This article is based on the Strategic Pathway which can be downloaded here.
This is part 3 of a 10 part series exploring in more detail how to go about building a strategic plan. Previous parts can be found here:
Part 1
Part 2
This seems like such a fun and easy question to answer, right? And so it is! The key is to get really specific and to be really, brutally honest with yourself. I might answer the question flippantly by saying that I want to live on a tropical island...in reality, I don't want to be so far away from my, and possibly more importantly my sons', support network. I sometimes dream of living very rurally, but I really love high speed broadband, my kids being able to jump on their bikes and take themselves off to the park, their Nana's, the shops, swimming etc and having the community of close neighbours.
One of my clients told me he wanted to start his own free school based around forest school practices...but more than that he wanted to be working less now whilst his children are young.
Sometimes our dreams conflict with each other. It's okay, perfectly normal in my experience, but something that we need to tackle to be able to put together a good strategy.
So lets start with thinking about how you want your life to feel first of all. The CNVC feelings list (here) is excellent for giving you ideas if you're not sure but some common ones I tend to hear:
Easy, relaxed, secure, stable, joyful, exciting, connected, adventurous, challenging
Really spend some time here, working out how you want your life to feel is the crucial marker against which you are going to assess all actions going forward.
Bear in mind that as humans we like variety. Very few people would enjoy a life that was always exciting - it would either cease to be exciting and become normal or it would be exhausting. Similarly, relaxed may become boring if it's not interspersed with focus, activity or challenging at times.
Once you've got the feelings really clear, start thinking about the key aspects that are important in your life. Maybe it's your relationship with your spouse/partner, or having children; it could be a profession or a business, maybe it's travelling or being autonomous, a religion or spiritual practices. These are the things that are non-negotiable for you and which feed directly to the feelings you chose above.
Now let's figure out some specific goals. If you want your life to feel easy and secure, and a key aspect for you is your home, a specific goal could be to buy your own home and/or pay off your mortgage. If you want to feel excited, adventurous and joyful, and travelling is a key aspect for you, a specific goal could be to set up a location independent business or to go travelling for a year, or to move abroad.
If you want to feel relaxed, calm and easy, and a key aspect for you is more time with your children whilst they are young, buying a house that needs lots of work doing to it that you plan to do yourself is not a great specific goal - renovating houses is most often costly, time consuming and physically draining, not conducive to feeling relaxed, calm and easy or having more time with your children.
One of the common obstacles that tends to pop up at this point is a feeling of not having enough time, of needing to do everything now, or berating yourself for not having started years ago. Don't fret - you'll get more done and be more efficient if you prioritise and focus on one main goal at a time and none of us know exactly how long we've got so concentrate on the now and enjoy it as much as you can.
