How to Plan Your Life

Life can be a very dark, stressful, unknown space, but you can light little lamps along the way. These lights are your plans! Plans are stepping stones to reaching your destination. Good planning starts early on in life and continues until goals are met. This article will help you begin your journey on a successful path.

Steps

1
Take a break. Taking a break is necessary whether you have been living it up, or just taking it easy. Take two or three days, if possible, and plan to do nothing. This is different from making time for friends and new experiences, it is planned time for you to be alone with your own thoughts and ideas.
2
Recap your life. Think of all the experiences you've had in life, so far. Contemplate the decisions you've made and how things have worked out for you. If you've made some good decisions, recently, congratulate yourself. If you've made bad decisions in past don't demoralize yourself, instead acknowledge what happened as a direct result of those decisions. If you don't like the outcomes, think about what would have happened had your decisions been different and whether or not it would be worth your time to try to make corrections. Cherish your good and bad decisions and accept that you've grown and changed for the experiences.
3
Bring your primary interests and goals to the forefront of your mind. Decide what it would take for you to achieve the goals you feel are most important to you. Determine how your interests line up with, and further, your goals. Set a small goal that you can achieve by the end of that day and determine what reward you will give yourself for achieving that goal. When you've reached the goal you've set, reward yourself, then set a long-term goal that is more meaningful to you. Remind yourself that goals can be changed, adapted, or even thrown out, if you later decide it isn't important to you, or doesn't suit your interests any longer.
4
Focus on what it is about your goal that brings you happiness and excitement. Plan out the steps you will take to reach your goal and determine a reward you will give yourself for each accomplished step.
5
Make a new, private, folder in your most secret drive. Add a shortcut to your desktop, and name it something discrete, like "random objectives".
6
Write out, or create images to identify the goal you've set and the steps you intend to follow to reach it. Create and add as much detail as you can. When you've finished, open a new document and, using the same technique you've used to set up your goal, tackle the things you think are fun and exciting to do. Write about, or create new images depicting, at least three things that thrill or excite you. Add this document to your original file to remind you not to take planning goals too seriously. Encourage yourself to balance your goal reaching activities with your entertainment activities.
7
Add to each of your documents in the file every time you get new thought or inspiration. After your sabbatical is over, no matter how busy your life is, revisit and add to your file frequently. This will reinforce your goals and your freedom to make decisions on your own and in private.
8
Decide if achieving your goal will set you on a career path. If it does, decide whether you would enjoy that field of work. Look for and imagine ways to incorporate your goal into a career path. This will come in handy when others ask what your long-term career/life plans are. Make a list of jobs that incorporate your entertainment interests and your goal. This will help you in selecting jobs that further your goals and interests.
9
Be creative. Examine the steps you've determined will help you reach your goal and look for non-obvious ways to complete that step. There is usually more than one good way to accomplish important goals or steps; try to think of as many ways as possible to satisfy each specific step and create an exciting journey for yourself.
10
Practice setting daily goals. Setting small goals every day will give you the thrill of accomplishment, regularly, and reinforce your understanding of just how much you can achieve when you set goals and go after them on a tight deadline. Try to develop small goals that will help you move closer to achieving your primary goal.
11
Set aside time each day to brainstorm. Add new ideas to your file and read over what you've compiled, periodically. This will help you stay on track and enthusiastic, and prevent you from forgetting to reward yourself for the steps you've already taken to reach your goal.