Hey Friends! I read this quote a long time ago and it stuck with me.
“By failing to plan, you are planning to fail.”
This is so true! So often, we have goals in life, but no plan on how to accomplish them. Planning is so important because it helps us to not only accomplish our goals but be more effective in every area of our lives. Planning enables us to live Life ON Purpose. If you asked most people today, they would say they feel overwhelmed and feel like there are not enough hours in the day. Instead of planning for success, many people are just trying to manage their chaos? If only they could figure out how to do everything they had to do in the time they had to do it. Well, guess what? There’s never enough time and none of us can do it all! What we can do, are the things God calls us to do.
I always say, we can do a lot of things and yet, be doing them poorly. What good is that? I’ve been in that place where I’m juggling so many things, and doing so much, but not at the level of excellence I desire and I know God desires from me. It’s not a good feeling. I don’t want to live like that, and I bet you don’t either! When we live life ON purpose though, we’re living intentionally. We know what we want and how to get there. Living on purpose means we use our time and energy effectively so that we can live our BEST life. Today, as I’ve been thinking about how to be more effective in my own life, I thought I’d share with you what has helped me.
- Discover Your Purpose
In order to live ON purpose, we need to know our purpose. Ask yourself: What kind of person do I want to be? What’s important to me? What are my goals in life? What does it look like to live this out? After some thought, write down your top 5 priorities/goals in life. Maybe you feel you have more but start with that for now. Most likely, you’ll find that some of your priorities might fall under another as a subcategory. So, for example, my top 5 priorities would look like this:
- My relationship with God
- My marriage
- My children
- Ministry
- Self-Care
While self-care may be at the bottom of my priority list, it’s not necessarily my last priority. For me, it goes hand-in-hand with my other priorities. As I pour out, I need to fill up, and so I intersperse self-care throughout my day to make sure I do. I wrote a whole blog post on this. If you haven’t read it, you can read it here. Making self-care one of your priorities is life-changing!
So anyway, after you write your initial priority list, then write down what each of those things looks like to you. This is where you’ll find that things you thought were separate priorities will fit under one of the 5 as a subcategory. For example, maintaining order and cleanliness in my home is a priority, but I could fit that under marriage or children because my goal is to provide a peaceful haven for my family to thrive. Just to give you an idea, I wrote a sample of my detailed priority list.
- Relationship with God
- having a daily morning devotional time
- a set prayer time
- memorizing 2 new scriptures weekly
- My Children
- Daily Talk time – Having intentional conversations that instill Godly values
- Praying with them
- Homeschool
- Making our home a peaceful haven for them to thrive
I’ll do one more:
- Self-Care
- Exercise Daily
- Weekly Personal Growth Session
- Daily Meditation
When you begin to write your own priority list and begin to think about what it would take to live it out, it can be a real eye-opener. You’ll begin to see a clear path on how to live life ON purpose.
- Planning
Now it’s time to plan. There are tons of articles out there about planning and time management and some of them are really good. I’m not a time management expert by any means, but I’m continually learning and growing in this area because I desire to be the best steward possible with my life. I encourage you to keep learning and discovering for yourself what works best for you.
When planning, I have learned that the best way to do so is to use a calendar! Studies show that successful people regularly schedule and plan their time. Many people don’t use a calendar, and I admit I was one of them. I resisted for a long time. I thought I didn’t need one. I thought being spontaneous was just my nature, but honestly, it was more my habit. I drove my husband nuts with this by the way. He on the other hand is Mr. Organized. Since the day I met him he’s had a list for everything and used to drive me nuts with this too! I didn’t want to be tied to a calendar or a list and so I wasn’t. Sure, I could have kept on living like that, but one day I realized my days, my weeks, my months…. were flying by and I wasn’t accomplishing my goals or being as effective in life as I desired to be. Too many days, I felt overwhelmed by life. You may have heard this quote:
“Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
Well, my day was running me for sure, and I was tired of it! So I began planning and using a calendar. Now, I wouldn’t want to live without it! You might be thinking; well, I’m retired or I’m a stay-at-home mom. What do I need a calendar for? YOU DO! Depending on your season of life, you may have more or less on your calendar, but it’s still beneficial. My boys are only 15 months apart and I remember when I had 2 small babies and was feeling so overwhelmed. I was still resisting the calendar in those days, but in my desperation, I asked my husband to write out a daily schedule for me. It was a Godsend! Instead of the day flying by and sadly ending with me being a disheveled, emotional mess, I was able to care for the babies, have scheduled nap-time, clean the house, take a nap myself, prepare dinner and feel like I accomplished my goals for the day; which at that time, was just surviving mommy-hood to 2 infants!
No matter what stage of life you’re in, a calendar will help you effectively live out those priorities you wrote down. It will help you to live ON purpose so you can be the kind of mom, husband, wife, grandmother, employee, entrepreneur, boss, child of God, healthy person, or whoever you want to be! For a long time, I used a planner. I liked having something to hold and write in. Maybe that’s you. Go for it! But now I use google calendar. It’s right on my phone and it sends me reminders through my phone and email. Oh, how I love reminders!
So. what will you write on your calendar? You’ll write out when you plan on doing the things you wrote under your priorities. Here are some examples:
You may write DATE NIGHT every Thursday night at 7 pm so you can keep your marriage a priority.
You may write, PRAY FOR GRANDKIDS every evening at 6 pm, becoming even more confident that your faithful prayer time is helping to shape your grandchildren’s future.
You may write down GAME NIGHT every 3rd Saturday of every month? Or FAMILY PRAYER every Wednesday night at 7 pm, ensuring your family stays strong.
You may write down EXERCISE at 7 am every morning so you can reach your health goals?
You might write down PLAN MENU every Friday evening at 5 pm and so you and your family can accomplish the goal of eating healthy?
You may write down STUDY at 8 pm every night, so that dream of having a real estate license becomes your reality.
I pray you write down TIME WITH GOD somewhere daily on your calendar so that you experience the great joy and blessing of making your relationship with the Lord a priority.
Remember, if you plan from your priorities, you’ll be living your life with purpose on purpose every single day. There are a few other things I do to help me be more effective each day, but I think this is a good starting point. Hey, you don’t HAVE to plan, you don’t HAVE to use a calendar and you don’t HAVE to live life on purpose either, but I bet you’ll be glad you did if you give it a try! I sure am! Remember, living your best life doesn’t just happen, you have to live it ON purpose!
Hey, I’d love to hear what topics you’d be interested in hearing about! Comment below and let me know! Would you like more bible teaching? Parenting? Marriage? Healthy Living? Other topics? Please let me know! 🙂
