Bipolar In Order is about realizing that it is possible to have Results Worth Striving For and doing the work needed to achieve them. Life planning is where the two come together.
A Life Plan should be integrated, clear and measurable, include time based milestones, and be adjusted as needed every few months. This chapter details the process for building a Life Plan and making it succeed. There are many ways to create a Life Plan. Among the many offered, the process outlined here works best for the people that have taken our workshops.
Integrated
An integrated approach addresses the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, relationship, and career/financial aspects of life. It is important to consider balance as a key to success. If you are doing great in your career, but your relationships are in disrepair, this will have an effect on your mental and emotional life. Any part of your life that is not brought into balance with the others can eventually bring down the rest.
Clear And Measurable
One of the keys to any plan is to have clear and measurable goals. If your goal is not clear and measurable, you will not be able to tell if you've achieved it. A physical goal that says "I will feel better" is so vague that you will never know if you succeeded. A goal that says "I will run 5 miles" is a measurable goal. A goal that says "I will run 5 miles in under 30 minutes within six months" is even more clear. We need to make our goals as clear as possible.
Setting goals for freedom, stability, and equanimity are more difficult to describe. It is important to discuss with your team what success means to you and how you will know when you have accomplished it.
Time Based Milestones
Milestones are a critical part of any plan. In a plan to drive from New York to San Francisco, the milestones might be Cleveland on the first night, Omaha on the second, Denver on the third, Salt Lake City on the fourth, and arrive in San Francisco on the fifth day. If you find yourself in Washington, DC on the first night, you better change the route and call ahead to tell them you will be there on the sixth day!
A plan for getting life in order is far more complex, but the main principle is the same: create achievable milestones, periodically check to see where you are, and make changes as necessary.
As the trip from "disorder" to "in order" is much longer than New York to San Francisco, it is necessary to follow a much longer time frame. Reasonable milestones should be established for one day, one month, three months, six months, one year, and two years. Five and ten year goals are even reasonable, but as you follow the plan, you may find that the original goals are no longer important to you. You might even create a new plan with different short and long-term goals after the first two years.
Milestones should always be based on a reasonable time frame to achieve them. If we don't set a timeframe, we may never finish. On the other hand, if we set timeframes that are too short, we may feel a sense of defeat and give up on achieving our goals.
As a brief example, let's say you want to run a marathon (26.2 miles) two years from today. In order to know that you are on track, you should be able to run at least 10 miles one year from today. A reasonable goal for six months would be 5 miles. You should be running 2 miles in three months, 1 mile within one month, and perhaps start out by walking a mile on the first day. Milestones are clear and measurable results that indicate whether you are on track to achieving your long term goals.
Creating A Vision
The first step to writing a plan is visualizing what you want your life to be. This is the Grand Vision phase--imagining the ultimate dream life. At this point you assume that you can accomplish anything that you want. If you don't imagine that you are capable of your dreams, you will not set very high goals. Keep in mind the Results Worth Striving For section. Our vision needs to be worth making the effort to achieve it.
Many people say that those who create a clear vision are the most likely to achieve it. Visualization is a powerful technique for seeing all of the details and creating the motivation to take the steps needed to turn the vision into a reality. Those of us that hallucinate have a gift that we can turn to our advantage. We can use that gift to create a picture of our future and even see the steps to get there.
Capture the vision by writing down everything in as much detail as possible. Focus on your surroundings, the way that you feel, the people involved, and any specifics that you notice. Record all that you envision and try not to leave anything out, even if it may seem insignificant at the time.
Expect to spend two hours or more on this process. It takes that long as a directed exercise in our workshops. We have forms from the workshops available on our web site that might be a helpful template.1
Determine Strengths And Weaknesses
Assessment gives an understanding of where you are. Now that you have a vision, it is time to put the assessment into context. In looking at the vision, write down what strengths will help you achieve them and what weaknesses need to be overcome.
You will have some obvious strengths and weaknesses in each area of your life. When you write down your weaknesses, you may be surprised to learn that others don't view those traits as weaknesses. Some traits that you consider a weakness might be turned to your advantage. It is important to look at the list with the team and determine if there are things you are simply afraid to do, or don't have confidence you can do. Team members will perceive strengths that you either discount or didn't realize you had.
This process will give you a better understanding of what needs to be done to accomplish your goals. Working through it carefully is time well spent.
Set Milestones
Now, you can begin to be more pragmatic and analytical about the visions you have created. Some goals might be 20 or 30 year goals. What do you think you can achieve in two years? These are the things you want to write into your Life Plan.
Organize the Life Plan by taking a separate page for each area of focus: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, Relationships, and Career/Financial. Bipolar Advantage uses a worksheet that has room for 1 day, 1 month, 3 months, six months, 1 year, and 2 years as the timeline for milestones. It is available on our website.2
Using physical goals as an example, you should consider strength, flexibility, body awareness, weight, endurance, and appearance. Milestones should be set with clear interim steps toward achieving each goal.
The same process is used for mental, emotional, spiritual, relationship, and career/financial goals. Always be careful that the goals are reasonable and easy to achieve. Go over the plan with your team and make sure you can meet these goals.
The next step is combining all the goals onto one sheet. When seen together in one place, what you thought was very easy may suddenly look impossible. Make sure you haven't created an overwhelming task. If so, you may have to be more realistic about some of the timelines. The other thing to consider is whether the plan is in balance. Is there too much emphasis on only one part of your life?
Do not underestimate the power of the process of writing the plan. Becoming clear about where you want to go is very liberating and exciting. We have seen people write a complete plan, throw it in a drawer and never look at it again, yet still achieve most of their goals.
Do The Work
Having a plan is only as good as our efforts to carry it out. You will need to do the hard work necessary to make it happen and be willing to adapt the plan according to your circumstances. Every day you should make an effort to accomplish the short term goals that you have set out for yourself.
Adjusting The Plan
If you have only arrived at your three month goal after six months, that's a tremendous victory--aren't you still better off than if you had not made any effort? Simply adjust your timetables and keep moving forward. At each milestone date, evaluate the progress with your team and make adjustments to the plan as needed to keep on track for the goals. Periodic adjustments are the difference between success and failure in all endeavors. They are not a sign of failure, but a sign of wisdom gained through experience.
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