When I chatted to some of my friends again , I discovered that none of them had a ‘ plan ’ for the future either .
“ Why bother ? Nobody can predict the future so “ live in the moment , man ”.
Maybe I ’ m just an overly emotional person , but hearing this drove me totally crazy again ! First , I decided I needed some new people in my life ... Then , I wondered why we all seem to have the same basic programming : assuming nothing will go as you want , so that when the shit hits the fan , you won ’ t be disappointed .
I had a similar mindset but it took a big personal life changing event to get my head into the game … Two years ago , my wife and I became Moms to twin girls . Kids ! As soon as I held my girls in my arms , I knew : I want to stick around as long as possible to be a witness to your lives ... None of that , “ what if something happens ” drama – just full on “ what if everything plays out the way I plan ?” ... better start planning !
Yes , I was a pretty successful freelancer , who was making a good living and could have just kept going in the same direction for years ; but ... I began to realise that freelancing ( the inevitable ‘ time trading ’), was a risky business to be in ! If I wanted time off , was sick , or just needed to be able to take care of my kids , it meant I couldn ’ t work . And what did no work mean ? No pay ... In my head I already knew that I didn ’ t want to be a , “ sorry Mommy needs to go to work ” type Mom all the time . I seriously did not want to be stressing over income while balancing my life .
The answer was , as many times before : multiple streams of income . Yep , working on those ideas of mine ( again )…
Oh boy … I was dreading that never ending pile of failures ( again ); but ... I soon noticed that something had changed . There was a picture in the back of my mind ... A picture of my family and I living mortgage-free , living a self-sustainable lifestyle , without having to be dependent on government financial aid ... We ’ d be retiring to our own property , eating our own veggies and charging our electric car via solar panels and stuff .
A pretty big dream … a serious reach from my current situation perhaps ; but , I started to BELIEVE in this future reality . I decided that I wasn ’ t going to worry on the ‘ how ; of getting there , instead focusing on what I wanted .
What I wanted to do more than ANYTHING was to get my ideas into the world ! Creating my own side-hustle of problem-solving tools … MY PASSION !
Being able to see and feel what I wanted to achieve and create MY path of HOW I would ‘ get there ’… And , because I had this pretty epic history of project fails ( ouch ); I decided to create a tool for myself first - helping me getting my shit done !
I needed a tool that would remind me of what I wanted to achieve daily ... A tool that would make it easy for me to recognise if the things I was doing daily were contributing to my dream , or if I was caught up in “ being busy ” ( again ), wasting my time ... I designed a dashboard , which was so grand and abundant that it was just too large of a project for me to get done .
Without falling in despair , my next thought was : how can I make it smaller ? How can I think of something to get done in 1 year ? Then , perhaps a year was too long to keep momentum going ? OK , what about a quarter of a year - 13 weeks ?
I wrote down the date , 13-weeks from that day on a piece of paper as my deadline . Next I started to take apart my HUGE idea . What small version of this could I ‘ get to done ’ and released within 13 weeks ; but would still be of value to me and others ? It became a guided journal .
With a deadline and goal ; the guided journal was to be designed , printed and sold within 13 weeks – it was so easy to plan out my actions in the 13 weeks in between ! When you know where you stand now , and you know where you want to be ; it is simple as fuck to map out the steps you need to take to get you there !
But there ’ s more … by setting a deadline and a goal , you have a clear mental ( and visual ) image of where you are going . Not only is it easy to figure out what steps to take , but the goals and date act as a contract with yourself . This changes the whole dynamic
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