New Year - What's your plan?

In this newsletter:
- New Year - What's your plan? 
- Accounting - 3 eras
- Our Lives - 3 eras
- Self Authoring Suite - 3 eras
- Austin Fallah - writer, my student

 

"If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail."
- Benjamin Franklin

 New Year - What's your plan?

What's your plan for the new year?

If we have goals, we need a plan. 

In business, we make plans. But what about for ourselves? 

Planning is hard. It's much easier to keep doing the same old thing.

Same routine, same habits. Day in and day out. 

A lot of thought and effort go into a plan. There are so many questions and uncertainty. 

The end of the year is a good time to contemplate planning; it's a good time for introspection.

When I plan, I like to frame the matter across three time eras - past, present, future. 

Past – what did I accomplish?

Present – where am I now?

Future – what is my plan? 

As a trained accountant, I like to be organized. I like to think in terms of frameworks.

I even taught accounting. Exciting, eh? Many of my former Financial Accounting university graduate students stay in touch with me. They appreciate my frameworks.

There are parallels between accounting and planning.

Here's a framework for accounting.  

Accounting – 3 eras

Picture a simple business. Accounting considers three eras:

Past
Here we use an “Income statement.” It’s simple.
It's focused on how much money came in, and how much money went out, over a period of time. 

Present
Here we use a “Balance Sheet.” It’s simple.
It's focused on the value of all our assets (cash, real estate, etc.) at a point in time.

Future
Here we use a “Strategic Plan.” It’s complicated. 
There are so many questions and uncertainty: capital allocation, resources, staff, products, sales, and so on.
The focus is on creating a plan to accomplish the goals of the business.

To create a plan for the Future, a business needs to carefully evaluate and learn from it's Past and Present.

In business, it's important to have a plan. 

However, in our personal lives we often don't have a plan.

Here's a framework for our lives. 

Our Lives – 3 eras

Picture your life. Consider three eras.

Past
Here we think about all the things we did looking back. It's simple.

Present
Here we think about where we are now. It's simple.

Future
Here we use a "Strategic Plan." It's complicated. 
There are so many questions and uncertainty: family, health, money, work, relationships, and so on.
The focus is on creating a plan to accomplish our goals in life...which leads to Well-Being.

To create a plan for our Future, we need to carefully evaluate and learn from our Past and Present

 In life, it's important to have a plan. 

But how do we evaluate and learn from our Past and Present?

One tool that I found super helpful is self-authoring. It's not "journaling." It's different. I think it's more work than journaling.   

Self Authoring Suite - 3 eras

It's well established that thinking and writing about where your came from (Past), who you are now (Present), and where you are going (Future) is good for Well-Being. 

Additionally, identifying your Faults and Virtues brings more clarity around planning for the future.  

There are a lot of benefits from writing about yourself:
- Personal development.
- Emotional processing.
- Objectively look at your life.
- Introspection, self-awareness.
- Alleviates stress and anxiety. 
- Makes you accountable for your actions.
- Keeps you on track toward your goals.

Past
Writing about your past helps you:
- Gain insights into your choices, actions, and their consequences.
- Better understand yourself.
- Allows you to express your emotions, but only to yourself; this can be therapeutic
- Identify patterns in your behavior. 

Present - Faults
Writing about your faults helps you:
- Recognize them, learn from them.
- Promotes better decision making. 
- Evolve as a person thus improving relationships. 
- Identify weaknesses for self-improvement.

Present - Virtues
Writing about your virtues helps you:
- Celebrate them, reinforces positive behaviors.
- Boosts self-esteem.
- Leverage them to achieve your objectives.
- Acknowledge your strengths, appreciate the positives in your life.

Future
Writing about your future helps you:
- Set meaningful goals.
- See clearly what is most important to you.
- Make conscious decisions aligned with your purpose.
- Identify your values. 

Several years ago, I took the time to write about myself. It was for my eyes only.

I used this tool: Self Authoring Suite. My son introduced me to the idea. I learn a lot from people a lot younger than me. 

The Self Authoring Suite is set up as four programs that are designed to help you write a structured autobiography. It's a lot of work. 

Recently, I went back to see what I had written. It was an eye opener. I found it extremely helpful for planning.

Austin Fallah - Writer

I mentioned my former students above.

Meet Austin Fallah. He was one of my students in 2016. 

Last week, I had the pleasure of having a Zoom chat with Austin. He's an impressive guy.

He and his family are from Liberia. They fled their home and country in 1990 during the bloody Liberian Civil War.

They settled in Minnesota along with many other Liberians. 

Currently, Austin is in his last year of law school at Hamline University in Saint Paul. It's the oldest university in Minnesota.

Austin is a very hard worker. He has big plans for next year. 

I'm proud of Austin and all of his accomplishments; he's doing what he can to make the world a better place.

He just finished writing a book. Here's the link: Diversity As The New World Currency.

You can learn more about Austin from his LinkedIn profile here.

If we have goals, we need to plan.

Life is short. Have a plan.

I'll be taking a week off for planning. I'll be back in two weeks. 

Best wishes for a Happy, Well-Planned, New Year!  

Thank you for reading!

Be well,

Peter Pavlina