In today's fast-paced world, it's easy to feel like life is passing you by. You may find yourself constantly busy, yet not making progress on the things that truly matter to you. Important relationships, personal goals, and dreams often take a backseat to the urgent demands of work and daily responsibilities. Before you know it, years have gone by and your life looks nothing like you had imagined or hoped it would.
"Living Forward" by Daniel Harkavy offers a solution to this all-too-common problem. The book presents a powerful framework for taking control of your life and intentionally shaping it according to your deepest values and priorities. At its core is the concept of creating a Life Plan - a strategic document that defines your life's purpose, priorities, and goals.
This book summary will walk you through the key ideas and steps for developing your own Life Plan. You'll learn how to gain clarity on what matters most, set meaningful goals, and create actionable strategies to move towards the life you truly want. By following this process, you can stop drifting aimlessly and start living with purpose and intention.
The Power of a Life Plan
Why You Need a Life Plan
Life has a way of carrying us along, often in directions we didn't intend to go. Like being caught in a riptide while surfing, we can find ourselves drifting far from where we want to be. By the time we're in our 40s or 50s, many of us realize our lives don't resemble what we had envisioned for ourselves. We may be overworked, in poor health, or disconnected from important relationships.
While we can't always control our life circumstances, we do have control over how we respond to them. A Life Plan empowers you to take ownership of your choices and direction. It serves as a compass to keep you oriented towards what truly matters as you navigate life's challenges and opportunities.
Without a Life Plan, it's easy to fall into reactive patterns. We may tell ourselves we'll focus on our health or relationships "after this work project" or "once things calm down." But there's always another deadline or crisis around the corner. A Life Plan helps you break this cycle and proactively steer your life in alignment with your values and goals.
What a Life Plan Looks Like
A Life Plan is typically an 8-15 page document that outlines your vision for an ideal life. It helps you identify your core priorities and create concrete action steps to support them. Key components include:
- Your legacy: How you want to be remembered
- Life accounts: The key areas that make up your life
- Priorities: What matters most to you
- Goals: Specific outcomes you want to achieve
- Action plans: Steps to reach your goals
Unlike static documents that gather dust on a shelf, a Life Plan is meant to be a living, evolving guide. You'll regularly review and update it as your circumstances and priorities shift over time. Think of it like a GPS that continuously recalculates your route as needed.
Creating Your Life Plan
Step 1: Envision Your Legacy
The first crucial question in developing your Life Plan is: "What will my legacy be?" While we often associate legacies with famous historical figures, the truth is that every person leaves behind a legacy through the impact they have on others. Your legacy is how you'll be remembered by your family, friends, colleagues, and community after you're gone.
Reflecting on your desired legacy helps clarify your life's purpose and priorities. It's like choosing a destination before planning a trip - you need to know where you want to end up before you can map out how to get there.
To envision your legacy:
Write your own eulogy as if you had died today. Be brutally honest about your life's highs and lows. This reveals areas that are going well and those needing more attention.
Imagine who attends your funeral and how they feel. What memories do they share? Are there things you wish they could say, but can't based on how you've lived so far?
Create Legacy Statements for key groups in your life (family, friends, coworkers, etc.). Use specific, emotive language to describe how you want to be remembered by each group.
For example, a Legacy Statement for your partner might be: "I want Sarah to remember our deep conversations, shared adventures, and the way I made her feel cherished every day."
Invest time in making these statements meaningful and aligned with your values. They will serve as touchstones to guide your life choices going forward.
Step 2: Identify Your Life Accounts
The next key question is: "What's most important to me?" To answer this authentically, you need to tune out external expectations and reflect deeply on your personal priorities.
Start by identifying your Life Accounts - the various components that make up your life. These typically fall into three categories:
- Being: Intellect, spirituality, physical health
- Relating: Key relationships and communities
- Doing: Work, finances, hobbies, pursuits
Choose 5-12 Life Accounts that matter most to you and give them specific names. For example:
- "Michelle" (your spouse)
- "Fatherhood"
- "Teaching Career"
- "Faith"
- "Physical Fitness"
- "Creative Writing"
Next, assess the current health of each account. Which ones are thriving? Which need more attention? Make notes on the status of each.
Finally, arrange your accounts in order of priority. Compare this to how you rated each account's health. This reveals whether you're investing your time and energy according to what truly matters most to you.
Step 3: Develop Action Plans
The final crucial question is: "How will I get from where I am to where I want to be?" This is where you create concrete plans to close the gap between your current reality and desired legacy.
For each Life Account:
Write a Purpose Statement defining your primary responsibility for that account. For example: "My purpose as a father is to lovingly guide my children to become kind, confident, and capable adults."
Create an Envisioned Future statement describing how that account would look if it were thriving. For instance: "I am a patient, engaged father who spends quality time with my kids daily and creates lasting memories through regular family adventures."
Assess how close you currently are to that envisioned future. Be honest about where you're falling short.
Develop specific, measurable Action Plans with timeframes to move you closer to your vision. For the fatherhood example, this might include: "Have one-on-one time with each child for 30 minutes daily" and "Plan and go on a family camping trip within 3 months."
Don't worry if you end up with more action items than seem feasible. We'll address how to prioritize and implement them in the next sections.
Implementing Your Life Plan
Make Time to Write Your Plan
Once you understand the components of a Life Plan, it's crucial to set aside dedicated time to actually write it. The authors strongly recommend blocking out a full day within the next two weeks to draft your plan.
Why a full day? Creating an effective Life Plan requires deep reflection and connecting with your authentic desires and values. Trying to piece it together in short bursts won't allow you to reach the necessary depth of insight.
To make this happen:
Choose a specific date within the next 14 days and block it off in your calendar.
Treat this as a non-negotiable appointment, barring true emergencies.
Arrange time off work and childcare as needed.
Choose a distraction-free location away from home and work. A hotel room is ideal, but a library can also work.
Plan to be offline and unreachable. Set up contingency plans for those who depend on you.
On your writing day, aim to produce a 5-10 page draft addressing the three key Life Plan questions. Don't worry about perfection - this is for your eyes only. Trust the process and focus on tapping into your authentic vision for your life.
Take Control of Your Time
Once you have a Life Plan, the next challenge is finding time to implement your Action Plans amidst life's many demands. The key is taking responsibility for how you spend your time, rather than letting others' agendas dictate your schedule.
Try these strategies to reclaim your time:
Become a triage officer for your calendar. Evaluate how each appointment relates to your Life Account priorities. Cancel anything that doesn't directly support your vision. Reschedule non-essential items to make room for your crucial priorities.
Create an ideal weekly schedule based solely on your priorities. Map out how you'd spend your time if you only focused on what matters most. Use this as a guide when planning your actual schedule.
Practice saying no to requests that don't align with your priorities. Remember that saying no to others means saying yes to yourself and your most important goals.
Regular Review and Revision
Your Life Plan is a living document that requires ongoing attention to remain relevant and effective. Build in a system of regular reviews:
Daily: Read your plan aloud every day for the first 90 days to cement it in your mind and heart.
Weekly: Spend 15-20 minutes reviewing your plan and evaluating progress on your goals.
Quarterly: Do a more thorough review. Read through your plan and set 5-7 goals for the upcoming quarter. Make any needed course corrections.
Annually: Set aside a full day to comprehensively review and update your plan. Reflect on the past year's changes and set goals for the year ahead.
Remember, your life is precious and your Life Plan is there to help you make the most of it. The more you tend to your plan, the better it can guide you toward your ideal life.
Key Ideas for Effective Life Planning
Start with the End in Mind
One of the most powerful aspects of creating a Life Plan is that it forces you to think deeply about your legacy. By starting with the end in mind, you gain clarity on what truly matters to you and how you want to be remembered.
This perspective shift can be transformative. It helps you cut through the noise of daily urgencies and focus on what's truly important in the long run. When faced with decisions or competing priorities, you can ask yourself: "Will this choice move me closer to or further from the legacy I want to leave?"
Regularly revisiting your legacy statements keeps you anchored to your core values and life purpose. It provides motivation to stay the course when challenges arise.
Holistic Life Balance
Many people have detailed plans for their careers or finances, but neglect other crucial areas of life. A key strength of the Life Plan approach is that it encourages you to consider all the important facets of your life - relationships, health, spirituality, personal growth, and more.
By mapping out your various Life Accounts, you gain a bird's eye view of how the different areas of your life interact and impact each other. This holistic perspective helps you avoid the common pitfall of over-investing in one area (like work) at the expense of others (like family or health).
The Life Plan process empowers you to consciously decide how to allocate your time and energy across the full spectrum of your life. This leads to greater overall life satisfaction and helps you avoid painful regrets down the road.
Proactive vs. Reactive Living
Without a clear plan, it's easy to fall into a reactive pattern of living. You may find yourself constantly putting out fires, responding to others' demands, and feeling like life is happening to you rather than being directed by you.
A Life Plan shifts you into a proactive mindset. Instead of just reacting to whatever comes your way, you're intentionally steering your life towards your chosen destination. This doesn't mean everything will always go according to plan, but it does mean you'll have a north star to orient yourself by when life throws curveballs.
Being proactive also means regularly reassessing your plan and making course corrections as needed. Life circumstances and priorities naturally shift over time. By building in a system of regular reviews, you ensure your Life Plan remains a relevant and powerful tool for navigating life's journey.
The Power of Written Goals
There's something uniquely powerful about putting your goals and vision down on paper. The act of writing clarifies your thinking and makes abstract ideas more concrete. It also creates a sense of commitment and accountability.
Your written Life Plan serves as a tangible reminder of what you're working towards. In moments of doubt or distraction, you can return to it for renewed focus and motivation. The physical document becomes an anchor, helping you stay true to your deepest values and aspirations even when life gets chaotic.
Additionally, the process of regularly reviewing and updating your written plan keeps your goals at the forefront of your mind. This increases the likelihood that you'll actually take consistent action towards achieving them.
Aligning Daily Actions with Long-Term Vision
One of the biggest challenges in personal development is bridging the gap between lofty long-term goals and the reality of day-to-day life. Your Life Plan helps you make this crucial connection.
By breaking down your big-picture vision into specific Life Accounts and then into concrete Action Plans, you create a roadmap for translating your aspirations into daily behaviors. This makes it much easier to align your everyday choices with your ultimate goals.
For example, if leaving a legacy of strong family relationships is important to you, your Life Plan might include specific actions like "Have a device-free family dinner 5 nights a week" or "Plan a monthly one-on-one outing with each child." These tangible steps create momentum towards your larger vision.
Regular review of your Life Plan reinforces this alignment, helping you stay focused on high-impact activities that move you closer to your ideal life.
Overcoming Common Challenges
Finding Time for Life Planning
One of the biggest obstacles to creating a Life Plan is finding the time to do it. In our busy lives, it can feel impossible to carve out a full day for deep reflection and planning.
However, it's crucial to recognize that this investment of time can pay enormous dividends. A well-crafted Life Plan can save you countless hours of wasted effort and help you avoid years of regret from living a life misaligned with your true priorities.
To overcome this challenge:
- Recognize that your life is worth this investment of time.
- Schedule your Life Planning day well in advance, treating it as a non-negotiable appointment.
- If a full day truly isn't possible, consider breaking it into two half-day sessions close together.
- Enlist support from family or friends to help create the space you need.
Remember, the time you spend on Life Planning is an investment in creating a more fulfilling and purposeful life.
Dealing with Uncertainty
When creating a Life Plan, you may struggle with uncertainty about the future. How can you plan when so much is unknown?
It's important to understand that a Life Plan is not about predicting the future or creating a rigid, unchangeable path. Instead, it's about getting clear on your values and priorities so you can make better decisions as life unfolds.
Your Life Plan should be flexible and adaptable. Regular reviews allow you to adjust course as circumstances change. Think of it as a compass rather than a detailed map - it provides direction even when the exact path isn't clear.
Embrace the fact that some goals may shift over time. The process of regularly revisiting and refining your plan is valuable in itself, keeping you engaged with what matters most to you.
Balancing Multiple Priorities
As you work through your Life Accounts, you may feel overwhelmed by the number of areas requiring attention. How can you possibly make progress on all fronts?
The key is to avoid an all-or-nothing mindset. You don't need to make dramatic changes in every area simultaneously. Instead:
- Focus on small, consistent actions in each key area.
- Prioritize your Life Accounts and give extra attention to the most crucial ones.
- Look for actions that positively impact multiple accounts at once.
- Be patient with yourself and celebrate small wins along the way.
Remember that life is a journey, not a destination. Your Life Plan is a tool for continuous growth and improvement, not a finish line to be crossed.
Staying Motivated
Maintaining motivation for long-term goals can be challenging. The daily grind can make it easy to lose sight of your bigger vision.
To stay motivated:
- Keep your Life Plan visible and review it regularly.
- Share your goals with trusted friends or family for accountability.
- Break big goals into smaller milestones and celebrate progress.
- Connect with your "why" by visualizing the positive impact of achieving your goals.
- Be kind to yourself when you face setbacks, using them as learning opportunities.
Consider finding an accountability partner or joining a group of like-minded individuals also working on their Life Plans. Mutual support and encouragement can be incredibly powerful.
Conclusion
In a world full of distractions and competing demands, having a clear Life Plan is more important than ever. It serves as a powerful tool for taking control of your life's direction and ensuring you're investing your time and energy in what truly matters to you.
By following the process outlined in "Living Forward," you can gain clarity on your values, set meaningful goals, and create actionable strategies to move towards the life you truly want. The key steps include:
- Envisioning your legacy
- Identifying your Life Accounts
- Developing concrete Action Plans
- Making time to write your plan
- Implementing strategies to reclaim your time
- Regularly reviewing and revising your plan
Remember that your Life Plan is a living document meant to evolve with you. It's not about creating a perfect, unchangeable roadmap, but rather about engaging in an ongoing process of intentional living.
As you embark on this journey of life planning, be patient and compassionate with yourself. Change takes time, and there will inevitably be setbacks along the way. The important thing is to keep returning to your plan, making adjustments as needed, and consistently taking small steps towards your vision.
By committing to this process, you're choosing to live with purpose and intention rather than simply reacting to life's circumstances. You're taking responsibility for shaping the legacy you'll leave behind and maximizing the precious gift of your life.
So take that first step. Block out time to create your Life Plan. Engage deeply with your values and aspirations. And then use your plan as a compass to guide you towards a life of meaning, fulfillment, and positive impact.
The power to shape your life's direction is in your hands. With a thoughtful Life Plan as your guide, you can navigate life's challenges with greater clarity, make decisions with confidence, and move steadily towards becoming the person you aspire to be.
Your ideal life awaits. It's time to start living forward.