Entries Tagged 'Goals-Setting' ↓

One of the most important things that anyone could do would be to create a road map for their life. Why?

In many cases, people tend to be pushed and pulled around by external forces of today’s modern society. Very few have a clear idea of what they want for their lives. Without a set course and map, a ship at sea could easily run aground, or end up being lost.

A road map for your life, based on what’s important to you, helps you to navigate the cross-currents of life and move steadily towards your desired outcome. While you may be pulled off-course during times in your life, having a clear and purposeful image of what you want will act as a magnet to pull you back on course.

Setting The Foundation For Building Your Road Map

The simplest way I’ve found to create a solid, balanced and robust Road Map for Life is to base it on fundamental principles and Truths that stand the test of time and experience.

In order to set your goals in the Road Map for Your Life, you’ll need to understand a couple of basic principles.

1. There is a Law of Cause and Effect
2. The Be (Know) - Do - Have Paradigm

The Law of Cause and Effect

What is this Law of Cause and Effect?

The Law of Cause and Effect is a timeless principle that simply states that for every thing (effect) that happens, there is something that causes it to happen. If you want the effect of boiling water, the cause is applying heat to the water. If the pen falls from your table to the floor instead of floating up to the ceiling, the cause of the pen falling to the floor is gravity.

“For Every Effect, There is a Cause.
For Every Cause, There is an Effect.”

The same applies to your life. For every effect in your life, there is a cause. Sometimes, you are the creator of the cause, and sometimes, you are just an unknowing participant in the chain of reaction (cause and effect) started by someone else.

Even then, you have the ability to move out of that chain of action and reaction, or cause something to change. In order to do so, you first have to be “aware” that something is happening. And to be aware that something is happening requires you to be Consciously Aware.

“For Every Action,
There Is A Reaction.”

When you understand the Law of Cause and Effect, you have understood probably the most powerful of all the Natural Laws of the Universe. When you understand the Law of Cause and Effect, you will start to see life in a different perspective, and you will realize you are truly the creator of your life.

The “Be (Know) - Do - Have” Paradigm

In setting your goals, how do you know what to put in front of the other? Which goal should come first, and out of the so many that you have, how do you prioritize them?

This is where the Be (Know) - Do - Have paradigm comes in handy.

Being (Knowing) is about what kind of person you are “being”. And the kind of person you are being is usually the result of what you know, or “believe” about life.

Doing refers to the actions that result from acting on what you know.

Having is the end result of this chain of events. Having refers to the creation or manifestation of the end result that you want, which in this case is the Vision you have created.

In short, to Have your end result, you must always Do something, either mental, emotional or physical. In order to deliberately DO something, you must always KNOW something at some level of consciousness.

The Example of Health and Fitness

Let’s take being Fit and Healthy as the desired end result.

Using the “Be - Do - Have” paradigm, you get the following:

• The Having: Fitness and Health
• The Doing: Exercise, Diet, Lifestyle, etc
• The Knowing: What kind of exercise, How to exercise, what to eat, when to eat, what sort of lifestyle, etc

In order to HAVE Fitness and Health, what you would DO is exercise on a regular basis, eat good food, and live a healthy lifestyle.

In order to exercise, eat and live in the appropriate way for you, you have to KNOW what is suitable for you.

The interesting thing is that in order to know what exercises are suitable for you, you will have to take the first step of action to finding out more about what you want.

Three Types of Goals

From the example illustrated, you can see that there are three types of goals:

1. Learning Goals
2. Doing Goals
3. Having Goals

When you have learnt what you need to do, your goal is to start doing what you have learnt. When you start doing what you have learnt, you’ll start HAVING your end result of Health and Fitness.

So if you’re not getting the results you want, then somewhere along this line of Cause and Effect, something is off. And if you’re not getting your desired end result, then find out the Truth!

How To Apply This To Your Goal-Setting

Take the Vision that you’ve created, and break it down into the various things that you have to KNOW and DO in order to HAVE. These form your Learning and Doing goals.

Once you’ve done this, obviously the learning comes before the doing. Unless, of course, you already know how to do it. The idea is to take action on what you know, so that you can create the end result that you want.

From the learning and doing goals, you have your timeline on which comes first, and which comes after. Arrange them in sequence, and then give yourself an appropriate deadline (depending on your situation) to accomplish what you set out to do.

Drawing your Road Map Timeline

1. Take a piece of paper, turn it on the side (landscape style) so you have more space, and draw a line from the left to right.
2. The starting point is the left, which is where you are now.
3. The ending point is the right, which is the complete realization of your Vision.
4. Take the steps and goals you have come up with, and place them in chronological sequence from the left to right.
5. Once you have the steps on paper, you write the date when you expect to complete them under the horizontal line.
6. You now have your short, medium and long term goals on the Road Map for Your Life.

Of course, a picture says a thousand words. So I did up a draft of what I’m referring to. It’s not as “knock-your-socks-off wow!” as I would like it to be, but you should be able to get the idea. Click on the thumbnail below, and the picture should float up on your screen:

If your goal is a little more complex, then instead of being able to accomplish it at one go, you may have to break it down into stages:

• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Quarterly
• Annual
• 3 - 5 year goals
• Or Longer

Your Life Vision will always be the final result that you want, and all the short, medium and long term goals are to support the creation of your Vision into reality.

Tip:
From your vision, you will be able to identify which are the goals that can be accomplished almost immediately. These, of course, can be placed in the short term category and be worked on immediately to get the whole thing moving.

Using the Be - Do - Have paradigm:

The Be - Do - Have paradigm can be used in two ways. You can work backwards from your End In Mind, or you can work forward from where you are right now.

Working Backwards from your Vision:

• If you want to have (…what you want…), what can you do?
• In order to do what needs to be done, what should you know?
• In order for you to know, what should you learn?
• In order for you to learn, what should you do now?

Working Forward from where you are Now:

• With what you already know, what can you do?
• With what you do, what can you have?
• If what you end up with isn’t what you want, can you tweak or do something different with what you know to come out with the result that you want?
• If not, then what can you do/learn differently to create your end result?

In Summary…

Once you understand the Law of Cause and Effect you can start breaking down your Life Vision into smaller steps using the Be (Know) - Do - Have paradigm. With the Be - Do - Have paradigm, you then create your Road Map working backwards from your Vision to where you are.

All you have to do next is just follow the map you have created, by taking the next step in front of you right now.

“Take Care of Today, and
Let Tomorrow Take Care of Itself.”

And if there are knowledge holes that have to be filled now, then take the action of finding out what needs to be learnt. If there are knowledge holes to be filled later, leave them until you reach them. When you approach that gap, you will learn what you need to know. And sometimes, before you even reach there, you may have already learnt what you need to know.

Does it work?

Well, this whole website is a testament to this Truth. When I first started building Darbright.com, I knew next to nothing about WordPress and blogging. Even then, my Vision for this site was more vague than clear. If I had to say one thing I had going for me, it would be:

• I started with a few very specific end results in my mind
• I wrote them down, and
• I continually developed Clarity in my Vision.

And as I continue developing articles to publish, I continue to gain more knowledge and skill in the development of this site. I learnt things about blogging, writing and communicating via the World Wide Web that I didn’t know 6 months ago.

“A Body In Motion Tends To Stay In Motion,
A Body At Rest Tends To Stay At Rest.”

The first step is always the hardest, because you’re beginning from the point of inertia. As you start moving, momentum will start building up and eventually it will be harder to stop your forward movement than it is to accelerate it.

What I realized is, “The more you do, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you are able to do. The more you are able to do, the greater your ability and the faster you create your vision into reality.”

And naturally, everything begins with knowing what you want.

My Experiences

When I first started employing the idea of creating a road map for my life, the hardest thing that I had to do was find out what I wanted. At the same time, I was beset by thoughts of doubt, fear and uncertainty. I faced issues that you might be facing if you’re just beginning to create your own direction in life.

Doubts like:

• Do I really want this?
• Who am I to share what I know and learnt?
• What if people I don’t know, and who don’t know me, start making critical comments and judgements about what I write, and about me?
• How would I react? What values and basis would I respond from?
• I don’t know how to do all this, and it’s so technically demanding and overwhelming to learn blogging, RSS, writing good articles, marketing Darbright.com, finding my passion, purpose, etc. It’s so damn frustrating and challenging just trying to understand how to use WordPress as the Content Management Platform… what about learning the rest of the stuff that are even more complicated later on..??
• Can I really succeed? Am I just kidding myself in a world where there are so many people who probably are better than I at all this technology stuff??

While the fact is starting a new direction in life isn’t easy, the concepts and principles remain the same. They are simple, sound and timeless, and will continue to work regardless of whether you or I believe them to work.

“And This Too Shall Pass…”

When a life is built on the eternal, the temporary becomes fluff, and will pass away over the course of time.

The hardest part of personal growth will be clearing yourself of false beliefs and ideas about yourself, your life and the people around you. Alignment with timeless, eternal principles of life will give you an unshakeable foundation on which to build your life, because while you or I may make “mistakes” every so often, there are none with Universal Truths and Consciousness.

Personal Development and Growth is only the beginning of the journey. The destination of personal growth will ultimately be spiritual and inner fulfillment, clarity of thought, and enlightenment from falsehoods about yourself, your life, and moving into the Truth of Living.

Having your Life Plan, based on the Vision of what you want, will be the template on which you can deliberately exercise your inherent power and ability, through deliberate practice, to create a life that is worth living.

Do you find difficulty in planning and setting your goals? Ever wondered how, or where to start? Do the various categories and planning styles confuse you?

I can understand your pain, because I’ve been there. So if you do want to know a way of planning and goal-setting, continue reading the rest of this article.

Two Ways To Reach Your Goals

Once you’ve created your Life Plan, Defined your Vision, it’s time to start drawing up the “How” you’re going to get there.

There are a few ways in which this could happen:

1. Just do it, and hope for the best that somehow you’ll stumble, fumble and crawl your way to the realization of your vision. When your Vision is strong and clear, you will reach there sooner or later. Or…
2. Do a little planning ahead, and create a road map so you at least have some idea of what to expect, and what you have to accomplish in order to realize your dream. It’s like creating smaller mental images that support the creation of your bigger Vision.

While I’m quite sure that if you have a strong enough desire and clear enough vision, you’ll eventually manifest what you want into reality, I prefer to at least have a handle on what to expect and knowing what has to be done.

The Planning Trap

In the planning and goal-setting process, there’s one thing that I’ve learnt about plans. No matter how much you plan, or how detailed you get, there always has to be room to account for changes both in yourself and in your environment. Businesses which have succeeded rarely have reality turn out the way they planned. They had to adapt in order to succeed as new information about changes came to them.

And in the process of planning, remember, eventually you will have to take action. Otherwise, you’ll be caught in the “planning trap” and never get out of the starting blocks! So while you plan, keep your eye on your Vision so that when the way forward becomes clear to you, you can take action as necessary.

Why It Makes Sense To Stay Nimble and Flexible

We all start with imperfect knowledge because our understanding of ourselves and the environment usually has gaps in it. Sometimes the gaps in knowledge can be huge, sometimes it can be small. But no one begins knowing everything, and it’s highly unlikely that anyone will ever know everything.

• Having Loads of Experience

The advantage of having experience and exposure in a certain industry or area helps you in having smaller knowledge gaps, but the disadvantage is that when one has too much experience, the “I know it all” attitude can set in and create a rigid, closed mind that can’t see changes that are happening.

• Not Having Any

On the other hand, the advantage of not having loads of experience and exposure is that you get to learn everything without a biased perspective of “It’s always been done this way!” attitude. Of course, the disadvantage is that you have a lot more ground to cover in terms of knowledge acquisition and gaining the right experience.

“The One Constant In Life Is Change.”

People who have accomplished their goals know what worked for them, and can share their experience. While there can be and usually are similarities, no two people’s journey through life will be exactly the same. So while you read and learn from others, remember that you are unique and special.

“Timeless Principles and Truths Provide You A Rock-Solid Foundation for Success.”

What you do have to know are the timeless principles and truths on which all success, accomplishment and abundant life are based on. These will form your foundation and guide for navigating your journey, and lead you to where you want to be.

Naturally, the best position to be in is to have sufficient knowledge (which can be gained), and maintain an open, flexible and creative mind. But no matter where or who you are, success is possible when you are fully committed towards the realization of your vision.

The Importance of Having Your Vision

Having your Vision is crucial for your success, because not only is it the template on which all your goals and activities are based, it also helps when …

• You are “lost”: Reviewing and Developing Clarity in your Vision will bring you back on track.
• You are low on energy and in need of self-motivation: Reviewing your Vision renews your vigor and refreshes the reasons why you started in the first place.
• You don’t know how to do something: Reviewing your Vision allows you to create and come up with different solutions to creating the same end result that you want.

When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, he had to go through a thousand ways or more before finding the final solution. The key thing is that he had the idea of what he wanted in his mind, and he stuck to it until he finally got it.

How To Start The Goal Setting Process

My experience of the goal-setting process is that it starts off being disorganized and messy. The setting of Long, Medium and Short Term goals don’t flow out nicely and ordered in the way I would want them to, which means that I have to organize them into something that makes sense.

Have You Ever Wished For A Simple Perspective To Understand Planning and Goal-Setting?

I know that I did. I couldn’t find a holistic and robust paradigm to approach planning that was simple yet clear in helping me plan intelligently.

But as I’ve said before, relax.

“Simplicity is The Maturity of Complexity.”

I’ll provide you a way of viewing and understanding the goal-setting process that can help make things as simple as possible, while helping you understand the main concepts and principles.

But first, you can start the goal planning process by:

1. Take out blank pieces of paper.
   (preferably recycled or scrap paper, since you’re using it for rough work)
2. Write down your life vision in terms of the end result of what you want.
3. Select a category from the six in “Create A Powerful Life Plan” that you want to work on.
4. Write down the details related to that category that you’ve selected.
• The clearer and more specific the end result you want, the easier it will be to create your road map for success.
• If it’s not as clear as you want it to be yet, use the Defining and Feeling Questions in “Defining Your Vision”.

In the next article, I’ll share how I approach the goal-setting and planning process that makes it simpler and easier. You might want to start on setting the groundwork for your planning and goal-setting before I publish the next article.

The details mentioned in this article can be found in:

• Create A Powerful Life Plan
• Defining Your Vision

What? You’re still here?

I didn’t really elaborate how to define your Life Vision in the earlier post on Creating A Powerful Life Plan. It was already such a long post with so many different concepts that I felt it was better to break it down into smaller, more digestible sections.

If you’re having trouble making your Life Vision as clear as you want it to be, cheer up. I’m going to share how to do it in a systematic, step-by-step manner in this post.

What Is A Life Vision?

A Life Vision is the mental creation of your life in your mind where you engage all your senses even before it becomes a physical, tangible reality around you. The mental creation is similar to a 3 dimensional movie that is filled with:

• Movement
• Emotions
• People
• Places and
• Color

where it involves your senses of Sight, Sound, Taste, Touch and Smell.

A vision is something that you have every intention, purpose and desire to make real in your life. If you don’t, then it’s not a vision. It’s a day dream.

So how clear should your Vision be?

It has to be clear enough that if I plucked your vision out of your head right now and manifested it into reality, all that is needed to make the picture complete is for you to step into it.

However, such clarity of your vision doesn’t usually come immediately. It’s better to think of it as a continual process where you are steadily refining and recreating it as you move along in your life.

The clearer and more engaged you are in your Life Vision, the simpler and faster it is to take the necessary action to create it into reality around you.

How To Define Your Vision

Just imagine this, a raw diamond that comes out of the mines isn’t yet that beautiful piece of refractive stone that glitters under the light. It’s rough, uncut, and looks like some raw chunk of broken glass. It has to be measured, cut and polished until it catches the light just right so that it sparkles with brilliance.

It’s the same with your Vision. The first time you come up with a Vision, it’s going to be rough, uncut and raw. You need to cut it down to a certain size, whittle away the parts you don’t want, keep the parts that you do want and polish it till it shines.

The tools that you can use to further define your vision are questions using the following six words. They are just a guide to help clarify your mental picture. The six words are:

1. Who
2. What
3. When
4. Where
5. Why
6. How

The way to define your vision is through the process of asking questions in the RIGHT way. The answers to your questions have to be in the positive, not the negative. What do I mean?

Positive: I want to be financially free.
Negative: I don’t want to be poor.

Let’s use an example, and I’ll bring you through it step-by-step so you have a better understanding.

Example of a Raw Vision: I Want A Life of Financial Freedom

Now that’s a goal that I think almost everyone can resonate with. But remember, what I’m sharing is the process which you can then apply to your own vision to make it clearer.

There are two categories of questions, each with a specific purpose. They are:

1. Defining Questions ~ To Create Specifics and Details
2. Feeling Questions ~ To Check if You Really Want It

Using Defining Questions

Defining questions are questions that you use to clarify your mental picture. You use the six tools to create specific details in your mental picture. Questions like:

• If I were financially free, what would my life be like?
• What does being financially free mean to me?
• If I were already financially free, what would I be doing now?
• What clothes would I be wearing?
• What house would I be staying in?
• What car would I be driving?
• What would I be doing in my life of financial freedom?
• How would I spend my free time?
• Would I be working?
  (OK, so technically it’s not one of the six. But it does help clarify your life vision.)
• If yes, what would I be working as? If not, what would I be doing?
• Where do I go for my vacations?
• Who would I be socializing with?
• What time (when) do I wake up in the morning?
• What time (when) do I sleep at night?
• And other similar type questions

The use of such questions is to create detail and cut away the fluff in your mind, until you are left with a clear, definite picture of what you want for your life.

Using Feeling Questions

As you sharpen your vision and focus in on your mental picture, check your feelings. Your feelings will help guide you to check if the picture is really what you want. If it isn’t, then continue tweaking and refining your picture until you feel that it’s just right for you.

• How do you feel in the picture that you created?
• Do you like it?
• If it’s not exactly right, what would you change in order for it to feel right?

It’s a simple, two-step process of:

1. Creating what you want through defining questions, and then
2. Checking your feelings to see if that’s what you really want.

All of us will come up with something different, even if it’s only slightly. That’s because all of us have a different definition of the same basic idea, and all of us like different material things. Some want a Ferarri, others want a BMW, and others still want to drive a Mercedes Sports. No one wants exactly the same thing, so if your life of financial freedom is different from someone else, it’s normal and to be expected.

What Your Mind Can Conceive, You Can Achieve.

As you refine your Life Vision, you might want to test out multiple scenarios in your mind and imagine as if you were already living them. You have the power of imagination, so use it. The more you practice your ability to create mental pictures, the more you practice your ability to create out of thoughts.

If you’re having difficulty, and don’t really have a mental scenario that you really, really like yet, relax. It just means that your exposure isn’t wide enough to find what resonates with you.

The simple solution would be to go to the nearest bookstore, and check out vacation magazines, car magazines, houses, etc. Find pictures of a possible house, or location that you might want to enjoy.

If you want to be doing specific work, go find out how people who are already doing your type of work live. You’re basically looking for existing materials to help you in defining your vision.

You can just take what you find wholesale, or tweak them until you feel a certain resonance with it. You should start to feel good as you imagine yourself living it, almost as if you’ve finally reached your real home.

Tools You Can Use To Remind Yourself

Once you have created that picture, you can use certain tools to help you remember it. These are just tools, and if you feel good about using them, then use them. If you don’t, you don’t have to. There is no hard and fast rule here.

1. Vision Statement

A vision statement is a short paragraph that describes your mental picture. When you read it, it triggers off the picture in your head and its associated feelings. You can write it on a card, in your diary, planner, PDA or whatever it is that you use. You then carry this around with you during the day, and continue working on refining it during your spare time.

2. Vision Board

A Vision Board is a notice board where you pin up pictures of the things that you want in your life. They serve as visual reminders in pictorial form to further reinforce that picture in your mind.

It just has to be somewhere in your working area, or somewhere in your house where you’ll at least see it once a day. Over time, your conscious awareness of it will diminish, but your sub-conscious will be aware of it each time you are near it, triggering off that mental picture and associated feelings below the surface of your consciousness.

What to Expect

You’ll find that over time, you will start tweaking that mental picture as you have new experiences. The core theme and vision will remain the same, but some of the details will change as you move along your journey in life. Your vision is something that helps give your life direction, so just as life changes, your vision will change along with you.

During your spare time, continue to contemplate and develop your mental picture of your life as you want it to be. As your life vision starts to become clearer, you’ll find that you can do certain things that make part of your vision real. Once you know what actions you can take, take them if they bring you closer to the realization of your vision.

The closer you move towards your vision, the clearer it becomes. The clearer it becomes, the simpler it is to take congruent action to make your vision real. As you focus on your vision, you’ll start to notice opportunity, people and events around you almost conspiring to help you create your vision into reality.

They may have always been there, or they may just entered into your field of awareness as if attracted to you. Whatever it is you choose to believe, when you see the opportunity and you feel that it’s the right thing to do, take action.

Remember, your life vision is the end result of what you want your life to be. Don’t concern yourself with the “How”. Not yet. When you know what you want, then it makes sense to find out the how.

But if you don’t know what you want, knowing all the different “How’s” in the world won’t make a darn difference to your life. You’ll have no idea of what to use them for. So concentrate of clarifying what it is that you want first, create that mental picture in your mind, and then once you know what you want, start looking around for the “How“.

One of the best ways to create focus and direction in your life is by creating your life plan. A life plan is simply a blue-print for what you want in your life, taking the big picture of your complete life and breaking it down into simpler, easy to accomplish goals.

While it can be as big and complex as you want it to be, I personally find the simpler your life plan is, the easier and faster it is to realize it. So a big tip is while you are creating the blueprint for your life, keep it as simple and defined as possible.

Two elements of your life plan will be:

1. Your Vision for your life
2. Your Goals for fulfilling your vision

Sometimes, it’s difficult to understand the fundamental difference that separates a vision and a goal. But here’s a way of defining visions and goals that make the most sense and flows with the creative process of life.

The Importance of Having A Vision and Goals

Before we embark on the journey to create our life vision and goals, it helps to understand why we should even have them in the first place.

Why are Visions and Goals so important in the creative process?

Having a Life Vision is important because:

• It provides the template, the mold of what we are going to create and manifest into physical, tangible reality.
• It is in line with the creative process that all things are first created in the invisible before they are manifested into the visible.
• It creates the experience of having the life you want even before you have it.

Having goals are important because:

• They give us stepping stones, milestones in our journey towards the creation of our life vision.
• They give us specific targets to aim for and keep us on track.
• Each goal accomplished is another brick in the creation of your mental image of your life, and when all the bricks are in place, you have effectively created your Life Vision and manifested it into reality.
• Goals give us something to organize our work activities around, a focus for our attention, energy and skills. They serve as a center for our creative energies and power to be expressed.

Diffused light gives us the ability to see objects and people around us. But when light is concentrated into a focused laser beam, it can cut through steel like a hot knife through butter.

Clear, Specific Focus is Like a Hot Knife Cutting through Butter

Having clear, specific goals aligned with your life vision create that same energy and focus to cut through the obstacles in your life. It accelerates your speed at which you manifest what you want into physical reality.

Defining Your Vision and Goals

Understanding the difference between your Vision and your goals will help simplify the process of creating your life plan. In short, your Vision is the big picture of what you imagine your ultimate life to be and goals are specific targets along the way to the creation of your life Vision.

I’ll explain them in further detail.

What is a Vision?

Imagination is the Preview of Life’s Coming Attractions ~ Albert Einstein

A vision is the mental creation of your life in your mind where you engage all your senses even before it becomes a physical, tangible reality around you. The mental creation is similar to a 3 dimensional movie that is filled with:

• Movement
• Emotions
• People
• Places and
• Color

where it involves our senses of Sight, Sound, Taste, Touch and Smell. The more senses you can engage in your vision, the more real it becomes to you, the faster the speed at which you realize it.

You can use physical objects and things to trigger off those senses, like pictures of the house or car you want. You can use music to trigger off emotions you want to experience, like joy, excitement or peace.

Objects and external stimuli can help make your mental experience more real and vivid.

A vision is something that you have every intention, purpose and desire to make real in your life. If you don’t, then it’s not a vision. It’s a day dream.

What is a Goal?

A goal is a stepping stone to the fulfillment of your vision. It can be a specific end result that forms part of your big picture, or it can be a milestone on the way to the specific end result. Your goals are the how you are going to realize your vision.

For example, your vision to live a financially free life could be broken down into the following specifics:

1. You have an income of $10,000 a month
2. You maintain your expenses below $5,000 a month
3. You are investing 20% of your income on a regular basis
4. Your targeted retirement fund is $4.5 million dollars in 25 years time
5. You have set up an automatic repayment plan to fully pay off each and every debt that you owe within the next 5-10 years
6. You fully own your own home
7. You drive a reliable, dependable and quality car
8. You take 2 holidays a year
9. You have 5 streams of multiple income that generate $5,000 and more a month on a continuous and growing basis
10. And any other goals you want.

Putting Your Life Plan Together

One way to make sure you’ve covered the major areas in your life is by defining the categories in which you can create specific goals. Having a full and complete life involves these basic 6 areas:

1. Financial
2. Relational
3. Intellectual
4. Spiritual
5. Physical
6. Work / Purpose

I’ve included generic, positive-oriented examples of how a life vision might look like.

A life of financial freedom could mean that you own all your assets, have more than enough money coming in each month with surplus cash left over. You have a roof over your head, a car to drive, money for food on the table and for your children’s education. You can buy anything that is required for a healthy, balanced lifestyle for your loved ones and you.

A life of relational joy could mean that you have emotionally rich relationships with your family and friends. You enjoy good relationships with the important people in your life.

A life of intellectual satisfaction and growth could mean that you continue to expand your knowledge bank of ideas, concepts and practical steps to improving yourself and developing your skill sets. You continue to learn and grow on a continual and regular basis to become better each day.

A life of spirituality could mean that you feel a sense of connection to the divine energy and life that is in everything and everyone. You enjoy a sense of inner peace, radiant joy and a contentment with who you are and where you are right now in your life. At the same time, you know and understand that you will continue to evolve and grow as a soul and as a person through your journey in life.

A life of physical completeness would mean that you are strong, healthy and fit. You have a strong body that allows you to engage in sports and activities that you want. At the same time, you are healthy which goes beyond having just a strong body, but one that will serve you well for your lifetime.

A life of purpose would mean the expression of your talents in and abilities in the area of your passion. You use the knowledge, skills and processes that you’ve learnt and developed to create a better life for your loved ones and you.

All these 6 elements combine with each other to create the vision of your life. The clearer and more vivid you are able to see the vision of your life in your mind, the more powerful it is.

It can be so real until it feels like you are already living it! Which, of course, is the whole idea.

Creating your Life Plan is a process of defining the specific elements that go together to build the vision you have in your mind. As you complete each goal, you build another brick into the foundation of the life that you have created in your mind.

Exercises for Creating Your Life Plan

Your life plan will consist of the two elements of your vision and your goals. To help you develop your life plan, you can use the following exercises.

Exercise to Create your Vision:

Imagine what your Perfect life is like in each of the specific areas:

1. Financial
2. Relational
3. Physical
4. Intellectual
5. Spiritual
6. Work / Purpose

It’s not the words that the universe recognizes. It’s the pictures and emotional energy you create in your mind.

Write it down on paper, in point form, using words that you can relate to and understand. More important than the process of writing is the:

• Clarity of your mental 3D “movie” and
• Emotions that you feel

when you create your vision.

Create something that you really want to have, with the full intention and purpose of actually having it. Otherwise, you’re just a day-dreamer who will only ever enjoy your life vision in your mind. So whatever you create, it must come with the intention and purpose to actually have it.

If you feel that you can’t have what you really want:
There are two reasons why you feel you can’t have what you really want:

1. You don’t really want it
2. You don’t think it’s possible for you

If it’s something that you don’t really want, then don’t waste energy “wanting” it just because people tell you that you should “want” it.

Find out what you really want through your process of journaling and self-understanding. Then when you know what you really want, the energy, desire and motivation will automatically flow for you.

If it’s something that you really want, but you feel that it’s not possible for you. This is very likely due to internal beliefs and conclusions about past experiences in your life. The unconscious beliefs that you have are the invisible barriers in your mind that hinder your action, cause you doubt and make you unsure of yourself.

It simply means that you have some work to do on your internal environment to align it with the true reality of life, nature and abundance. This is where it might help you to keep a journal to understand what’s blocking you, and how you can re-create that belief into something constructive and allows the possibility of what you want to happen in your life.

But for now, you can start the process by asking yourself:

“If I could have anything, be anything, or do anything, I would…(fill in the blanks)…”

Exercise to Create Your Goals:

Once you have your life vision, determine which is the most important aspect of your life vision that you want to work on first. For illustration, the generic example I used was:

“A life of financial freedom could mean that you own all your assets, have more than enough money coming in each month with surplus cash left over. You have a roof over your head, a car to drive, money for food on the table and for your children’s education. You can buy anything that is required for a healthy, balanced lifestyle for your loved ones and you.”

Break it down into specifics like:

1. Exactly how much income a month
2. What kind of house
3. Car
4. Holidays
5. Bank Accounts
6. Investment Accounts
7. Investment Properties, businesses, etc

Deadlines serve as a tool to create the energy and motivation to focus right here right now to take action.

These specifics become your goals. When you’ve accomplished them, you know that you’ve accomplished them. There aren’t any ambiguities or “maybe’s” associated to goals. They are clear, definite and specific. If it helps, you can set dates by which you want these goals to be accomplished.

It’s more important to focus on goals that have the most impact on the creation of your vision. Initially, you might want to write down as many goals as you can think of, but once you have cleared your mind on paper, you have to be brutally ruthless to trash goals which aren’t what you really want.

Go for the cake first, not the icing. Once you have the cake, you have something to put the icing on.

The simpler and shorter the list, the easier it will be to focus your energy and actions.

If the goal is something you want, but it’s not an important or crucial goal, then have a specific place where you can stash that goal away for a time when you can look at it. It’ll help clear your mind when you know you have written it down in a place where you can find it.

Once you’ve completed your exercise of mental creation and writing it down on paper, the next step would be to prioritize your goals in terms of importance and urgency so you can take action to make them real.