Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 245 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Your Life Plan Blueprint – Final Recap #2

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 245 of our Trek, and today we will arrive back at base camp as we finish the 25^th day of our Trek Your Life Plan Blueprint. Since our life planning series has covered 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. When this episode is released, we will be heading back to our Charlotte home for about 20 days. In the middle of that time, we will be heading to Phoenix to invest four days with our business partners and friends Charles and Alison Mecom. We will be reviewing the progress on our construction project in Mesa and streamlining some more of the processes and procedures on the backend of the project.

As we finish our Life Plan trek today with a summary, this is day twenty-five of the hike which we refer to as…

Your Life Plan Blueprint^©

We will continue reviewing the major checkpoints of Your Life Plan Blueprint with the statement that was popularized by Steven Covey in his 7-Habits book:

Begin With the End in Mind

In yesterday’s recap we explored at the following five checkpoints:

1. Determine Your Life Purpose

2. Determine Your Life Objective (Your Legacy)

3. Understand Your Wheel of Life

4. Understand the WESPER Framework

5. Determine One Major 7-Year Objective for Each of the 7-Areas of Your Life

Our next point of review is:

6. Breakdown Your 7-Year Major Objectives into 1-Year Objective Goals

For each of your 7-year objectives, ask yourself, “What will I need to accomplish by the end of Year 1 to be on track to meet my 7-year objective? What is your specific checkpoint to compare against?” This 1-year goal will have tasks or activities associated with it, but specific details are best left for the next three steps. Write down your 1-year goal in each area of life. Repeat this step at the beginning of each year.

7. Breakdown Your 1-Year Objective Goals into 1-Month Activity Goals

For each of your 1-year goals, ask yourself, “What will I need to accomplish by the end of Month 1 to stay on track to meet my 1-year goal?” You will start listing a few more detailed tasks and activities, but granular tasks are left for the final two steps. Write down your 1-month goal in each area of life. Repeat this step at the beginning of each month.

8. Breakdown Your 1-Month Activity Goals into 1-Week Activity Tasks Goals

For each of your 1-month goals, ask yourself, “What will I need to accomplish by the end of Week 1 to stay on track to meet my 1-month goal?” This goal should be specific, measurable, and clearly understood. It is crucial that you reach this objective. Write down your 1-week goal in each area of life. Repeat this step at the beginning of each week.

9. Breakdown Your 1-Week Activity Tasks Goals into Daily Tasks Activities (To-Do)

For each of your 1-week goals, ask yourself, “What do I need to accomplish each day of this week to stay on track to meet my 1-week goal?” These are no longer goals but detailed specific and measurable tasks that need to be accomplished each day of the week to meet your 1-week goal. You should verify every day that this step is completed before the end of each day. At the end of each week, write down the daily goals for the next week.

As you can see this 5 step process begins with the end in mind and breaks down life planning into smaller and smaller digestible nuggets. While we keep the larger objectives in mind, our primary focus becomes what we need to focus on today and this week. If we accomplish our daily and weekly tasks, then the monthly, yearly, and 7-year objectives will take care of themselves.

10. Follow the 10 Goal Setting Principles

Every step or phase of the WESPER framework is vital and important. None of it should be skipped or marginalized. The one step that makes all of the other steps possible is setting the actual goals. Those goal setting principles are:

1. Ensure congruency with your life purpose.
2. Ensure your purpose represents your Wheel of Life.
3. Understand your motivations.
4. Identify your objective goal first and then define your activity goals.
5. Plan for B^3.
6. Be specific with your goals.
7. Make goals measurable.
8. Start with long-term objectives, and then break them down into short-term goals and tasks.
9. Set your objective goals as end outcomes, not tasks.
10. Use positive framing.

11. Execution is Paramount for Success

Execution is an extremely critical step because execution is all that anybody ever sees. You can spend all your life seeking wisdom, establishing goals, strategizing and planning, but if you never get down to the execution, nothing is going to happen. It is in this step that your dreams begin to become a reality. It is during this phase when you actually begin to build your life from Your Life Plan Blueprint.

12. The Importance of Review

While review is the last phase of the WESPER process, review is a continual process throughout Your Life Plan Blueprint. Review serves two important objectives:

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?  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.

As you dedicate yourself to creating and executing Your Life Plan Blueprint, I pass on this blessing from Psalm 20:4, “May he grant your heart’s desires and make all your plans succeed.” I am convinced that if you do your part, then God will honor the plans that you make as they dovetail into His plans for you.  Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’”

We have now returned to base camp as we complete this extended trek reviewing and exploring the Wisdom-Trek Your Life Plan Blueprint. Paula and I are refining all of this valuable information into our initial release of the course and workbook that will provide you with the complete Your Life Plan Blueprint with the integrated WESPER framework. I will let you know as soon as it is available.

After such a long trek over this past month, starting tomorrow, we will remain in camp for several days as we return to our exploration for wisdom that is found in the book of Proverbs. We will continue with Chapter 7. 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.
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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!