Entries Tagged 'Planning' ↓

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?