Day 226 – Your Life Plan Blueprint – Framework #1

January 12, 2016 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III 3 Comments

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 226 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Your Life Plan Blueprint – Framework #1

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 226 of our Trek, and we are continuing on our current Trek Your Life Plan Blueprint. On this Trek, we are slowly mapping out the framework that will assist you in setting goals and creating a life plan for yourself. So far we have explored the purposes for an effective plan and some basic goal setting principles. On our trail today and tomorrow, we will review the overall concept of the 6 step framework to create a successful life plan through effective goal achievement.

Your life plan does not have to be overly complex. A simple but concise life plan is sufficient to achieve significant results in your life. Just like our trek of life, we will take the life planning trail one step at a time. If you have any questions or would like additional information as we go through our daily trek, either leave a comment on Wisdom-Trek.com or email me at guthrie@venturecg.com.

Since this trek on life planning will take several 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.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Our delayed Chamberlain Christmas celebration this past weekend was such an enjoyable blessing for Paula and me. All five of our children, their spouses, and our six grandchildren were able to spend Friday evening and all day Saturday with us. While some of my time was spent on meal preparation, I was able to share in all the festivities as we have an open floor plan in our house that makes it great for hosting activities.

Sunday evening through late Wednesday, we also have the blessing of having our grandson Kip staying with us as his parents take a few days off together. It is always a special time when we can share life with our grandkids. These amazing times with our children and grandchildren are part of our life plan. To make a lasting impact on them is a very important part of living our legacy each day.

Let’s head on the trail for day seven of our Wisdom-Trek Life Plan process which we refer to as…

Your Life Plan Blueprint

I mentioned yesterday that the framework that makes up the Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Blueprint consists of 6 steps for which I use the acronym of WESPER, which stands for:

Wisdom: Seek guidance from God and trusted mentors.
Establish: Set the vision and goal in place.
Strategy: Devise strategies to succeed in the goal.
Planning: Identify plan elements based on the strategies.
Execution: Bring the plan and goal to life.
Review: Assess the outcome and next steps.

Through this WESPER framework, goals you never thought achievable that make up your overall life plan will start becoming within your reach and in a matter of time, achieved. I personally use this framework to achieve my goals, and it works wonders.

Do not let the simplicity of the framework fool you. While these 6 steps look very simplistic, they are the foundation for successful goal achievement, especially for massive goals where the “what” and “how” for achieving them becomes elusive.

That being said, WESPER is not a miracle pill that takes out the hard work of fulfilling your life plan through goal achievement. WESPER is not an elixir that allows you to achieve your goals without lifting a finger. At the end of the day, you still need to put in the time and effort to achieve your life plan. As Proverbs 21:5 encourages us, “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.”

With WESPER, you will find the whole goal achievement to be significantly easier and more manageable. Instead of success being a random, haphazard occurrence, it will become a predictable, securable result. You will start seeing your goal obstructions crumble before you so naturally that you will wonder why you struggled so long with them in the beginning.

WESPER is what is going to take the question mark out of your goal achievement process. WESPER is what will put your goals right within your grasp and lead you to success. On our trails for today and tomorrow, we will explore an overview of what WESPER is about. On the subsequent days, we will explore each part of the framework in detail. After that, we will then provide you with tangible tools that will help you to create Your Life Plan Blueprint.

Why WESPER Is the Single Framework You Will Need For a Successful Life Plan through Goal Achievement

Within most other goal planning approaches, they expound different methods to goal achievement. Some talk about how goal achievement is all about not procrastinating, being motivated, persistent, self-disciplined, “just doing it,” and so on. At best, these are very fluffy, air-fairy methods to goal pursuit. While these soft skills are important in their appropriate context, they do not give you any insights as to “what” exactly are the key steps needed to achieve your goals, let alone how they connect to the “why” of your life plan.

Persistence and desire can take you far, but they can only take you so far without a proper strategy to hold everything together. Very few other methods or processes address the crucial or secret element, which is to change your habits and life you must change your fundamental thinking process.

You certainly cannot rely on persistence and desire alone to achieve your huge goals and life planning. A more structured approach based on wisdom is needed rather than just randomly firing at different things. Let me ask you this question. Would you prefer to be firing 100 shots every time and hit only once, or funnel your energy properly and get an 80/100 hit rate with a properly constructed blueprint?

There are some other good frameworks like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) or GTD (Getting Things Done). While these are great methods in themselves (I have used principles from both of these in my life), they are one-dimensional in the scope of goal achievement. For example, SMART only pertains to goal setting (the second step of WESPER), and it does not address the over-arching question of “why” you are setting this goal (where does it fit in your life plan). It does not guide you on what is to be done between setting the goal and actually reaching the goal in the end.

In addition to that, SMART itself is not exhaustive on the principles of what makes a good goal. GTD is great for planning and executing (fourth and fifth steps of WESPER), but it deals with the lower levels of goal achievement. It neglects the higher levels of goal establishment and strategizing, which are pertinent to successful goals. It does not address the goals from an overall life planning process.

What is lacking in most other goal systems is a holistic, single system that captures the essential key steps for successful goal achievements and how those goals tie into your life plan.

WESPER is an overall blueprint – a single, holistic framework that covers all that is to be done in life planning through goal achievement, from start to finish. It starts off with seeking wisdom on how a goal fits into your life plan and then moves onto the establishing of your goal. From there it steps you through the strategy process to planning, the execution of those plans, and then the review of what you have done and the lessons you can learn from and adopt for the next time. It maps out the key steps you need to take for every goal you pursue as part of your life plan and guides you along throughout the whole process. WESPER is Your Life Plan Blueprint.

I mentioned yesterday, the Wisdom-Trek life planning process is not a quick fix process, but instead, it is a life-changing process. It is simple, yet complete. This process dovetails into our concept of Wisdom-Trek as we look at life as a trek, one step at a time. Tomorrow we will finish the overview of WESPER, the 6 step blueprint for life plan framework. 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:

Leave us feedback about the podcast on Wisdom-Trek.com.
On your smartphone, subscribe on iTunes, GooglePlay, Spreaker, Soundcloud or Stitcher, so the podcast will be downloaded to you automatically each day.
If you have an iPhone or iPad, leave us a rating and review on iTunes.
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:

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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!

Day 225 – Your Life Plan Blueprint – Goals #2

January 11, 2016 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III Leave a Comment

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 225 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Your Life Plan Blueprint – Goals #2

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 225 of our Trek, and we are continuing on our current Trek Your Life Plan Blueprint. On this Trek, we are slowly mapping out the framework that will assist you in setting goals and creating a life plan for yourself. A simple but concise life plan is sufficient to achieve significant results in your life. Just like our trek of life, we will take the life planning trail one step at a time. As always, if you have any questions or would like additional information as we go through our daily trek, either leave a comment on Wisdom-Trek.com or email me at guthrie@venturecg.com.

Yesterday, I introduced the concept of the Wisdom-Trek Wheel of Life that has our lives segmented into 7 areas, which we will explore as part of our life planning process. I will be utilizing our daily journals for this trek to create a PDF workbook which you can use to create your life plan. Once the workbook is completed, I will let you know how you can obtain a copy of it.

Since this trek on life planning will take several 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.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. After a busy weekend celebrating Christmas with our children and grandchildren, we are embarking on another busy work week. We are still involved with our own life planning for 2016, so this week will be occupied with some of those details.

Let’s head on the trail for day six of our Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Trek which we refer to as…

Your Life Plan Blueprint

As we continue to consider some of the preliminary concepts of setting successful goals that make up the life planning process, I thought it would be helpful to share some of my own experiences.

My Experience With My Goal Pursuits

I have set and pursued many different goals and goal programs throughout my life. While I have utilized some different types of goal setting processes, which I will discuss tomorrow, the processes really did not include all the information that was needed to create a blueprint for a life plan. They focused on action and habit changes without getting to the root of the need for changing the way you think, which is the only way to ensure lasting change.

I do tend to be disciplined and driven, so I was able to achieve many of my goals that I set out to complete. I was able to lose about 30 pounds from my heaviest weight. I do exercise extensively at least five days a week, and I generally eat healthy to maintain good physical condition. I also spend time each day in meditation, prayer, the study of the Bible, and positive business training.

All of these milestones that I have been able to achieve have been driven by a change in the way I thought about life and the legacy that I wanted to live each day. This is the reason why I have taken some of the best concepts of goal setting, life planning, and changing the way you think and have created the Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Blueprint.

I fully acknowledge that much of the information that I will be sharing during our daily Wisdom-Trek is not new, or necessarily original, but as Issac Newton is quoted as saying, “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”

I have curated information from my mentors that have gone before me, added my own life experiences, and integrated a good dose of wisdom from the Scriptures to design the Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Blueprint.

All of us should use the good advice of others when making plans as Proverbs 15:22 tells us, “Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many advisers bring success.”

Also in Proverbs 20:18, “Plans succeed through good counsel; don’t go to war without wise advice.”

Although life planning may not be the same as going to war, in some ways, it is a great analogy. We are at war with a life lived in mediocrity and complacency, but we can have the victory of a rich and satisfying life where we create and live a legacy each day and make a positive impact on our world. We need to conquer the limiting beliefs that hold us back with the proper strategy and plans.

As a lifelong entrepreneur, I realized that there are certain strategies for companies that are successful long-term. The same basic strategic principles can be applied to all seven areas of our wheel of life mentioned yesterday to achieve the life that we desire.

With this framework, I then designed a blueprint to follow the same strategy. As a Christ follower, as I consider setting goals, which are an integral part of my life plan, the first step for me is to seek wisdom through prayer and meditation on God’s Word to ensure that my plans and desires will bring glory to God and not myself. If you are not a person of faith, I would still advise that you meditate and seek wisdom from others about the goals that you would like to set before moving forward. The next step is to establish a vision. From there a strategy needs to be implemented to achieve the goal. After that, making specific plans is crucial. Once plans are in place, then it requires execution of those plans. The final step is to review the entire process to ensure that the end result is the same as the original objective.

After creating this six-step process for one goal, I realized as long as I use the same key principles and follow the same formula, I will see similar success for every goal as part of an overall life planning process.

Suddenly, goal achievement and subsequent life planning became much easier and more surmountable. The uncertainty that used to surround the successes of my goal pursuits withered away in the face of this process. As with our trek of life, there will be obstacles and detours that we cannot predict with certainty, but this, at least, provides a solid blueprint to follow. While time and energy still need to be invested, the process of goal setting as part of an overall life plan has turned into more of a predictable science than abstract art. I knew as long as I followed the same formula in all my goals, I would definitely face a much greater probability of success.

Eventually, I distilled down the key elements of what I was doing so that I could share it with others so that anyone, regardless of their position in life, would have the same success in goal setting and life planning. The output is what I refer to as my 6-step Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Blueprint, for which I use the acronym WESPER.

This planning process and acronym remind me of when Elijah was seeking God’s guidance in 1 Kings [19:12]. After many mighty cataclysmic events, God spoke to Elijah in the sound of a gentle whisper.

The Wisdom-Trek life planning process is not a quick fix process, but instead, it is a life-changing process. This process dovetails into our concept of Wisdom-Trek as we look at life as a trek, one step at a time. Tomorrow we will explore an overview of WESPER the 6 step blueprint for life plan framework. 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:

Leave us feedback about the podcast on Wisdom-Trek.com.
On your smartphone, subscribe on iTunes, GooglePlay, Spreaker, Soundcloud or Stitcher, so the podcast will be downloaded to you automatically each day.
If you have an iPhone or iPad, leave us a rating and review on iTunes
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:

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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!

Day 224 – Your Life Plan Blueprint – Goals #1

January 10, 2016 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III 1 Comment

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 224 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Your Life Plan Blueprint – Goals #1

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 224 of our Trek, and we are continuing on our current Trek “Your Life Plan Blueprint.” On this trek, we are slowly mapping out the framework that will assist you in setting goals and creating a life plan for yourself. As I stated yesterday, your life plan does not need to be overly complex to be effective. Just like our trek of life, we will take the life planning trail one step at a time. As always, if you have any questions or would like additional information as we go through our daily trek either leave a comment on Wisdom-Trek.com or email me at guthrie@venturecg.com.

As we grow through the Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Blueprint process, I encourage you to begin thinking about your own life plan. I will be utilizing our daily journals for this trek to create a PDF workbook that you can use to create your life plan. Once the workbook is completed, I will let you know how you can obtain a copy of it.

Since this trek on life planning will take several 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.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. By the time this episode airs, we will have completed our delayed Christmas celebration with our children and grandchildren. I will provide an update with some pictures within a couple of days. These types of celebrations need to be included as part of your life plan so you do not miss the most special moments of life.

Let’s head out on the trail for day five of our Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Trek, which we refer to as…

Your Life Plan Blueprint

Before we actually dig into the framework or blueprint to create your life plan, we will spend a couple of days of our trek exploring how to achieve your goals with success. The Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Blueprint is segmented into 7 areas that comprise your life. Those areas are:

Spiritual
Family
Physical/Health
Mind/Intellect
Personal/Social
Financial
Work/Career

One long-term objective of a life plan is to make sure that all 7 areas of life are in proper balance. If you find that your life is out of balance in any of these areas, it may take some time, even months or years, to bring all areas into balance. But with a well-developed life plan, you can work toward that objective. Check out the picture representation of the Wisdom-Trek Wheel of Life below.

Before we explore the details of the wheel of life and overall blueprint in depth, let’s first study some basic principles of goal achievement. Goals that you set are the stepping stones of your overall life plan. So let’s look at…

An Introduction to Goal Achievement

One of the most important elements in creating a life plan is to make sure that you bring your life into balance and to maintain balance when setting new goals.

In one or more of the seven areas listed above, what are some of your biggest goals in life? To lose weight? To earn more money? To be in your dream career? To set up your own business? To grow in your faith walk? To live in abundance? To be at the peak of your health? To meet your life partner? To have a loving family?

For any of these goals, have you ever had the determination to achieve it, devote resources to it, work on it for an extended period of time, only to have it fall flat on your face eventually?

One of the most important elements in creating a life plan is to make sure that you bring your life into balance.

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Let’s use an example that most of us can relate to. Say you have a goal to lose weight and you resolve to take off 30lbs. You start off strong, cutting down the amount of food you eat. You also start an exercise regimen. Every day, you measure your weight to closely track your progress. Within the first few days, you start seeing a reduction in your weight. Rejoicing, you continue what you have been doing, but it seems that your actions have lost their effectiveness because your weight loss has plateaued. If anything, it seems to be increasing slightly versus your lowest weigh-in.

You become discouraged. You start to give up and binge, resigning that it is never possible for you to achieve the goal because it is in your genes or you just do not have the self-discipline. You begin to bury the whole notion of weight loss at the back of your head. Predictably, you start to gain back all the weight you lost and more. This makes you even more depressed, and you start eating even more.

At some point down the road, you receive a wake-up call to lose weight. You embark on the goal pursuit again, more determined than ever. However, past events repeat themselves, and soon you are back where you started, if not in a worse place.

Does this pattern of behavior apply to any of the goals you have set out to achieve before? Are you being looped in a continuous cycle of setting the goal and trying to achieve it, but never quite getting there? At this point, you may feel despondent. You resign that you are not meant to achieve this goal and decide to focus your energy on something else.

The Biggest Mistake Many People Make in Goal Achievement

Many people are guilty of trying to tackle their goals using a series of trial and error approaches. They randomly throw their energy out with all their might on the few steps they know, thinking that this will get them to their goal. They deal with their goals in a haphazard way, then hope that everything will turn for the best in the end.

While it may work in the short-run and on smaller goals, this strategy does not work with big, long-term goals. For example, you may get away with losing 5lbs of weight by generally just eating less and exercising more, but to lose more weight and maintain that weight loss requires proper strategy.

Many people have this misconstrued notion of goal achievement because they only come into contact with the results of others’ goals. They are not involved in all the thought-processes, intricacies, and actual planning that went behind the achievement of those goals. This is why the Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Blueprint is different. It is not just a goal setting program but a life change process. It is more than changing actions or even habits. It is about changing the way you think.

The new World Trade Center, one of the world’s tallest buildings, was not built from just randomly slapping tiles of concrete and slab together. It was through envisioning, strategizing against environmental elements, planning with precision, and executing the plan that enabled it to be built, even though many people said it couldn’t or shouldn’t be built. Today the entire area and the memorial is a statement of resolve and beauty. It was built through a strategic and well-designed blueprint.

In the same manner, to have a long-term successful life plan with its associated goals, you need to have a system in place to sustain it. This is why we are taking an extended period of time on our life planning trek because the initial investment in time and planning will be far outweighed by the benefits generated in the long-run.

God will honor our planning if our plans include bringing glory to His name. In Proverbs 16:3, he tells us to, “Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.” The Wisdom-Trek life planning process is not a quick fix process, but instead, it is a life-changing process. This process dovetails into our concept of Wisdom-Trek as we look at life as a trek, one step at a time. Tomorrow we will explore more of the strategy of life planning before we start to explore the 6 step blueprint for life plan framework. 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:

Leave us feedback about the podcast on Wisdom-Trek.com.
On your smartphone, subscribe on iTunes, GooglePlay, Spreaker, Soundcloud or Stitcher, so the podcast will be downloaded to you automatically each day.
If you have an iPhone or iPad, leave us a rating and review on iTunes.
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:

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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!

Day 223 – Your Life Plan Blueprint – Purposes #3

January 9, 2016 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III 2 Comments

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 223 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Your Life Plan Blueprint – Purposes #3

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 223 of our Trek, and on our current Trek “Your Life Plan Blueprint,” we continue to lay out the framework in detail so that you can create a life plan for yourself. Your life plan does not need to be overly complex to be effective. Minor changes in your life can result in huge benefits. As we grow through the Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Blueprint process, I encourage you to come along with us and begin thinking about your own life plan. When we are finished with this Trek, I will put together a workbook that you can use to create your life plan.

The purpose of Wisdom-Trek is for you to gain wisdom through your daily trek of life and to create a living legacy each day. If you are going to be successful in creating a legacy, establishing a plan for your life is imperative. There are no excuses or factors that will prevent you from creating a well-established plan for your life. Your life plan doesn’t have to change the world, but it should positively impact you and your world. It is my goal and plan to provide you with the information and tools needed to create an on-going plan for your life. Just as with your trek of life, you will need to make continual adjustments to your plan, but your primary focus is fixed based on your values. If you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The day that this episode is originally airing is January 9^th, which is the day we will be celebrating our family Christmas. It is a blessing that we are able to be with our children and grandchildren on this special weekend. The older four grandchildren were able to spend our “Christmas Eve” with Granny and Gramps. We cherish these special times together.

Let’s head on the trail for day four of our Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Trek which we refer to as…

Your Life Plan Blueprint

I mentioned a couple of days ago that there are 6 essential reasons why we should set goals and create a life plan. We have explored the first 4 reasons which are…

To Give Clarity To Your End Vision
To Drive You Forward Even When You Face Obstacles
To Give You Laser Focus
To Make You Accountable

Today we will explore the final 2 reasons which are…

5. Be The Best That You Can Be

Goals help you achieve your highest potential. Without goals integrated into your life plan, you will slip back into your natural, default set of actions that make you feel safe and comfortable every day. To use an analogy, when we were growing up on the farm, ruts would form on the farm roads when the tractor would use the roads when it was muddy. After the ruts were formed, many times it was easier to drive in the ruts, even though they were rough, than to try driving on higher ground. Just like those ruts, the familiarity of your default life habits is the adversary of growth. It prevents you from growing. It does not enable you to become the best person you can be. It denies you from tapping into your God-given potential for a rich and satisfying life.

By setting goals for your life plan, you set targets to aim for. These targets make you venture into new places, new contexts, and new situations, which puts you into growth mode. They make you stretch beyond your normal self and reach new heights. They get you outside of your comfort zone. For example, setting a time limit for your run lets you know if you should be running faster. Setting a specific weight loss target makes you aware if your actions have been effective in losing weight. Setting a career or business goal ensures you are not settling for anything less than what you desire.

Stretch beyond your normal self and reach new heights.

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In my goal achievement processes, I have found myself constantly bursting through new grounds and uncovering potential which I did not know existed before. Without those goals, it would be easier to take the path of least resistance, just doing things within my natural constraints. Goals and plans have forced me out of my comfort zone and made me face and then overcome countless barriers to achieve what I desired. It has made me much more self-aware and taught me a lot more about both myself and life, compared to if I did not have those goals. Goals and plans help us be our very best. As the Apostle Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

6. Live Your Best Life

Goals ensure you get the best out of life for two reasons.

First, by becoming a better person, your new found knowledge and abilities let you experience more out of the same life events compared to the previous you. Your worldview and knowledge should be different now versus 10 years ago. You should see life with much more clarity, depth, and perspective today than you did in the past. What may be a simple daily occurrence in the past holds a lot more meaning to the more knowledgeable and wiser person that you are today.

Second, time passes in our life, whether we want it to or not. Time is the only thing in life that is truly finite. Goals with specific measures and deadlines, integrated into your life plan, ensure you are maximizing your output and experiences during the time God has granted you. If you have already discovered your life purpose, your goals will ensure you get the best out of your purpose.

Compare your life to a trek. When you identify your purpose for being on this trek of life, you get clarity on the direction to travel in. However, without specifying an exact destination and time frame, there is no way to measure or benchmark your progress. It has been said, “If you don’t know where you are going then, any trail will get you there.” Goals provide insight to the trails that we need to travel to ensure we are maximizing our lives for all that they can offer us.

As you begin designing the framework for your life plan, ask yourself, “What are my goals for the upcoming 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years?”

Start by taking some time today to write down a few of your goals, dreams, and aspirations for your life plan. By starting this process, I can guarantee you that you will definitely experience more growth as a person. By just spending a few minutes to articulate some aspirations that have been in your mind, you will experience more progress in your life a year from now than if you don’t. If we do our part of the goal setting and planning process, God will provide us the direction as is written in Psalms 32:8, “The Lord says, ‘I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.’”

We have now explored all 6 of the essentials reasons to create goals as part of our overall life plan. The Wisdom-Trek process that we will be covering over the next couple of weeks is a unique and successful process. This process dovetails into our concept of Wisdom-Trek as we look at life as a trek with its steep uphill climbs and precarious downhill slopes. Along the trails of life, though, there are many breathtaking views to enjoy. We can create and follow a life plan blueprint that will keep us on the right trail. For our trek during the next couple of days, we will explore some initial groundwork in creating goals and a life plan. After that, we will look at the 6 step blueprint for life plan success. 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. Remember to listen to your daily dose of wisdom each day. 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:

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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!

Day 222 – Your Life Plan Blueprint – Purposes #2

January 8, 2016 by H. Guthrie Chamberlain, III 1 Comment

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 222 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Your Life Plan Blueprint – Purposes #2

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 222 of our Trek. Yesterday we continued on a new and exciting trek which we are calling “Your Life Plan Blueprint.” The purpose of Wisdom-Trek is for us to gain wisdom through our daily trek of life and to create a living legacy each day. If you are going to be successful in creating a legacy, establishing a plan for your life is imperative.

With a solid life plan in place, you will then be able to create and live your legacy today, which will leave a positive impact on your world. There are no factors that will prevent you from creating a well-established plan for your life. Your life plan doesn’t have to change the world, but it should positively impact you and your world. It is my goal and plan to provide you with the information and tools needed to create an on-going plan for your life. Just as with our trek of life, we are making continual adjustments to our plan, but our primary focus is fixed. If you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. As this first week of 2016 is nearing the end, we are looking forward to our family Christmas celebration on Friday night and Saturday. With job changes, a new grandchild, and other financial obligations, our children decided to forego gift exchanges this year, except a few for the grandchildren. Instead, we will just focus on the time of celebration together and the true meaning of the Christmas season. We are very pleased with that decision and are looking forward to the time together with all of our children and grandchildren.

Let’s head out on the trail for day three of our Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Trek which we refer to as…

Your Life Plan Blueprint

I mentioned yesterday that there are six essential reasons why we should set goals and create a life plan. We explored the first two reasons yesterday, which were:

To Give Clarity To Your End Vision
To Drive You Forward Even When You Face Obstacles

If we are going to go through the process of creating a life plan, we need the wisdom to create an easy and tangible way of establishing the plan. We need a clear strategy for the plan, defined tasks that make up the plan, steps of execution of those tasks, and then a means of review to ensure that the plan has been completed properly and in a timely manner. This is why I refer to your life plan as a blueprint. The Wisdom-Trek Life Plan Blueprint provides everything that we need to ensure that the end result meets the original design.

Today we will explore the next 2 essential reasons why setting goals and making plans are so important in creating a successful life plan.

3. Give You Laser Focus

Goals give you a single focal point to focus your attention. Whereas your purpose gives you a broad, directional focus to move your life in, goals give you laser focus on what exactly to spend your time and energy on. Think of your time, energy, and efforts as input, and results as the output. A goal acts as your funnel which guides and directs those inputs effectively into your desired output or result.

When you don’t have goals, tied to an overall plan, you are bouncing from one activity to another. These activities may have become urgent due to our neglect, but they are seldom important to your overall life plan. These are activities that play no role in your larger scope of life, but you are not aware of this because you are just living life as it is. You end up mislabeling a lot of urgent or “nice-to-do” activities as important. You might also be engaging in these activities because you can’t think of a better way to spend your time. Do you find yourself surfing the internet, constantly visiting social media sites, or checking your email excessively? Do you consider yourself a workaholic, but then are not sure what you accomplished during the day? What’s your objective for what you do each day? What is the end result of your activities? Is that the top priority in your life?

You may have a broad idea of what you want to do. But until you clearly articulate it as specific goals tied to a plan, you are not focusing your efforts properly. You will often find yourself getting sidetracked because you don’t have goals to rein you in. It’s really quite easy to end up in the ruts of everyday life simply because they are familiar and comfortable and there is so much to distract your attention.

You may try to convince yourself that you are moving in the direction that you want, but it is just an illusion that you are having. With no goals tied to an overall plan, you have no clear focus for life. Without this focus, your efforts are scattered in too many places to have any meaningful results.

With no goals tied to an overall plan, you have no clear focus for life.

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When you set goals as part of your overall life plan, it gives you focus as the Apostle Paul taught his student Timothy in his first letter to him in 4:15, “Give your complete attention (focus) to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress.”

4. Make You Accountable

Having goals integrated into your overall plan makes you accountable. Rather than just talking about what you want all the time and not doing anything concrete about it, you are now obligated to take action. Setting a specific goal gives you clarity on whether you are living up to what you committed yourself to do when you first set your goal.

This accountability is accountability to yourself, not anyone else. As an example, this accountability is what you hold up to when you choose the healthy salad over that piece of fried chicken. It is what you answer to when you spent that hour working on your report rather than random web surfing. When you stay accountable for your goals, you are in fact staying true to your core desires.

A tangible example for me is creating and publishing this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal every day. It is a goal that I hold myself accountable to which requires focus and clarity. When I decided to launch Wisdom-Trek, I did so with a commitment to a daily podcast. I made myself accountable for delivering it. If I find myself wanting to stop or skip a few days, I make the necessary mind shift to turn the situation around. I attempt to put aside all of the timewasting activities that are so easy to get caught up in.

It is easy to convince others that we are accomplishing what we are supposed to and meeting our obligations, especially if we have nothing to measure it against. Once we set goals as part of our life plan, then we become accountable to ourselves to complete them. Ultimately we are also accountable to God for how we invest the precious time, talent, and treasures that he has given us to manage as Hebrews 4:13 tells us, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.”

We have now explored 4 of the 6 essentials reasons to create goals as part of our overall life plan. As we explore the process of our life plan blueprint, you will start to see why the Wisdom-Trek process is unique and successful when many other goal setting plans fail. This process dovetails into our concept of Wisdom-Trek with the understanding that life, and life planning at times is difficult and there are unforeseen circumstances that happen. Even with those times, we can create and follow a life plan blueprint that will keep us on the right trail. Tomorrow we will explore the final 2 essential reasons to create a life plan blueprint. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

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:

Live Abundantly (Fully)
Love Unconditionally
Listen Intentionally
Learn Continuously
Lend to others Generously
Lead with Integrity
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!

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