How to make a life plan (in 6 steps)

A series of tips on how to develop a life plan with projects that motivate us.

A life plan is what helps us to create all kinds of projects that support our personal development. Although there are things in our lives that we do not control, having a notion of continuity is important to be able to fully experience what the world has in store for us.

In this article we will look at various tips on how to create a life plan and how this can be and how it can be applied.

How to create a life plan

It may seem paradoxical, but many times we think we are very clear about all our opinions about all kinds of issues, but we have no idea about what we will do with our own lives.

That is precisely why developing and implementing a life plan is interesting: it allows us to find a project that we can almost always identify with, even though everything around us changes despite the fact that everything around us is changing over time.

Of course, sometimes there are moments of crisis when a life plan no longer makes sense. But these periods of uncertainty need not invalidate the very idea of having goals and strategies to approach them; it simply requires us to create a new life plan. It also follows that any time is a good time to start one, regardless of one's age..

So, let's see what steps to take to create a life plan tailored to our goals.

1. Analyze your life expectations

In the first step, we must stop and think about what we believe to be a realistic margin of change realistic scope for change in our living conditions.. If we become obsessed with goals that we can only achieve by being multimillionaires, for example, that will only make us fall into frustration over and over again, or else put off the pursuit of our goals so long that we gradually forget about our life plan.

2. Determine your values

No life plan will prosper if it goes against our values. For that reason, it is necessary to be clear which are those to which we grant a greater importance. To do this, the best thing to do is to make a list of the main values you consider relevant, and then rank them according to their importance. If you find it hard to think of several, you can find examples in this article: The 10 types of values: principles that govern our lives.

3. Determine your needs

Think about what fulfills you the most, but not simply selecting your desires of the moment, but those general objectives that you believe can encompass your major life projects. Do the same as in the previous step: make a list of needs and order them by prioritizing those that are most relevant to you. Keep a maximum of three of them, given that if you try to aspire to several of them, you may not be able to get too involved in all of them. in all of them.

On the other hand, think that the best goals are the ones that involve the happiness of many people, since their imprint remains longer and more stable than the cases in which you are the only person who appreciates it. Anyway, beyond this observation, it is perfectly valid to orient a life to a goal that will make the only person who enjoys the fruit of years of work.

4. Transform your needs and values into chains of action.

Based on your objectives and values, develop a series of chains of actions that will take you from the present situation to your goals. In other words, go from the abstract of your objectives and values to the concreteIn other words, go from the abstract of your objectives and values to the concrete, the strategies and methods that can take you to where you want to be several years down the road.

A good way to do this is to go through several layers of abstraction, generating general objectives and then building sub-objectives from them. On the other hand, try to set deadlines to make your commitment to your life plan grow.

5. Reflect on the role that other people will play in your life.

It would be a mistake to make a life plan without consider the other people around you and those who will surround you in the future.Do you want to get away from certain negative influences? Would you like to spend more time with those you love and appreciate? How will you combine that with your goals?

6. Apply your life plan and monitor it.

It is not enough to carry out the necessary actions to develop your life plan. It is also necessary to keep monitoring that those goals to which we aspire have a meaning for us. The simple passage of time and our own process of maturation and learning that these needs may change spontaneously, and that is why we need to be alert to, and that is why we need to be alert so as not to blindly continue with those plans.

Bibliographical references:

• Lerner, R.M. (2002). Concepts and theories of human development. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Pink, D. H. (2010). The surprising truth about what motivates us (1st ed. edition). Barcelona: Centro Libros.