Life Imitating Art IV, Starting the Plan

In parts I-III, I wrote about how the founders recognized the need for a Life Plan--especially as we were undertaking something as significant as starting a new business. For a founder, a Life Plan is a perfect compliment to a business plan and in fact should be done before the business plan to help guide many of the decisions that will need to be made in planning out the business. For example, what roles the founders will have or where the company will be located.

But Life Plans are not just for people starting their own businesses, they are an almost mandatory tool for everyone that wants to live their lives with "no regrets". Life Plans are particularly useful when one finds themselves at a crossroad in life or considering make a significant life change (career, martial status, etc.). Like business plans, life plans help focus and prioritize.

There are no age limitations on creating a Life Plan though we generally believe that they are the most useful in the period mid-30s to the early 50s since so many major life issues arise at that point (not to mention our own mortality starting to become oh so apparent). There is no reason to wait for a full-blown midlife crisis to start thinking about such things and thinking about them will help if/when encountering mid-life crisis-like concerns.

How does one do a Life Plan?

I touched on the fact that LifeTwo will introduce functionality into our website to help members create and track their Life Plans. However this is no reason to wait on beginning work on one's plan. Author Phil Keoghan wrote his first plan on the back of a brown paper lunch bag. Mine was written on a scrap of paper I found on a airplane and then later transferred to an Excel spreadsheet. Most people have things that they want to do, places they want to go, people they want to reconnect with, so the first step is just writing these down. Of course, for many of us once faced with that piece of paper we respond by quickly forgetting most of them. However, I've found that keeping a note card with me for a few weeks almost all of them came back at various times and I was able to transfer them to my list. That covers the ones that you've thought about without going through the disciplined process.

The next step involves a little more work, actually brainstorming things you want to do even though you didn't know you wanted to do them. It sounds more convoluted than it is. But even this doesn't have to be an involved process. There are several books about "life lists" that include ideas and suggestions. We've started reviewing them in this site and one example is "No Opportunity Wasted" by the previously-mentioned Phil Keoghan.

Another good step is to talk to people about what they want to do before they get too old to do (even if they haven't consciously thought about it in those terms). This doesn't have to be an overly personal or heavy conversation. You might be surprised at the things that others would like to do and you might want to add some of these to your list. No this is not cheating and it's possible that later down the road you can circle back to these folks to see if they are really serious about doing them and whether they want to do the overlapping ones with you. For example, if someone says that they'd like to do the New York Marathon and that sounds interesting to you, then you could easily make a plan to start training together. Ditto for climbing a mountain, writing a book, etc.