plan-1616237_1280Last week’s post asked to give some thought to your life purpose. What do you need to have met in order to have lived a life of intention for you? What does your ideal life look like? The last post was all about the theory of why designing your life matters. This is the how-to follow up, or the tactical piece of how to bring your intentions to life each day.

If you are still feeling a bit foggy on how to design a life of intention developing a Life List is a great way to add some creativity to this process and get your mind exploring all the possibilities for your life. I’ve written in detail about this tool in a past post, and this time I’ve also included a Life List Worksheet you can use to write up your Life List.

The first step in planning is to have a short list of your BIG Goals for the year. This is not an easy task. What does your soul want to be happy and aligned with your purpose here? If you achieved these goals you would call the year a success in your journey. They can also be thought of as Life Themes as year to year some of your most important goals don’t change. Here is an example of a BIG Goal or Life Theme List:

  1. Invest time to connect with self – time to pray, meditate, read, workout, journal. Spend time with my emotions and listen to them with intention.
  2. Invest time in the relationships important to me. My tribe feeds my soul and deserves the best of me.
  3. Invest in time to move my writing projects forward. Finish my book in 2016.
  4. Limit my hours at work to create a space for balance in my life.
  5. At work focus on coaching with candor and compassion together.

Tip: When writing these BIG Goals for the year write them in a positive not negative framing. So for example with number 2. above I am not saying “Don’t spend time with people not truly in my tribe.” Your brain under stress doesn’t follow the negatives. It does the exact opposite. The BIG Goal list should be simple enough for you to know by heart. You can see that number 1. and 2. above will be the same for me year after year for the rest of my life.

Once you have your Life Themes or BIG Goals you can use the Goal Sheet to break them down even further. This will help you greatly in seeing the sub-steps involved in this goal, what it looks like when you attain success, and who you can draw upon for support in this goal. The exercise of the Whys on this Goal Sheet gets below the surface reasons we often embark on a goal. The surface reason isn’t usually strong enough to carry us through the tough days. So dig deep. Do the exercise of the Whys.

  • Why do I want to workout? To look good in my clothes, be healthier, feel better.
  • Why do I want to look good in my clothes and feel better? So I can feel confident and have more energy.
  • Why do I want to feel confident and have more energy? So I can show my daughter how important it is to believe in yourself and participate in life fully with my family.
  • Why do I want to show my daughter this way of life? So she can be the strongest, happiest, healthiest self possible and have me as her role model showing her the way and participating in healthy activities alongside her.

See the difference?

Sunday night is a great time to sit down and plan the week. I’ve included a planning tool you can access below. The purpose of the plan is to make sure your daily activities align with your BIG Goals. You are planning your week to match your intention for the life you want to be living. I recommend planning your week in pencil and when changes are needed you can erase and adjust. Then at the end of the week compare your plan to your reality.

Stress comes not from our activities, but that our activities are misaligned with what our soul needs.

  1. Reread or rewrite your BIG Goals for the year.
  2. Block off time for the things committed to that can’t be changed. Work for example. Driving to work for example. Time to cook dinner or sacred family time for example.
  3. What if any of the committed time is already a step towards one of your BIG Goals above? For example, on Thursday night I have a football game to attend for one son and a cross-country meet to attend for another. Same night. Two locations. It will be a bit hectic. But, you know what? It is 100% in alignment with my second goal above to invest in my tribe. Perfect. What you may have first thought of as a burden at first glance is actually an important investment in your tribe and in living the life you designed for yourself!
  4. Set the minimum time blocks for the other BIG Goals. These are your commitments to yourself. Just as important as your commitments to others! For example, I know I want to work out at least five times this week. I pick out my five best times and block it off. I know to move my book forward I also need to block off time to work on that project, so do the same. For the writing I block off three times this week as my minimum to move forward. Then, don’t forget about goal 1. which involves time to really check in with myself. For that I block off 30 minutes each morning for journaling and reflection.
  5. Review your time blocks. Is it realistic? Do you have buffer time in-between activities? Do you have some free space that can be flexible enough to take on an unexpected change? Are you giving yourself enough time for sleep and being realistic in your wake time?
  6. Set yourself up for success. Envision ahead of time the ways your brain will try to trick you into not meeting your commitments to yourself. For example, when it comes to a workout time your brain may say “Let’s just let it go today. We’re tired, and rest is important too – right?” Think through and anticipate your brain trying to talk you out of your plan. Be ready to respond with “No, thank you for your suggestion, but I already decided what is important to my soul and this is it. Sunday night I made my decision. Now is not the time to change that decision, thanks for your input, now be quiet while I do exactly what I know I truly desire.”
  7. If something happens you don’t expect do your best to adjust and reschedule your time blocks. Perfection is not the goal. Progress is.

That’s it. Follow your days you have scheduled for yourself knowing that you designed it with intention to match up with how you want your life to be lived.

Here is a Weekly Planner, and a sample of how to fill out the Weekly Check-in sheet portion, Planner Sample Filled In. I will go over that more in the next post along with other tricks and tools we haven’t covered yet including:

  • The Importance of Miracle Mornings
  • Bullet Journaling
  • Time Multipliers
  • Habit Stacking
  • Weekly Check-in and Tracking
  • Emotions and Adjustments

Some people may look at this and say its way too much structure. But the question is – without tools like this are you living your most intentional, designed, aligned life possible? If God taps you out tomorrow will you have regrets on how you used your gift of time, or will you know you designed and lived your life with full intention?

This level of planning also does one more thing for you. It gives you back control. Instead of reacting to your life with frustration at all the things you “HAVE” to do you are instead living a life you designed for yourself. Many of the things we feel our burdens in our life actually are aligned with our life design and this process lets you recognize and embrace that more fully.

The real value in a goal lies not in achieving the goal, or in the reward.

The real value is growing into the person you have to become to reach that goal.

I’ve included quite a few tools throughout this post. I’d love to know if you tried any of these planning tools and how they worked for you!

Feel free to print them out in multiple copies and put into a binder to use each week. Feel free to share with anyone you think would benefit from these tools.