I have always been a goal-oriented person. I set a goal. I plan the road. I follow it. I get there and…I put a new destination. I also love to read books about psychology. Every time I read those books – I learn something new about myself, about my behavior. All this information helps me understand how to work with myself to make things done.
And here I found the Living Forward book from Michael Hyatt and executive coach Daniel Harkavy.
This book has opened my eyes to how much more there is than just non-stop goals. The book emphasizes the importance of life planning as a proactive approach to living intentionally and achieving personal and professional goals.
Today I would like to start my first post series that will document my journey to my Perfect Live that I build for myself by following the instructions of this book.
Table of contents:
Introduction to Living Forward
“Living Forward” by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy is a life-changing book that teaches readers how to create a Life Plan and stop drifting through life. The book provides a step-by-step guide to creating a Life Plan with proven principles, helping readers lead a life of significance, joy, and satisfaction. With the help of this book, readers can create a clear path to their desired life and achieve their goals.
The Problem: Drifting Through Life
Drifting through life is a common phenomenon that can lead to a lack of direction, regrets, unfulfilled potential, and a negative impact on relationships and legacy. When we drift, we lose sight of our values, priorities, and goals, and we may feel like we’re just going through the motions of life without any sense of purpose or fulfillment. The good news is that we can stop drifting and take control of our lives by creating a Life Plan.
The book that changed my perception of goals
Before “Living Forward” (later LF ), I was just entirely focused on that specific goal I set and forget about everything else… literally everything… else.
In LF, Michael and Daniel separate live in accounts: health, family, career, finance, etc. If to follow those separations, every time I was jumping on the train to my goal, I didn’t bother about the rest of the accounts of my life. The first account that gets forgotten has always been ME – my health, physical… and mental. Then the rest…one by one. And when I get to a finish line… holding the trophy in my raised right arm …a lot of times, I have seen a burned empty land around me, where not even crickets enjoy themselves. Gained pounds, burned-out foggy brain, feeling lethargic, fights in family, missing friends…
After reading this book, I understood – it doesn’t need to be this way. It teaches to define those critical accounts of your life, define the commitments/habits to make sure that those accounts are staying in good condition (or getting better), and, most importantly, push you to set priorities.
Priorities – it’s such a strong word. It’s supposed to be so obvious.
What is the point of all the money in the world if your own health gives up on you?
How did you feel reading the previous sentence? Exactly. It’s scary. But most of us are still making the same mistakes. It doesn’t mean you need to stop following your dreams and achieving your goals. Its just means that you need to find your perfect balance.
This is how it feels… to build your first Life Plan: A step by step guide
By the book’s instructions, you need to go away for a day, disappear from the world (no cell, no internet), nothing, and no one can distract you. This full-day, you will need to work on your Life Plan.
In short, the Life Plan created from two big parts:
Legacy
Life accounts
The most complicated for me was the Legacy part (I have even dropped some tears). This is the part where you are analyzing: who are you, what have you already achieved, and what have you missed in your life. And this is the part where you define/remind YOUR priorities, separate priorities of society from your own; you are looking for your own voice by filtering the noise around you.
Every day we go through our lives, meet people, watch social media, news without even realizing how all of it influences our life perceptions, wishes, and decisions. I have seen how couples have been separated just because friends or family members were giving their own opinions. I have seen how health has been destroyed because of society’s beauty requirements. We constantly compare ourselves to someone else instead of focusing on our inner voice, our own desires. The legacy exercise was helping me a lot to filter that noise.
On the other hand, the life accounts part was more straightforward for me. Because for me, as a goal-oriented person, it was similar to how I set my goals. The only difference, instead of setting one goal, you are writing down the goals for each account of your life. But the most significant discovery (not like it was absolutely new for me, but this book just helped me realize it consciously ) that simply following the proper habits can help us achieve all our goals, almost at once.
Key Concepts and Strategies
The book “Living Forward” shares proven principles and strategies for creating a Life Plan. One of the key concepts is the idea of “life accounts,” which refers to the different areas of our lives, such as spiritual, intellectual, relational, social, and vocational. By reviewing each life account, we can determine where we are and where we want to go. Another key concept is the importance of having a positive attitude and taking responsibility for our lives. By adopting a positive attitude and taking ownership of our lives, we can overcome obstacles and achieve our goals.
100 days of habit building with proven principles
For example, I defined seven accounts of my life:
Mental health & energy
Physical health & body shape
Spouse
Parents and family
Self Realization
Friends
Finance & Business
If you look at those accounts and start to think about how you can improve them, you will see that most commitments must repeat themselves, if not every day, every week or so.
In case you don’t see it, let’s go dipper.
Commitments I wrote for Mental health & energy:
Go to sleep no later than 10 pm;
Write morning pages every day;
Read 10 pages of non-fiction book every day;
Walk every day at least for 30min;
Commitments for Physical health & body shape account:
Make Tracy Anderson workouts 5-6 times a week;
Eat healthily, no fast food
Stretch every hour when working
Drink 3 – 4 liters a day
Commitments for Parents & Family account:
Call parents every week on Saturday;
Speak with each of the family at least once a month.
Do you see what I am speaking about? It’s pure habits.
By calling your parents every weekend, they will feel more loved and not forgotten. By making one date night a week with your spouse, you will get back that needed fire in your relationship. By going to sleep earlier every day, you will wake up feeling more energetic the following day, and maybe even do something that you always wanted but didn’t have the energy before. By doing exercise/walking and eating healthy, you will feel better and even shed some pounds you may be complaining about for some time.
Our life builds by our habits.
To simplify the tracking of commitments I defined in my Life Plan, I get myself a habitify app
Based on the day of the week, it can be up to 12 habits to follow. No, no, do not get scared of that big number! Remember, some of them are as simple as “drink 3-4 liters of water”, “go to sleep earlier” … got it? These simple small habits that do not take any time to perform will actually make a lifetime difference in the long run.
Getting out of my comfort zone for personal development
Sometimes it can be very doubting to start building new habits, there are so many excuses: “I don’t have time for…”, “this is not gonna work for me”, “I don’t have ___(fill up the empty space)”. Familiar? I can tell you for sure, whatever you think right now – it’s just an excuse. I know because I am THA QUEEN of excuses. You can not imagine how many ideas I have in my mind that never come true because of those excuses I tell myself. I actually have a project that I have been working on for a couple of years already and didn’t lunch it ONLY because every time, I found some excuse not to.
The reason we are looking for excuses – those habits are out of our so-called comfort zone. You need to start doing something that you have never done before. It’s unmapped territory; it’s scary. There is also a scientific explanation exists – google “instant gratification.”
One of the biggest dreams I have is to share my knowledge with people, to help improve their lives and possibly avoid the mistake I made in my life. But I feel so uncomfortable creating content. I always have that fear of putting myself out there. Do you see how fears can influence our dreams not to come true?
But after creating my life plan, I decided – enough! The time has come!
One of the Self-realization account commitments is to write a post every day for the next 100 days. Posting every day for 100 days will help me fight that fear of content creation and make a habit.
If you ask me now what those posts will be about – there is no way I can tell you the specific topics. But I know for sure there will be many of them about complications I will be meeting on the road. Some of them will be about my fitness journey, and by request of one of you, one of the posts will be dedicated to Finance account and budgeting.
Would you like to follow me on this 100-day journey? Subscribe to receive a weekly newsletter with quick post overviews in case if you are interested in a particular topic.
See you tomorrow
Conclusion
In conclusion, “Living Forward” by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy is a powerful guide to getting the life you’ve always wanted. By creating a Life Plan and putting it into action, you can stop drifting and achieve your goals. Don’t let life happen to you – take control of your life and create a clear path to your desired life. Order your copy of “Living Forward” today and start living the life you’ve always wanted.
