如何有效地设计人生Plan Your Life Effectively

Original author: Charlotte Burton
Original source: Plan Your Life Effectively
Translated by: binland

Translator’s note: to have a plan is to be prepared; only a plan that fits and takes feedback is a good plan
Big changes, small changes
Magazine articles lately are all about how to design your life well in advance, without considering the possibilities involved or personal wishes. When everything around you is changing so fast that you can’t keep pace, and your life plan can’t keep pace either, what do you do then? Changes in the world economy, certain countries’ decisions about terrorism and war: you cannot turn a blind eye to them, and you have no choice but to get realistic.
And what about when change comes on a much smaller scale? Say a company in your city has been laying people off lately and you are one of those affected, so your life is about to change a great deal; or the change in your life may be a positive one: you got married, got promoted, had a child, or even won the lottery.
Responding to opportunity
A life plan is a fine thing, but it only works if you act on it. A flexible life plan stays useful even after circumstances change. The important thing is not to make the plan so precise that you overlook the opportunities you didn’t want, or the ones that come early, or the ones that come late. There is a saying that we only realize how important an opportunity was once it is lost (Opportunities are viewed as more important with the vision of hindsight). Which is also to say, when an opportunity first appears, people tend to call it too risky.
Bringing your dreams into your life
So first of all, how do you design your life?
There are many ways to design an ideal life, but the best is to imagine what it would look like, and how you would feel, once you truly knew what you wanted, inside and out.
Imagine who you want to become
You can start very simply: imagine some day in the future, say January 1, 2020, and what you are doing. Make the everyday concrete: where do you live? Who are you with? How busy is this day? What do you look like? How do you carry yourself around other people? What are your relationships like? In your design, these aspects of life should all be included:
Career
Friends and family
Material surroundings
Health
Personal growth
Money
Other meaningful things
Recreation and leisure
This is not an exhaustive list; if some deeply meaningful part of your life isn’t covered, add a category or swap one out.
Mind the details
Once you know what you want, it is well worth breaking each goal down into smaller, daily goals. For example, if you hope to be healthy next year and able to finish a marathon, then sign up with the local gym today and start going regularly, or find a local running group to join, and begin with small runs until running becomes part of your life. Of course, making the dream come true takes more than physical exercise; to reach the goal of health you must also eat healthily, sleep well and sleep enough (how much sleep varies from person to person), be able to manage stress, and so on.
When you put it into practice, life slips back to its old ways
What if the affairs of daily life drag you down, and only at the end of the plan do you realize a year has gone by, yet you have done nothing toward your goals and can barely remember how it all began?
So when life throws up obstacles, what can your plan do?
Get realistic
One reason life after planning runs into obstacles is that the plan is simply impossible to carry out: when you break down each big goal of your life plan, every category turns out unbearably large. Staying motivated and not being harsh on yourself really matters. If you are still demanding of yourself four hours’ worth of work in thirty minutes a day, don’t be discouraged; be realistic. You may find that doing one thing a day goes faster than you thought, and that you can get ahead of the plan and pick up something else to do.
Get flexible
Another nuisance in life is the unforeseen twist: which is why your plan must be flexible enough to actually carry out. Depending on what life hands you, there are different ways to stay flexible. First, you should be in control of your plan, not let the plan control you. Monthly, quarterly, and yearly reviews are useful for keeping the plan matched to what is actually happening in your life; this early-warning system can help you anticipate and handle the unexpected in the best possible way.
Be willing to reconsider
What if you want to change one part of the plan; is that allowed? No problem. Redesign your plan as many times as necessary, because it is your plan. Going back to the drawing board to reconsider, you may realize that changing one point affects other parts too, not just that point alone. The important thing to remember is that this is your life and anything can happen, so if even the redesign falls short, just picture what you want to become and start acting at once.
Be honest with yourself
Whatever you plan, it must suit you; this matters. If you have written into your plan things you are not capable of doing and things you don’t want to do, then you must look back at what you want and honestly accept how likely you really are to carry out the behavior you’ve set for yourself.
Find an advisor
What if life keeps getting in your way and you have lost faith that you can ever have the life you want? Or what if you can’t even tell what you want, because every idea in your head feels wrong? You must write down your more basic needs and the actual circumstances of your life. In that case, you need an advisor to help you sort out every aspect of your life, including the parts you haven’t seen and the parts you’ve ignored. An advisor can help you recognize where your true values lie, and show you how to express them in your real life.
If you really do intend to find an advisor, consider what style of advisor you need. Most advisors offer a free consultation, from which you can get a sense of their personality and working style before deciding whether to hire them. Advisors’ prices vary widely, and comparing many of them first is extremely useful, so you can see whether the asking price matches the service you get. (Translator’s note: there are many consulting agencies abroad, some of which work in life planning.)
Prepared and adaptable
Life is always changing. How you adapt to those changes, and how you conduct yourself while pursuing your ideals, makes all the difference in achieving the life you want. On the path to realizing your dreams, whatever life hands you, having a plan keeps you prepared.