Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 236 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Your Life Plan Blueprint – Strategy Guidelines 1-5

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 236 of our Trek, and we are continuing on our current Trek Your Life Plan Blueprint. Yesterday we started our exploration of the third phase of the WESPER framework which is strategy.  As you are creating your life plan that fulfills your life purpose, you must establish goals as part of your plan. But, setting a goal does nothing by itself. Strategy is the core of your blueprint, which enables you to do planning which leads to execution and review.

I am incorporating all of these daily concepts along with worksheets into an easy to use workbook, and I will let you know when it is complete so that you can download it. If you have any questions or would like additional information as we go through our daily trek, leave a comment on Wisdom-Trek.com or email me at guthrie@venturecg.com. If you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. It looks like we will be receiving a few inches of snow in southeastern Ohio on Friday night into Saturday – not nearly as much as the northeast but a decent amount. Even with all of the sophisticated radar and weather equipment available, you can never predict with certainty, so we will see. It is nice that on our virtual hike of Wisdom-Trek we can remain indoors during bad weather and visualize much warmer days.

Let’s head on the trail for day seventeen of our Wisdom-Trek Life Plan process which we refer to as…

Your Life Plan Blueprint^©

Yesterday we explored three points about strategy which were:

• What is strategy?
• Strategy is underutilized.
• Develop your strategy.

On our trail today and tomorrow, we will discover the 10 guidelines for creating a successful strategy for any goal or objective that you set.

1. Understand your goals thoroughly.

Start with each of your 7-year objectives, and then I will ask you the following questions. What will you need to have completed by the end of year 1 to meet that objective?  Then drill down. What do you need to be completed at the end of month 1 to stay on schedule?  What will you need to complete by the end of week 1?  What tasks do you need to accomplish each day for that week?  Do you have all the information needed for the goal to create this strategy?  What is the gap that exists between you and completing the 1^st week of daily tasks? You must understand the overall objective including the information and knowledge needed to reach your short-term activity goals.

2. Pre-plan for obstacles so you can address them.

Visualize that you are now pursuing your goal. What obstacles do you anticipate standing in your way of success? Write all these obstacles down and rank them in order of magnitude. The bigger the obstacle is in diverting you from the goal, the higher the rank.

Pre-plan for how you will handle each obstacle so if they do crop up they won’t derail you from completing your tasks or goals. Don’t leave life to chance, use the Boy Scout motto of “Always be prepared.”  This concept should be applied to all areas of life. When you do this, you will have a set of ready solutions at your disposal when you face these obstacles later on. Instead of getting distracted in the middle of your goal pursuit to troubleshoot those barriers, you can easily brush them aside with the solutions you have developed.

3. Identify the best route, but plan for alternatives.

After you have set your 7-year objective and obtained all the knowledge on your activity goals, identify all the paths you can take to reach your destination.  Take the time to analyze the potential paths that can be undertaken to move toward your goals.  Rank these in order of efficiency and effectiveness. When you implement this strategy, you will always know your best route and have alternative routes available if you run into obstacles or detours.

The best route refers to the path which gives you the most reward for the least effort, as opposed to other paths which may give you a low reward for low effort, high reward for high effort, or low reward for high effort.

4. Identify key activities or best actions for success.

After you have identified your best route, identify your key activities for success. Key activities for success are the few action steps that give you the bulk of the results. They absolutely need to be executed for your goal to be a success.

Rank your key activities in the order of importance. This strategy of prioritization will guide you as you move to the planning and execution phase of the WESPER framework. To identify these activities, you need to understand how your 7-year objectives integrate into your life plan and purpose. Focus or invest the majority of your time on the most important activities that will bring you the most impact. We will talk more about this in planning.

5. Remain faithful and focused on your daily activity goals.

Your Life Plan Blueprint is designed to be simplistic but powerful. Once you have obtained the wisdom needed to establish your 7-year objectives, break down the activity goals into ever smaller nuggets. Remain faithful and focused on your daily activity goals so you will achieve success.

You must be willing to make the small sacrifices required every day so that you do not have to make large sacrifices for the rest of your life.  You must remain dedicated, persistent, and consistent on completing you daily task each day without fail. You must be willing to live a few years of your life like most people won’t so you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t. If you remain faithful on these small daily tasks, then you will reap a harvest of results in Your Life Plan Blueprint. This lesson is taught to us in the Good News according to Matthew 25:20-21, “The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’  The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!”

On our trek today, we explored the first five guidelines to develop your life plan strategy with the WESPER framework.  Tomorrow on our trail, we will dig deeper and explore the remaining 5 guidelines for creating an effective strategy. We are hiking the trail with determination as we lay the foundation and build Your Life Plan Blueprint.

This framework integrates into our concept of Wisdom-Trek as we look at life as a trek, taking one step at a time. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, I encourage you to help us promote Wisdom-Trek in the following four ways:

1. Leave us feedback about the podcast on Wisdom-Trek.com so we can continually improve.
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Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!