Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 239 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Your Life Plan Blueprint – Planning Goals #2

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 239 of our Trek, and we are continuing on our current Trek Your Life Plan Blueprint. Yesterday we began the 4^th step or phase of our WESPER framework, which is planning. We explored the five steps to success as you are planning your goals. These steps are easy to follow and repeatable across all 7 areas of your life. Since our life planning series does cover many days, if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

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.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Due to the snow event from Friday and Saturday, it was advised not to be on the roads unless necessary. We took advantage of the opportunity to relax this morning and listen to a podcast message from our church in Charlotte. After that, we spent the remainder of the day working on several client projects that needed to be completed and also made plane reservations for a trip in February to visit our construction project in Mesa, Arizona. It is coming along well, but there are always a lot of details and moving pieces to keep track of.

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

Your Life Plan Blueprint^©

Developing a plan for our long-term objective goals and short-term activity goals is crucial. These goals need to be based on your pre-planned strategy for proper execution and completion of those goals. You must allocate the time required to ensure success. This leads us to the trail that we need to explore today which is…

2. Fit Your Plan into Your Schedule

Once you set your 7-year objective goals and detailed activity goals in each of the 7 areas of your life, your weekly and daily activity task should be clear. Now you need to fit them into your schedule and integrate your plan into your daily life. Be proactive in allocating the time required. This will create certainty that the whole plan will be acted upon.

a. Get a daily calendar.

You will need a daily calendar and task list, which lists the hours as you schedule in your tasks. Depending on your preferences, you might like to use a web-based calendar, a calendar in your email client, a manually created calendar, or even a hard copy calendar.

I use Gmail and Google Calendar. It is web-based, so it can be accessed from any computer, tablet, or smartphone, making it extremely convenient. I find it extremely helpful in keeping me organized. Keep in mind that whatever you use, it is just a tool. Use what works best for you.

b. Identify the best times to work on your daily activity goals.

You must be clear on when you can work on your objective and goals. There are two factors that determine this. The first is your time. Determine when you will make available time for your goal-specific tasks. The second is your energy level. As you are allocating for those tasks, choose a time when you will be in a proper frame of mind to work on your goals.

Be realistic and do not run into the situation where you overcommit yourself with your tasks that are not part of Your Life Plan Blueprint. Learn to say “No!” to anything that does not fit into your life plan so you can say yes to what is truly important.

Creating a life plan that will enable you to complete your objectives and goals has to be your primary focus. Your Life Plan Blueprint represents your path toward fulfilling your purpose in life. You will need to be persistent, consistent, and dedicated to making your life plan work. This is very different from traditional goal setting programs where you attempt to fit working on your goals into an already busy schedule. Your Life Plan Blueprint is your trek of life and very process by which you live. You must decide to make the necessary adjustments in life to make your plan work for you. It is your choice.

It is not about managing your time better. Time management is actually an impossibility. We all have 24 hours in each day, and we can no more manage time than we can stop the rotation of the earth. We cannot manage time, but we can manage our activities. When you understand that you are accountable to manage your activities, then you start to focus on life from a different perspective. Based on the choices you have made in the past, it may appear that others control your time, but you don’t have to continue that way the remainder of your life. By the end of this first 7-year season, you will have the capacity to control how all of your time is invested.

Your time can either be spent with little redeeming value, or it can be invested so that your return on that investment helps to fulfill your life purpose. You may need to invest some time now to examine where you spend your time. How are you spending your time every day? What are the different activities that you are involved in? How much time is taken for each activity? Which activities take up the most time? Do these activities move you closer to your life purpose or farther away? When you answer these questions, don’t make excuses for yourself. Take control of your activities.

A simple yet excellent tool which enables you to get immediate clarity on how to prioritize your activities is the Activity Management Matrix. A sample of this matrix is included in the workbook.

Once you have taken the opportunity to study the Activity Matrix, you will come to realize that to be successful with Your Life Plan Blueprint, you will need to invest your time primarily in Quadrant 2.  In doing so, you will minimize your time in Quadrant-1 by being proactive in Quadrant-2.  Spending any time in Quadrants 3 and 4 will dramatically slow down your trek toward fulfilling your life purpose.

It is a requirement to incorporate a time for rest and relaxation as part of your life plan. This will enable you to achieve your balanced life and maximize every moment of your life for its intended purpose.

The Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Church in Ephesus Chapter 5:15-17, “So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.”

On our trek today, we started our investigation of how to fit your daily and weekly tasks into your schedule through the use of a daily calendar, identifying the best times each day, and investing your time wisely. Tomorrow we will focus our exploration on how best to schedule your tasks to ensure they are consistent with your strategy.  This goal planning is the 4^th step in our WESPER framework. We are hiking our life plan trail with purpose 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.
2. On your smartphone, subscribe on iTunes, GooglePlay, Spreaker, Soundcloud or Stitcher, so the podcast will be downloaded to you automatically each day.
3. On your computer or if you have an iPhone or iPad, leave us a rating and review on iTunes.
4. Please share Wisdom-Trek with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

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!