From Life Vision to a Plan and Actions

For the trip you can plot you route with multiple legs on a map. To achieve your life vision you need a route as well: a plan with goals. Just like each leg moves you forward to your trip destination, each goal moves you towards your life vision. Defining a route is basically asking yourself “How to get from point A to point B?”. It’s the same to figure out your way to your desired lifestyle.

So question yourself with “How”.

  1. First “How can I achieve my life vision?”. Think about different areas of your life. You probably need changes in many areas supporting each other. For example, to have a home with garden you need to buy a house, to take care of the garden, decide what kind of garden you want, etc. These will be your high-level goals.
  2. Then for every high-level goal question yourself “How can I achieve it?”. You’ll have another set of goals. Those will be one level down and more specific. Still they will be blurry. Some may be variations leading to the same result. You don’t have to decide now. Keep your options open. For example, to take care of the garden you may either do it by yourself or by hiring someone.
    Goals you have are not equal. Some you should break down further as they are more important. Some you may decide to leave open ended. You will handle those later when they become important. For example, until you decide what kind of garden you want there is no sense in worrying about how to take care of it.
  3. Proceed breaking down goals with the same “How can I achieve it?” question until you start seeing actions instead of goals. It’s totally fine to have just first actions and figure out rest while working on the goal. For example, to decide what kind of garden you want you could take a look at gardens in your town, research on the Internet, review your photos from the places you’ve visited, etc.

Now you have a plan with goals and first actions for most important ones.