Why and How to Create a Personal Life Plan
How many times have you started thinking about what you would like your life to be in the future? And how many times have you become frustrated because time passes without you making those dreams come true?
To make things happen, something more than just dreams is required. In this article, I will talk about what a personal life plan is and how having one will make sense of your existence.
How to create a personal life plan?
A personal life plan will help you define in the short, medium and long term, what you should do each day to create the reality you want. It will help you to manage problems and find solutions.
Of course, on the road to your ideal life, there could be changes. The idea is that these modifications start from your own decisions and that you feel fully satisfied with them.
This is about having an open plan with objectives that can be fed throughout your journey. To create a personal life plan, the first thing you should do is a deep reflection about where you are in the different areas of your life.
Are you an employed student? Boss?
Father? Son? Brother?
Do you have a couple?
What are the roles you currently represent as a person in this society?
Once you’ve analyzed your present, take a trip on where you would like to be in the future. You may want some of your current roles to accompany you tomorrow. But you may also want to eliminate others and acquire some new ones.
To help you with this, make a list of what you expect to do. Even the slightest thing that would make you happy. Contemplate your physical, financial and emotional needs.
Also, think about the reasons why you want to achieve everything you go including in your list and the strategy you must follow. But it is important that you have everything in writing. Otherwise, you could lose focus.
Having a map on paper with your objectives, motivations and strategies will help you realize what you want, as it will keep you motivated and focused on your personal life plan.
What do you need to be the person you want and what limits you?
If one of your priorities, it is to be a good brother. Maybe you should start by getting closer to your family. If your goals are to be more slender, you should think about exercising and improving your diet.
But you must be concrete: How many kilos do you aspire to reduce? In how much time? And think about how rewarding it will be every time you climb the weight and see positive results! You may want to leave a job that doesn’t fill you. Maybe you want to improve your personal finances.
In either case, follow the same process:
- Think about what you want.
- Determine why you want it.
- Land specific ideas.
- Design your strategy.
- Plasma on paper.
Although it sounds a bit rough, one of the most used motivational elements to know what we want from our future is to imagine our own funeral:
What would you like people to say about you or how would you like them to remember you?
Create your goal lists with specific dates
Look at your personal life plan as a list of your dreams. But dreams that will come true. For this, you must work with specific dates.
Asking yourself the following question will help you recognize your priorities: What do you want to do before you die? There are no limits to creating a valid plan if you have an appropriate organization.
Take the outline you made and imagine that it is a ladder. Fill it with steps and each one will be represented by a small goal within the big objectives.
For example, if you are thinking about having a professional career, think about what you will need to save to pay for it.
Set a time when you must have the full money. Research the available educational institutions and sign up. Write in your plan how long it will take you to accomplish this purpose.
Do you want to make a great trip?
Then, define the amount of money and the rest of the resources you need for it. Prepare an action plan to achieve this task, start working on it and analyze each step.
And, very important, congratulate yourself and forgive yourself when you manage to advance a step. There are a number of important aspects that you must take into account to achieve your personal life plan.
One of them, although it may not seem important, is to keep in mind that this is about you and your desires. Do not make a plan to meet what others expect of you!
Remember to also write down, step by step, what will lead you to achieve each objective. Read your plan day by day and go crossing out every little goal achieved. You have no idea how rewarding this is!
Remember that the examples of goals we have placed in this article are just that, examples. As we told you, your life plan depends exclusively on you and you are the sole owner of your destiny.
Finally, do not criticize or discourage any obstacle. Do not be too hard if you fail to achieve a goal within the stipulated period.
Evaluate what went wrong, what you should learn, reorganize your plan if necessary and move on! A personal life plan will make sense of your journey, increase your self-esteem and allow you to be a person with a reason to experience, with gratitude, this experience called life.
What are you waiting to do?