My Family Has a Plan, Does Yours?

Part 1 – The Family Roadmap

Throughout the year, Pamela and I discuss things in various housekeeping areas.  We discuss ideas about improving our shopping, when to spend, how often we should purchase consumable, etc.  We finally came to the conclusion that our life is our business.  It’s the company we own.  The more we do life together, the more we realized that this partnership is a business; let’s see what we can do with it.  

If the companies we work for plan strategies to achieve extreme goals, what can we do as a family? Then the idea popped into our heads…let’s treat our home like we treat our workplace. Let’s apply the same principles, planning, goal setting and execution to achieving the lives that we desired.  This thinking is what gave birth to The Family Plan.

So, we started treating our lives like a business, better stated like our own company.  We started creating projects and project plans on what we wanted to accomplish and complete.  When before,  we would say we wanted to do this to our home, change that in our life, or do better at managing things, and as it goes we would soon forget what we said or time would pass and no activity occurred.  After a day or so we’d forget and a month or 2 later we’d remember what we said time and time again.   Many times we’d look back and say we were going to do something and never got around to it.  Does this sound familiar?  So we decided to start writing it all down.  Since I’m the one gifted at handling project plans, I started using my best skills to create what today we call “The Family Plan”.  It’s a cumulation of all our plans, big and small.  

We didn’t want to forget.
We don’t have to rack our brains any more trying to remember what we want to do.  We can look at the plan and know what we need to accomplish, scratch or re-evaluate.

We use it as the primary tool in meeting with God. Some may call this prayer, but we have a business meeting with Jesus every morning regarding this plan which guides what our business-our life- does.

For as many years as I can remember, I start my preparations for the new year around the end of November, but certainly by the start of December.  Pamela hates it at times because it gets pretty intense.  My teams probably gets tired of hearing about it as the end of the year nears.  So why do I begin in December?

1. To glance back.  It, our family plan, gives us the time to look back over the previous year and take note of our accomplishments and achievements.  It also gives us a kick in the “butt” for wasting time and not accomplishing the things that we had planned.  It’s from this we form and shape the year to come. If you are already in the new year, it’s okay you still need to perform this exercise.
2. To have the end or destination in mind.  We get to start with the end in mind.  This is similar to how we write blog posts.  We came across some information where someone asked Tyler Perry how he puts together his plays and films.  He said he starts with the end and fills in the middle.  We start with the end in mind.  We know what our next year will look like if we already have the plan or in other words the roadmap or blueprint.
3. To get started right.  We want to get the year started off right.  We want to start the year with our new plans which take into account what we didn’t accomplish and what we would like to accomplish.  We don’t want to start the year with planning, we want to go into it with the plan in hand.
4. To have momentum.  We want to feel like the first month is already in motion and that we have momentum going into the new year with our plans.  In other words, we want to set up our business with the best start possible.
   
   

Take the guess work out of what you and your family should be doing…that’s  what we did.  We now know what vacations we will take and how we will pay for them.  We know where we will spend our money and how we will save.  We have plans for how much money we will give.  We know what projects we will accomplish.  We live intentionally and because of this we achieve greater success and accomplish the things we want. We are now giving you this same opportunity.  We want to help you walk through this process.  We want it to be fun and exciting for you and your family.    

Remember, running your life is your business.  How’s the health of your business, your life?