Execute Your PlanYour Life

At this point in this weekend, you have started the most challenging and time-consuming work of Making Your Move: developing perspective!

Remember: perspective is 80% of the work to experiencing transformational change in your life, and the remaining 20% of the journey is about implementing a proactive plan of Five Best Practices.

Word of Caution

If you choose to rush through the slow and reflective process of investing in the Comprehensive Personal Assessment (personality, talents/strengths, core values, and calling) of Sessions 5-7, you will inevitably run out of steam and fail to sustain the following best practices: Acknowledging, Asking, Activating, Acting, and Assessing!

That noted, to execute a life plan that values the uniqueness of who you are, continues to reflect your personal calling, and fuels your ability to make a real difference – there is a five-step process that should be repeated and replicated over and over and over again.

5 Best Practices

• Best Practice #1: Acknowledging
• Best Practice #2: Asking
• Best Practice #3: Activating
• Best Practice #4: Acting
• Best Practice #5: Assessing

Best Practice #1: Acknowledging

How do I currently spend my time?

The difference between urgent and important.

Covey's Time Management Matrix

Quadrant I: urgent and important
Quadrant III: urgent, but not important
Quadrant IV: not urgent and not important
Quadrant II: important, but never urgent

Speak out to one another a brainstormed list of potential Quadrant I, II, III… and finally, Quadrant IV activities.

What one thing could you do (that you aren’t doing now) – that if you did on a regular basis would make a tremendous, positive difference in your personal life? Your character? Your spiritual life? Your relationships? Your personal development? That would contribute to the fulfillment of your personal mission statement?

What do you think of these two quotes from Gordon MacDonald?

“I see a startling number of exhausted, mentally empty people who have stopped growing and are spending their lives in the pursuit of little more than amusement. I use the word amusement, because of its literal meaning: ‘function without thought.’

“Leisure and amusement may be enjoyable, but they are to the private world of the individual like cotton candy to the digestive system. They provide a momentary lift, but they do not last.”

Best Practice #2: Asking

What should be the big rocks in my schedule?

In light of the earliest conceptualization of your emerging personal mission statement, what do you imagine would be some of your Quadrant Two activities?

Best Practice #3: Activating

Putting the big rocks into my weekly schedule first!

A Wise Thought

The key is not to prioritize what is on my schedule, but to schedule my priorities.
-Dr. Stephen Covey

A Weekly Task

Take thirty minutes at the beginning of each week to decide: “What do I want to be true of this next week? Where will I choose to invest this week? How will my personal mission statement be lived out this week?”

BEST PRACTICE #4: ACTING

Sticking to and staying true to the pre-planned weekly schedule!

What has been your personal experience with the notion of sticking to a schedule? What do you find most often sabotages your personal desire to maintain consistency in following through with your pre-determined choices?

Share: What do you imagine will be the biggest struggle with actually acting out this step of the plan?

Best Practice #5: Assessing

Regular Evaluation: How am I doing and is this working?

Three Weekly Questions

Assessing My Perspective

1. How am I living?
2. Who am I becoming?
3. What am I truly accomplishing?

Assessing My Proactivity

1. What are my priorities for this coming week?
2. Where have I been out-of-balance?
3. Where do I need to adjust things a bit?

There will be amazing benefits to implementing these five routines into your daily and weekly rhythm, beginning with these four immediate results:

1. You will actually have more free time and more opportunity for spontaneity.
2. You will diminish your stress level as you live each day with purposeful intention.
3. You will learn to say yes and no at appropriate times.
4. You will lie down to bed at night feeling fulfilled and satisfied, instead of numb and unproductive.

Share with the large group which one of these four results do you feel will be immediately most beneficial for you in your current life and reality.

Wake Up

...to the reality that a meaningful life that is both purposeful and powerful does not ever happen by accident! Living a worthy life requires premeditation: a plan of proactive choices built upon a foundation of a powerful perspective!

Rise Up

...and make certain that your priorities are both planted and protected within your weekly schedule.

Step Up

...and commit to 30 minutes each and every week of the year (and beyond) to acknowledging, asking, activating, and assessing – so that you are guaranteed to act in step with your calling each and every day in light of your personality, strengths, and core values.