Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 242 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Your Life Plan Blueprint – Goal Review #1

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 242 of our Trek, and we are continuing on our current Trek Your Life Plan Blueprint.  Yesterday we explored the 5^th step or phase of our WESPER framework which is execution. Today we will start on the 6^th phase which is review. While it is the last phase of the process, review is a continual process throughout Your Life Plan Blueprint. As with all steps of WESPER, the review process is extremely important. We will spend the next two days focusing on the review process within the WESPER framework. 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. We are making good progress this week on both the house and our client work. Our plans are to head back to Charlotte on Sunday, so I hope to invest Saturday on the woodwork in the library. The woodwork is in great shape but needs an old coat of varnish removed so I can seal it with a new coat of polyurethane. Reviewing the results is always rewarding.

Reviewing the results is the focus today of our trek as we hike the trail for day twenty-two of our Wisdom-Trek Life Plan process which we refer to as…

Your Life Plan Blueprint©

1. Importance of Review

Review serves two important objectives:

• Accountability
• Feedback

Accountability: Review strengthens accountability to yourself. When you review, you make yourself answerable to your goals. You take ownership of and responsibility for your actions. If you don’t review, how will you know how you are reaching your goal? This is especially important if your progress is not immediately observable, such as how much weight you are losing or how much savings you generated in a month. You can always operate under the assumption that you are on track to meet your goal, but you will never know for sure until you review. Within Your Life Plan Blueprint your 7-year objectives are broken down into small daily and weekly tasks that are easy to track and hold yourself accountable.

Feedback: Review is where you get feedback on everything you have strategized, planned, and executed. Reviewing lets you understand what’s working, what’s not working, and how you can improve. Without review, you will have no clue on whether your actions are leading you toward or away from your goals. You will be stabbing in the dark, blindly repeating the same steps, wondering why you do not seem to be getting closer to your goal. Measuring your progress against your daily and weekly tasks will provide a continual feedback loop.

2. Review Process

Reviewing occurs from your daily tasks through your 7-year objectives. The frequency of review corresponds to the time frame of the task, goal, and objective.

Within many goal setting systems, the review process does not provide adequate accountability and feedback to make the necessary adjustments throughout the process.

Review should be an ongoing process that happens daily with your daily tasks. It serves as your constant feedback loop on the effectiveness of your actions and their implications toward the outcome. By reviewing daily, you get immediate lessons which can then be incorporated to increase your chances of success. Just like riding a bike, driving a car or flying an airplane, you will be making continual minor course adjustments throughout the entire process.

Use Your Tracking Sheets

I recommend establishing your review process from the start of Your Life Plan Blueprint using goal tracking sheets. Within the Wisdom-Trek Life Plan course and workbook, we will provide you with all of the tracking sheets that are needed to properly track your objectives and goals throughout the entire 7-year process. This will include a set for each of the 7 areas of your life. Our initial manual and worksheets will be free for anyone to download. Our long-term vision is to create a full course for Your Life Plan Blueprint, which will include a web-based tracking system. Early adopters of the program will receive special consideration on future releases.

If you prefer to create your own tracking sheets, I would recommend using Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or Open Office. In doing so, make sure you create sheets that track the following:

• Statement of your overriding purpose for your life and your primary objective that supports that purpose.
• Your 7-Year Objective in each of the 7 areas on your Wheel of Life – Describe how you desire to see yourself in 7 years in each area. Make sure that your life is in balance as much as possible.
• Your 1^st-year objective goal for each of the 7 areas of your life
• Your 1^st-month activity goal for each of the 7 areas of your life
• Your 1^st-week task goal for each of the 7 areas of your life
• Your daily tasks for each day of the 1^st week for each of the 7 areas of your life (49 total tasks covering the 1^st week – some of these tasks may be repetitive for each day) An example of a repetitive task is that you will take a 30 minute fast walk each day. This would be the same for each day of this 1^st week. On the 2^nd week, you may want to increase it to 35 minutes for each day.

There is really no hard and fast rule to how your tracking sheet should be. If you like the ones we provide for you, use them, or use them as an example for your own tracking sheets.

The key is to keep it simple for you and don’t obsess over the process of tracking. If you find yourself spending an hour every day on tracking your performance alone, it is a sign that you are not optimizing your time. Keep it as simple as possible while ensuring that it captures the necessary information to serve your needs. Once your goal tracking is set up, try to keep the daily tracking limited to about 15 minutes a day.

To effectively complete and track your objectives and goals, you must be patient for the results. Anything worthwhile is worth effort and patience to endure as it indicates in James 5:7-8, “Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen. You, too, must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

On our trek today, we are focused on the 6^th phase of our WESPER framework which is review. Using a good tracking system to facilitate your review is important to ensure you are meeting all of your checkpoints each day and week. This will guarantee the successful progress and completion of Your Life Plan Blueprint. Tomorrow we will continue with the 6^th step or phase in our WESPER framework on review. As we continue on our life plan trail with resolve, we are laying the foundation and structure of Your Life Plan Blueprint. This framework incorporates 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!