Yesterday, I wrote about how I’ve been following a written life plan, based off the advice from Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy’s book Living Forward. Today, I’ll briefly review an outline of my life plan:
Eulogy
Make major decisions in a cemetery – Max Lucado
I begin with the end in mind. This is what I would hope would be said about me, should the Lord tarry in His return and call me home.
Why start a life plan with a morbid eulogy? Because if we don’t have the end in mind, we’ll never aim for something. For example, people save for something: a house, retirement, shiny car, because they have the end in mind. They don’t just write a check or swipe a card because they keep a thrill out of seeing money taken out of their account.
Key Relationships
On this page, I’ve got written who matters most in my life, and what order they take precedence.
Why does this matter? Well, if your kids are above your colleagues in importance, then knowing that guides any decisions regarding how you spend your time. And if you don’t even have “Social Media Acquaintances” as a key relationship, then that’s an indicator that social media shouldn’t take up most of your time.
Life Accounts
The concept of life accounts borrow from the Wheel of Life that Zig Ziglar talked about, but in Living Forward, their organized differently. These are basically categories of your life, such as Spiritual, Physical, Family, etc. Often these categories blend into other categories.
Why does writing down these accounts matter? Because if want to invest time with my Bride, writing this down will hopefully guide me from instead spending hours drift into isolating myself and watching YouTube for tricks on Castlevania games (which I’m embarrassed to say I’ve done on occasion).
For each of these accounts, there’s:
- A Purpose Statement which summarizes why I care about this account.
- An Envisioned Future where I write out where I see myself in the future.
- Inspiring Quote that… inspires me.
- Current Reality where I honestly assess where I am currently
- Specific Commitments consisting of S.M.A.R.T. goals to guide me toward my envisioned future.
So that’s a rough idea of what I made based off Living Forward. If you’re thinking about writing out a life plan, don’t just copy and tweak what I wrote. Instead, I suggest the amount it costs to buy two lunches at a fast food joint, and buy the book yourself.
BTW, I ran out of time to explain why I bought Living Forward from Michael and Daniel, and not some other book. I’ll try to cover tomorrow why I bought it from them and not somebody else.