Really big goals require advanced planning. Jen Dziura recognizes this, and advocates for lifestyle and career design in the long term. At the Bullish Conference, she advised conference attendees on the following five principles for long-term planning:
Extreme advanced planning. Planning in advance requires a different part of your brain than planning for the near future.
Deliberate choices. If you don’t have a design for the year, you end up filling your time with mid-range requests. It’s better to make a deliberate choice not to do something, than to do everything.
Make room for priorities and major projects. In a way, advance planning is like loading the dishwasher; the largest projects, like the largest pots, must go in first.
Dismiss guilt for goals and activities that are not priorities. Stand by your choices.
Fun, meaning, whimsy, and modern omnipotence. Today, with the internet and a modest sum of money, you can create your own social movement or fabulous party. Make room for fun.
After taking a six page survey, the participants reviewed their 2013s, then their values, then discussed how their values aligned with their 2014 goals. To provide that extra real life application, the Bullicorns used calendars to map out their 2014s. One noted that working backward from a goal provided good perspective, while another participant left her typical yearly conference schedule blank to see what that change would look like.
Jen suggested taking this survey and hashing it out into a one index card plan during the long plane ride from Miami, and left with the words, live well, be a badass, and enjoy 2014.
Emily is the winner of the Bullish Blogger Scholarship. For her very first Bullish post, click here. Follow Emily at @ebrowndowntown on Twitter.
