Most people – including executives at all levels – do not have a plan for their lives, and some even drift along and just let life happen to them. They may plan their careers or major projects like re-building their home. But for some reason it never strikes them to plan their life.
In fact, too many executives are taking a passive approach to their lives – and when that happens, it almost always impacts their careers in a negative direction and their private life often suffers along the way. Perhaps you can recognize yourself wholly or partly in the above description?
Don’t be a passive spectator to your life – make your life count. In fact, living your life with a purpose can be a game changer as a new life ambition unfolds in the process.
Every person wears different hats throughout their lives and even during a single day. We take on the roles of husband/wife, father/mother, friend, businessperson, citizen, leader, employee and so on. To become a complete and well-rounded person, we need to thrive in each of our roles, and this is exactly what a Life Plan helps you to achieve. Sure you will continue to face adversity from time to time, however, with a Life Plan, it is our experience that you will improve your ability to focus your efforts and clear away a lot of the noise you are dealing with today while you shape your own future, unfold your potential and increase the probability of succeeding in your professional and private life.
Essentially, making a Life Plan is all about making your life count as it takes you through the steps of:
Clarifying your goals
Building a Life Plan
Taking action
Being an executive search company, at Albright Partners we have, for obvious reasons, taken a significant interest in to what it takes to improve the professional performance, well-being and overall success of executives. The outcome of our research clearly shows that the most successful executives – across industries - has developed a more structured and holistic approach to their lives – involving both the professional and private aspect. In some cases, they have even developed a blueprint – a sort of business plan/life plan for their life. This plan engulfs posing following questions:
STEP 1: Where are you now in your life (Personally and Professionally)?
STEP 2: What goals do you want to achieve in your life? (Personally and Professionally)?
STEP 3: What are the gaps between now and where you want to be in your life?
STEP 4: How do you get there?
STEP 5: What adjustments do you need to make along the way?
The benefit from going through these steps is that you will obtain a better understanding of yourself, identify your drivers and goals and create a new and more rewarding future. However, as with all major transformations, you need to invest time and energy to gain the necessary insights, to self-evaluate, and to plan. This is not done in a day or two as it requires serious thought and reflections. In fact, you should view the Life Plan as a plan with a final destination that is driven by a life ambition, containing a series of actions and disciplines that will cause a chain of events leading you to your final destination. Every action and every discipline achieved today, tomorrow and in the more distant future is a link in the chain. Essentially, your direction, activities and disciplines all make up crucial links in your chain of success and will eventually lead you to the things you want most out of life and to the person you want to become.
When making your Life Plan it is crucial to bear in mind the words of former President Eisenhower: “Plans are nothing, planning is everything.” A Life Plan is not a static blueprint of your future life, in fact you should view your Life Plan as a living plan that, as life unfolds, will require small and sometimes bigger adjustments. However, like in business, in order to achieve great things and make gains that truly matter to you, you need a long-term view of your life – a Life Plan - that will make you clearer about your priorities and “mission” in life, and more comfortable in making choices that are right for you.