Once again, we return to intentional meaning-making.

Ready to write our own stories about what Planning could bring to our daily lived experience?

For me, it’s a favor I do for my Future Self – much like meaning-making in general.

Future Me wants nothing more that to be able to be fully present with whatever she’s doing. Whoever she’s with. Whatever endeavor she’s focused on. She doesn’t want to have to pause and look up directions mid-way through.

An intuitive plan is one that accounts for my Future Self’s mindset and assumes she’s focusing her efforts elsewhere.

The best plans also pace things so that her next step is not only obvious to see & start, but also easy to execute because of all the setup her Past Self (me) did to make her current task foolproof.

If I do the planning right, my Future Self will have tools handed to her at the moment she most needs them. It will save her some bandwidth. And set her up for success.

Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill (and more recently, Taylor Swift) all alluded to this phenomenon. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”

To continue the lyrics here,
“strategy sets the scene for the tale.
I’m the wind in our free flowing sails….”

My plan is that wind.

My plans propel me forward toward my most ideal future with a breeze that feels effortless. All I have to do is keep an eye on the compass and make sure the direction of the momentum is pointed where it should be.

My Past Self has had her moments of genius. The ones I most appreciate are the ones she chose to write down. Those are the ones I’m able to recall with the greatest clarity. The rest of her genius ideas are at least partially lost to time.

My current plan is just to carry a notebook with me at all times to capture her future moments of innovation. I don’t intend to let her down again on that front.

Here’s the trick to making sure your plan is solid. These are my major takeaways and the meaning I’m making of this whole concept:

• Start from the goal and work backwards – What will it look like to be almost done? What about just before that? And before that? What does that mean for your first few steps?
• ***Extra points if your plan involves a small repeatable habit to engage in each day or each week ***
• Break big goals down into smaller checkpoints
• Ideally, make sure there’s something inherently fun or rewarding in each and every step. (Even if it’s just bragging rights or the relief of having it done.)
• Adopt a mindset of learning, and specifically learning how you learn. Noticing where our brains naturally like to take us will help to ensure our plotted path is in the best interest of the actual reality version of us who will be engaging in each step of it. (Psst….That idealized version of us who does it all perfectly & immediately doesn’t exist.) Acceptance of who we are is an important component to drawing out a functional map.
• Prioritize long term goals that match your values.
• Sprinkle in some activities that spark enough interest to justify returning to your goal over and over.

At the intersection of your joy and your values,
you’ll find a treasure trove of options for how to
become the person you most long to be.

What if, for just this set of 12 weeks, your goal was finding balance in your routine planning practice?

What if each day, your plan was to ensure you found 42% of your day to intentionally rest in an effort to heal from & avoid future Burnout?

What would happen to your available time and energy and passion if you were intentional about making sure your body receives the rest it’s been begging you for?

What if what we’re planning toward has been
totally possible to achieve this whole time?