Hey friend,
Here’s an idea for you:
This point of view offers an unconventional take on what intelligence is. It defines intelligence not as 1 thing…but everything that’s needed to navigate your internal and external world.
I don’t know about you, but I find this POV refreshing…
Especially coming from a world of test scores, college rankings, job titles, and compensation packages (aka your typical immigrant household)…where intelligence is your ability to outcompete everyone else in the same game.
This POV describes intelligence as choosing what game to play, and knowing how to bend reality to win the game.
Or as Naval puts it:
- Figuring out what to want in the first place.
- Figuring out how to hack reality to get what you want.
In a different post, I talk about how to figure out what you (actually) want.
In this post, I talk about how to translate the things you want — your big life goals — into a big life plan.
The way I do this is by activating every area of my life to work in the direction of my goals. And, I hope, building a great life in the process.
This is the beginning of “hacking reality” territory.
I hope you find something useful here.
How I turn my big life goals into a big life plan:
1. Seeing life as being made up of different categories. Then deciding how my goals show up in each category.
I start out with 2 exciting but intimidating things:
- A list of big goals (and only a vague idea on how to reach them).
- This big thing called life.
I don’t know about you, but thinking about both (at the same time, no less) feels super intimidating.
So I break them both down into smaller, more manageable parts.
First, I divide my life into 12 categories:
- Health & Fitness
- Intellectual Life
- Emotional Life
- Character
- Spiritual Life
- Love Relationship
- Parenting
- Social Life
- Financial Life
- Career
- Quality of Life
- Life Vision (In 5 Years)
Some people work with 5, 7, 10 categories…it’s all good. The key is to define the important categories that make up your life (or borrow an existing framework).
Next, I do the same thing with my list of goals.
I divide my big goals into smaller, more manageable sub-goals. Then I file the sub-goals under the area of life I need to work on in order for the big goals to become a reality. More often than not, achieving a “big goal” means I need to grow in multiple categories of my life.
If you don’t feel this way about your “big goals,” I encourage you to think bigger!
At the end of this, I have 12 categories of life, each with its own list of sub-goals.
This is the start of my “life roadmap.”
2. Knowing how my life categories interact and influence each other.
12 isolated categories isn’t really how life works, right?
The real synergy comes from my life categories interacting and influencing each other to move my big goals forward. When I make progress in one category, my whole life moves forward. And just as important, no category is left to fall into ruins.
There are 4 questions that help me understand what each category means to me, and spot patterns that link them together.
For each life category, I ask:
- Premise: What do I believe?
- Vision: What do I want?
- Purpose: Why do I want it?
- Strategy: What do I need to do to get it?
Knowing how my life categories interact and influence each other helps me be strategic about what categories (and corresponding sub-goals) to work on, and in what order.
Because more important than knowing what you have to do, is knowing what order you have to do them in.
3. Making progress 1-2 categories at a time.
Now that I know what life categories I need to work on, and in what order…
I just need to get going, right?
At any one time, I’m only focused on 1-2 categories, and no more. I dig deep into my goals under each category. I learn, I come up with an action plan, and then I test it out in the real world. Repeat until I’m happy with the progress I’ve made.
Sometimes this takes months (or longer than I expect) and that’s OK.
All the other categories are on the back burner, aka in maintenance mode. They’re running on the habits and systems I created in a previous sprint. And maintaining them shouldn’t take too much energy.
Whenever I’m happy with my progress in 1 category, I put it in maintenance mode and start working on another.
I can take a look at this roadmap and know exactly what I’m working on (and not working on) at all times.
Every part of life moves forward and no part is left behind.
Now it’s your turn:
If you’re interested in giving this a go, then I’m super excited for you.
It can be a confronting and overwhelming process at first. But over time, you’ll have a simple, crystal clear plan that moves your life forward like nothing else.
If you already have a plan in place, try out these exercises and see if they boost what you’re already doing.
If you do give this a try, reply to this post and let me know how it goes. Good luck!
(Btw I learned this framework from Jon and Missy Butcher, the creators of Lifebook.)
Talk soon!
Lillian