Creating an Effective Life Plan

Whether you're creating a simple, one-sheet five-year plan or an elaborate life plan with every detail carefully drawn out - it should contain two basic elements: The Long Term plan and Short-Term goals. The short-term goals should serve the long-term goals. So, any life plan begins with the big picture.

The best way to start building a life plan is to look at and define exactly what's important to you. What are your values? What do you cherish and care most about. Create a life mission statement that states these values and begins to define how you plan to express these values in your life. All of the goals and strategies to achieve those goals will need to align with those values. For example, if spending time with your family is one of your core values, then if you have a goal to make more money, then spending long nights at your current job may not be a good option because it goes against one of your core values. You might want to look at other options like starting a side business with your family.

The next step is to look at long-term goals. These are goals, generally, that are more than five or ten years away. Where do you see yourself going in your career? Do you want to own a house? Do you want to have a place by a lake and own a boat? Again, these goals need to align with your core values.

Next, you'll want to sit in a quiet place and imagine what you want your life to look like in five years. Do you want to live in a different place, have a different job, an exciting partner or do you want to maintain exactly where you are? Imagine what you really want your life to look like. These short-term goals need to align with your values and your long-term goals. At this point, it's very effective to focus on each part of your life like financial condition, education, career, relationships, health and fitness, etc. You'll want to create goals and strategies for those goals for each area of your life. And they all have to, again, align with your values and long-term goals.

You should keep this life plan handy at all times and track how you're doing to see where you need to make adjustments to stay on track.

Life Plan Writer offers a full set of tools to help you create and track your long and short-term goals. It also helps you assess your life and manage your high-level financial health, career plan and personal-growth plans. Go to the official Life Plan Writer page to learn more about this essential life planning program.