, these areas of life are scored by your current passion and progress to determine where you are drifting, lifting, gifting or shifting in each. This is your current rating.

Life planning helps you gain clarity and direction in various “life accounts.” Then your accounts are grouped and ranked in terms of priority. For example, in thinking about what my friends might say of me, I realized that in recent years, I spent little time or energy cultivating relationships with people I think of as my friends. I did not regularly set aside time to visit with my friends and I had not made any new friends. I wanted to be remembered as a good, faithful and conscientious friend. In this area of friendships I developed a purpose statement, an envisioned future and acknowledged my current reality. Then I identified and put on my calendar some action steps I could take to begin to work this aspect of my plan. The first action item on my list was to “set 1 or 2 in-person meet-ups with friends each month.” A couple of e-mails and text messages, and a lunch date was set with one friend and a hike with another. Progress!

Life planning also has great utility in helping clarify priorities. Once your plan is developed, you are better able to see whether a certain activity is really going to move you forward in one of your life accounts or not. For example, an account with greater priority should take precedence over an account with lesser priority. I noticed that often I would let my commitment to exercise (part of my health, vitality and fitness account) go by the wayside because of a work demand. So rather than doing my morning exercise routine, I’d get a “head start” on my work day by checking email or writing. The time I had planned for exercise was lost. However, by gaining clarity of the importance of this commitment, I less frequently miss my morning exercise commitment because I’m distracted by work (okay, I’m a work in progress!)

So who needs a life plan? In short, everyone! Whether you are a Centennial, Millennial, Generation X, Y, Z, a rocking Boomer or a Traditionalist, a life plan will inspire, feed your vision and bring joy.

What about you? Do you have a written life plan? Do you regularly envision your future and evaluate whether you are taking the steps needed to get you to your desired outcome? Respond in the comments and get the discussion going! Until next time,

Grace

For more information and some great bonuses from the book Living Forward, check out http://www.livingforwardbook.com. For an interview of Daniel Harkevy by one of my favorite podcasters, Jeff Sanders check out: https://www.jeffsanders.com/step-by-step-life-planning-with-daniel-harkavy-podcast-141/

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