I have archived what I was planning to do and had a relatively happy life. What I realize is that 99% of the time, I was driven by fear rather than anything else. I am afraid of losing what I have, afraid of changes. What in the world is defining what a perfect life is? Definitely not those TV commercials picturing white-sand beach and a big yacht.
So I am lost.
And I started trying to find my way back. I felt fortunate that I realize my lost situation before strolling too far without an aim.
Below is something I happened to see when I was searching for my way back to the starting point. I am by-no-means endorsing it, especially not for it's commercial promotional purpose. These days you have to be diligent to filter out the commercial from infomercials that is omnipresence.
Five Tips for Your Preferred Future
By Brent Dees, President, Focus Four
Imagine if every morning when you awoke, there was a card table with a
mound of jigsaw puzzle pieces on it. And your job every day was to put
those pieces together to create a finished puzzle. And tomorrow morning
when you awoke, there would be another new mound of pieces to add to
today’s.
Only, you have no idea what the final picture is
supposed to look like, because they didn’t give you the box with the
finished picture on it! How would you proceed? How would you know how
far you had to go to get done? How would you know when you were done?
This is life without a plan, life without a Preferred Future. And the
law of this life is this: “If you don’t know why you’re doing what
you’re doing, you’ll never have enough time to get it done.”
Our personal life and our work are both a series of choices – choices
of activities that we will perform next. The activities that we choose
to perform determine our results. And the choice we have is between a
future or a Preferred Future. If the culmination of the activities we
perform is automatically a future, why not have those activities
culminate in a future we choose to have? In a future we prefer?
If life is like assembling the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, why not have the final picture be something we’d like it to be?
We can.
And we do that by starting with a goal that’s almost too big to achieve.
When a city needs to lure or retain a sports franchise, they need a
big-dream goal of a new stadium, not an incremental goal like fixing up
the old stadium by adding logos!
There’s no way that a new stadium can be completed in a day, a month,
or even a year. It takes about three years to finish a project of this
size. When it’s first talked about, it’s hard to believe it will ever
happen. But every day another piece of the puzzle is put in place and
eventually the picture on the box becomes a real-live stadium. And the
impossible dream comes true.
Remember, now, that the stadium, even though an almost impossible goal,
is not really the final goal. The ultimate goal is to get a new team in
town (or keep your present one). Even that goal likely has a larger
focus such as keeping your city financially healthy by creating a
positive living environment.
Each of us has goals like these, too. But without action steps or plans, these goals are merely dreams.
Have you ever wanted to earn more money? Have you ever told yourself,
“If I just earn 15% more, I’d be okay?” While this seems a reasonable
and doable goal, it’s actually difficult because your options are
limited. Usually something like “I just need to get a raise!”
If, however, you set a goal to double your income in three years, you
have to start to think differently to achieve that. And you’ll also
have to stop doing something you’re currently doing to reach this
Preferred Future. As you look at the obstacles along the path to this
Preferred Future, you’ll discover that these obstacles are actually the
action steps you’ll need to take to reach your goal.
There are seven areas of your life – each of which needs to have its
own Preferred Future. The first six are: Spiritual (Legacy, purpose),
Physical, Family, Social (friends, community), Intellectual, and
Financial. Once you have achieved balance in these six, you can then
focus on the seventh area of your life, your Career. And when you have
a Preferred Future there, and begin to achieve it, you will discover
that the success in your career is helping you achieve your Preferred
Future in the first six areas of your life.
The secret of achieving your Preferred Future is this: “Focus on your
Preferred Future, but respond to the present.” When you do that, you
automatically identify your highest priorities, for example, and you
will find yourself doing not the easiest thing on your to-do list, nor
even the next thing, but rather the thing that will help you achieve
your goals. Here are the five steps you’ll need to follow to reach your
Preferred Future.
- Clearly define your Preferred Future. I want to make money is not
clearly enough defined. I want to double my income so I can pay off my
debts and retire by age 50 is a clearly defined result. Getting a new
job is not clearly enough defined – being in charge of the hydraulic
engineering department is. If you don’t know what the final picture
looks like, there is no way you can successfully assemble the pieces of
the puzzle. - Know why this Preferred Future is important to you. Knowing why the
result matters to you, will allow you to make decisions and judgments
along the way that will help you get there sooner. Is that new job
important to you because of the money, or because of the status in the
eyes of your peers? If you don’t know why, you might make the wrong
choice for the wrong reason, and the goal is always to do the right
thing at the right time for the right reason. You can’t do that if you
don’t know why your Preferred Future is important to you. - Identify a small step that will open the door. Just like you can’t
build a stadium overnight, you can’t reach your Preferred Future
easily. But every journey has its first step, and each step leads to
the next. And while all the steps are not the same and some are much
harder than others, you have to finds a place to start and then begin.
You journey nowhere without moving your feet. - Monitor your progress. As you progress, look at what you’re doing.
Keep a record. Make a daily plan. Make a monthly plan. Make a quarterly
plan. Make a yearly plan. Make a three-year plan. And take notes.
Determine what worked and what didn’t. Decide what you would do
differently and what you would do better. If you don’t keep track of
where you are, you won’t have any idea of where you’re going. - Modify your actions based on what you’ve learned. When you have the
information on what worked and what didn’t, change you action steps
accordingly. When you know what you’d do better next time, do it. And
consistently revise your plans. If a sailor doesn’t change course, he
can never reach his goal. The better the sailor, the more frequently he
monitors his actions and the more frequently he changes course.
pre-eminent law of body-building, and of life. That is, what you focus
on gets stronger.
When you create a clearly defined Preferred Future and focus on it
constantly, you will discover that every day you are choosing the most
important puzzle pieces in your life that will best help you to build
your Preferred Future.
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