Life plans are like blueprints for our lives. With out one you are still going to build, but how and what are you building? And are you going to have to come back later to tear out what you built in order to build what you really need? Life plans can be written in many different ways, but essentially it is just taking the different areas of your life and writing down what your goals are. Areas you might write about are:

• Spiritual
• Family
• Fitness
Work/Professional
• Education
• Financial

Some people break down these points into further points, but you get the idea. If you consider your own experience, the goals that you accomplish in life are the ones that you write down and track your progress in some way. Why would your life be any different? Another point about goals is that if we don't set a time period or a date that we want to have things accomplished by, we wind up have a "rolling" goal. A goal that we want to accomplish this year and somehow "this year" turns into next which turns in next and so on. We just "roll" our goal along because we haven't ever anchored it into a time and then tracked ourselves.

Another thing that our life plan should accomplish - it should very clearly state our motivations, values, and principles for why we are doing a certain thing. Don't just state that you are going to do a certain thing. Back it up with a why. Keep asking yourself "why" over and over again until you get down to the real root of why. If you don't, then you will not really be motivated to accomplish that goal, because you haven't uncovered your real motivator. Here is an excerpt from my own life plan in the area of fitness.

My ultimate goal is to be healthy for my entire life. I want to feel good. I want to remain at a healthy weight and look good into my old age. I believe that if I don't start the habits now of taking care of my body and eating right that I will not achieve these goals and the harder it will be to change my habits as I get older. I DO NOT want to be old and fat when my kids are grown. I want to be able to wear nice clothes and bear a proper testimony in the matter of my personal fitness. I want to be able to exert myself during sports and recreational activities and not be huffing and puffing and needing to sit down. I want to be able to work hard and be able to help friends and family. I also believe my health is important to God, because He is limited in his use of me if I am not healthy.

• I will exercise 5 -7 times throughout a week:
  • At least 3 times in the morning if not every morning.
  • 2 time a week in the evening
  • Engage in some health activity on the weekend

• I will eat healthy:
  • Stay away from soft drinks throughout the week as much is possible
  • Stay away from caffeine as much as possible
  • Eat healthy portions and stop eating when I am full
  • Eat snacks throughout the day in order to keep up my metabolism and not be ravenously hungry when mealtime comes around.

You'll notice that after I stated what my motivations were, I then stated some practical life practices or goals. This is the practical part of your life plan. Try to start with something simple. Don't set the bar so high the first time that there isn't a way to achieve success. 

This week in the our sales meeting we were doing a review of some elements that we consider to be the foundation of our sales philosophy at Diverse CTI. One of those elements was a life plan. Once again I was struck with the importance of not just having a life plan, but reviewing it. Review your life plan often. If you are part of a family, encourage other members to create a life plan as well. Read each others life plans and encourage one other in your goals. Some families even create a separate life plan for the family as a whole!

Finally, update your life plan. You need to update your life plan as your life changes. The whole point of a life plan is to achieve goals. Your life plan needs to be updated as things change. Life is dynamic so what once was a goal may change over time. Don't stop working your plan when your goals change.

I encourage you to read your life plan often. Especially the motivations and values parts. Reading your plan keeps those values and principles motivating you. We are humans! We forget! Anchor yourself and your goals by creating a life plan!

Thoughts or comments? Post them below! Let me know what you think!