Plan for change

It was Earl Nightingale who said, “All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.” Do you have a plan to design the life you want? Or you are one of those people who pray and hope that things will fall into place? What is your plan for living the life you imagine? Do you have a plan? Will what is in your plan cause you to go passionately after what you want? Is the plan about helping others get what they want so that you can get what you want? You need a plan to help you minimize getting tossed to and fro by the waves of adversity and challenges of life. At times you may be thrown off course but you can get back on track if you have a plan. A plan shows you where to start from and where you are going. A plan is like a signpost providing you direction to where you want to go. 

We can also link a plan to a GPS that guides you to the place you want to go. Years ago, I took my GPS to a new country I was visiting for the first time. After getting out of the airport terminal I set my GPS to guide me to my hotel. For some reason, there were a great many road-construction projects and all I kept hearing from the GPS was “Recalculating.” I’d follow the new direction and then again another detour would cause the GPS to recalculate. This happened for a long time until the GPS decided to stop saying anything at all. I got lost, found a place to park, reset the GPS, and then started all over again. I did not have a roadmap or plan to guide me to my hotel. I should have printed a paper map as a backup but I didn’t. I wasted a lot of time before I finally got to my hotel. We waste a lot of time in our lives when we don’t have a proper plan to follow. Just as in the GPS story, we keep resetting and changing course until we don’t have enough time or strength left to do what we want to do. I hope you are not one of those people recalculating each time because of a lack of plan. 

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win – Zig Ziglar
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Life is too short to navigate without a plan. Life is too shot to keep recalculating, resetting, and recalculating until we are done. Develop your plan and if for any reason, you missed out on something you can change the plan, but at least you will have had a plan to adjust in the first place. Some of the benefits of having a plan include staying on strategy and the vision for designing the life you want; you will have clarity around your key objectives and milestones on the journey; you will have priorities regarding what you should do first, second, third, and so on; your key milestones will be clear and visible; and your interdependences will be clear upfront. You will also be able to focus your energy and commit available financial resources to what is most important. If you are used to spending your money on whatever you are attracted to, a plan that clearly defines your priorities will help manage these challenges. When you have a plan you are following, any deviation from it alerts you so that you can course-correct rather than not having a plan at all. 

Are you serious about designing the life you want? I believe you are. Start today if you do not have a plan. You may want to follow Zig Ziglar’s goal-setting model along what he calls the wheel of life. Zig’s philosophy about the wheel of life is that to live a balanced life you must have goals or a plan that address various areas of life to be balanced in your pursuit of achievement and success. Zig’s wheel of life includes the following areas: financial, family, spiritual, career, intellectual, physical, and social. Having a balanced wheel means having a plan that takes care of all these areas. Not doing so causes you to be deficient in that area. What is the composition of your plan? Are you taking care of all the areas that make you a balanced person? You don’t want to be one of those people who spend a lot of their time focusing on just one area and then after achieving what they want suffer in health and relationships, and become emotionally bankrupt with no friends to share life with? You are smarter than that and I believe you are not going to do that.

​Plan for success, plan for your spiritual life to be more grounded at the core so that you move steadily towards your goal; and the life you imagine. Plan for your family and plan for your financial freedom. Have a plan for all the areas you care about and when you do and execute the steps of that plan, you will not only fulfill your potential, you will also live long, have peace of mind, have joy, and live an amazing life. Here is a question for you. If you could do better, should you? Jim Rohn said, “If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”