Matt Jones
Updated: Apr 18, 2022
Planning your life is important. However, it's not always a priority when we're used to being told most of our lives by other people what we should or should not be doing with our time. It's like our life plans and life goals are handed to us. When we're born, we're told constantly how to live our lives. Do this, don't do that. Don't talk back. Get good grades. Go to college if you want to be successful. Buy this course if you want to be financially free. Surround yourself with successful people if you want to be successful. It's all about success, success, success. What is success anyway? Is it a yacht, nice cars, and a big mansion? Or is it being a community worker and helping others? Is it finding love and sharing your life with a partner that loves and adores you? Is it having kids? Success can be a dubious term. What about success in love? This isn't something necessarily as popular in a culture obsessed with superficial values of power, fame, and wealth. Life planning yourself allows you to explore your own values.
Everyone will tell you what success is and how you should live your life. How many of them though have good parameters about the full human experience. Things like joy and passion, love and friendship, giving and contributing. You need to figure these things out for yourself.. Because it matters.
Living your life based on what other people think you should do is a dangerous cycle that too many of us fall prey to. Life planning starts with you and only you.
It eradicates the uniqueness and originality of who each of us are on the inside.
Our institutions want to tell us how to think and who we should be. We're told to spend a fortune on a college degree, putting us into debt the rest of our lives - until we become carbon copy footprints of slave workers chained to a vicious and hollow 9 - 5 existence. Then we just work to get out of debt and pay bills. Our life plan seems to disappear completely before us. That's not the meaningful and impactful life we thought we would have when we were younger; when we had a more playful relationship with the universe. Somewhere along the way many of us lose that playful heart and give into compromise of our life goals.
Would've I were to tell you that this life is an illusion? Sure, it's real - but the reality we all see and feel doesn't have to be accepted as it is. We don't have to give into ordinary ways of thinking and being.
Many of us are programmed to just accept reality as it is. Through the lens of how we see the world shapes our thinking - which shapes our actions on a daily basis. We can tend to forget that we have control of our lives. We just have to see it though. We don't have to buy into everything. We don't need to go to college to be successful. We don't need permission to do what we want. We buy into these outside forces and allow them to shape our reality, unconscious of our power to change it as we see fit.
When you're old and grey, it won’t really matter what type of watch you wore or what car you had. You won't care how your hair looked, or what brand of clothes you had on. At that point your only life plans will be to sit back and relax.
What will matter is how you lived, how you loved, and what you learned along the way.
Deep down we all know what truly matters.
Yet today, we are far too easily distracted by the insignificant. The opinions of others. Seeking approval from our family and friends. We give into these outside forces, becoming a prisoner in our own minds, chained to other peoples ideas that don't serve us well. You can't do this. You can't do that. It's unrealistic.
We give too much of our time to meaningless thoughts and meaningless activities.
We step through days, sceptical, loaded with regret and unhappiness.
We are distracted with stress and worry, living in the past or the future. Who will I become? What am I gonna do with my life? If only I did this or that...
We become our own worst enemy, giving into doubt and pessimism - and as a result become paralyzed... Then, we stop trying.
And the list goes on.
An Australian nurse named Bronnie Ware did a study that surveyed people close to death. She asked them about their biggest regrets.
One of the most common regrets, time, and time again was this:
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
So, why do most of us live a life not authentic to ourselves?
Many of us are asleep at the wheel of our own lives.
Initially, we get bogged down with fears and social pressures to give into realistic thinking - and that we should forget about our passions or dreams, goals, and wants.
You have to pay the rent and pay your bills, so we cling to security; even at the expense of our own passions in life.
We become chained to these desk jobs; day in and day out, too tired at the end of the day to do anything else to change our lives. So, we binge watch TV to escape our reality; a reality that we know we don't like. So, we avoid everything. We avoid what we really want. We make compromises...
It is estimated that people spend more time planning vacations than they do their own lives. 60% of people will abandon their resolutions within six months, while 25 percent of people abandon them with a mere 7 days.
Studies have revealed that it's not your community, not your family, not even your friends that have the biggest effect on your success in life.
It has to do with planning.
Psychology professor Dr. Gail Mattews led a study of 300 participants which revealed that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals in life if you write them down.
So, why don't we do it? Why don't we pay more attention to our lives? Why are we so distracted all the time? Because, we've created an island for ourselves. An island of comfort zones and entertainment and endless distractions..... Which can't be all bad all the time. But, at what cost?
Motivation is but a fleeting feeling..
Many of us wait to be motivated to start taking action in our lives. People think that if they don't get organized and fail to get what they want, they are simply unmotivated people.
They wear it like a scarlet letter; disillusioned, accepting this falsehood as part of their personal identity - and do nothing as a result, practically justifying it as "it's just who I am."
You are not unmotivated. You just have other priorities.
Remember, reality can be an illusion. Both from what other people tell you; but also from what you tell yourself.
However, through willpower, the power of chance, and opportunity, we can work to hone the life we want. We can choose our paths in life. We can choose how we act in situations; or react...
Life goals are preferred outcomes you want to accomplish in many different areas of your life. This can range from career to family and more.
So, perhaps you're wondering what are my goals? Here are 9 different life planning examples. This is how to plan your life, how to succeed, and how to write your life blueprint.
-Money goals, job goals, career goals, professional goals
-Vision mission purpose, define mission statement
-Personal goals,future aspirations
-Physical fitness, Physical activity, regular exercise goals
benefits of physical activity, health related fitness, the benefits of exercise, effects of exercise
-Social goals, friendship goals
-Meditation goals, mindfulness,
-Family goals, relationship family goals
-Fun goals, adventure goals, hiking goals, biking goals
-Spiritual goals
Use these life categories above as your own life planner. Use them in your daily diary. If you want a template click here.
Our focus is what matters in life planning. It is true that energy flows where our focus goes. However, if we don't plan, if we don't focus, we simply float aimlessly through our lives, rudderless, clinging to hope and fate - accepting where we end up with silent regret.
You can create your own life story.
You can have some control over your life.
You can try harder.
So, write it today.
Write your life story. Write your life blueprint.
Write the reality YOU want to create for yourself.
Matt Jones is a writer and entrepreneur with multiple businesses who enjoys inspiring and helping others. He is also a professional musician who has been to over 40 different countries on all 7 continents. His personal mission is to create and inspire. He is from Los Angeles but is now based in Greater London. His latest book "Life 2.0" is available on Amazon.