How to Create a Workable Life Plan

In the previous posts on life plan, we have looked at the life plan triangle, why life plan fails and what to do when your life plan fails. To continue the discussion, in order to make it easier to have our life plan work, let’s look at how you can create a workable, or if you like an actionable life plan.

Let’s establish this fact that there is no hard and fast rule or one size fits all in creating a life plan that works. What matters most is discovering what works for your personality and adhere to it, while learning along the way from as many people as you can.

Having said that, there are a few things that may cut across on a general basis for everyone who wants to transform his or her life plan to adopt. Now, let’s move on with those general keys to creating a workable life plan.

Create a plan of action (for each segment of your life plan)

Let’s take developing a good writing skill for example, so you can author a book in order to achieve financial independence in the coming year. This is a simple process that you can apply to other areas.

A simple plan of action to work out this would be:

1. Install any of the writing app on your device. I use Evernote to do most of my initial writing. Some other people use Scrivener as well, depending on which you are familiar with.
2. Set your deadline to achieve the plan, say first quarter or mid-year.
3. Find a topic you are interested in writing on daily.
4. Create a break-down of what you will be writing on, on weekly basis.
5. Set a reasonable daily limit of number of words you must achieve daily. I started with 500 words daily to build my writing.
6. Use the word count tool to check your progress daily.
7. Set a reward system that motivates you to write up to your limit daily.

This plan is a simple one that creates a clear path to move from where you are to where you want to be. Also, every step is actionable. You can easily measure your progress with the word count tool and your weekly topic.

However, do not forget to focus every goal in your life plan on concrete terms. For example, instead of just saying ‘I want to lose weight’ you can say ‘I want to lose 12 kg in the next 3 months’.

Be careful of big dreams

Don’t misunderstand me now. I believe in having big dreams. But most importantly, I believe in having big dreams within the capacity of your potential and available resources. Choose your battle carefully. It is better to start with small, measureable, achievable, repeatable and time-bound goals in your life plan and grow into bigger dreams.

Sometimes, we just want to follow the crowd or make people think we are one kind of a super-hero. When it comes to your life plan, and you really want to create a workable one, there is no need for all that. Be yourself. Take small daily steps that accumulate to huge results.

Set your priority right

You can’t be talking about say, achieving a happy health and well-being and continue not to find time to exercise daily. You cannot talk about becoming an expert in your field within a set period of time without investing in capacity building and personal development.

You cannot be thinking of paying off a debt, and yet tolerate impulsive buying and extravagant lifestyle at the same time. You must be focused on achieving every bit of your life plan. Do not attempt to do everything at the same time.

Know what to focus on daily and at any given time of the day.

Define success based on personal values

One thing I believe in is that before you ever decide to create a life plan, you ought to have understood what your values are. It is upon these values that you can then pull together your life plan triangle (your want, why and how) to create a life plan.

So, when you want to define the kind of success you want to achieve, ensure that such definition is based on your personal values. Make your goals your own, and not a copy of someone else’s.

Review and amend where necessary

Ensure that you don’t just keep moving on without looking back on your life. In fact, a part of your life plan should include a review process. This allows you to know if you are still on track or off the track.

It allows you to know what is working and what is not and where you need to make amendments. You have to understand that changes are mostly likely to occur along the way and you need to make room for any change that will improve your changes of achieving your life plan.

If you discover after your review that you’ve achieved certain goals, you will then need to set new ones and keep moving.

That’s enough for today. Now, it’s time to get to work on your life plan. Learned anything? Have a point to add? Let me know in the comment box.