Planning System

Introduction to Planning System

Once you have established your 5-Year Vision of your ideal future life and your Values, you need a Planning System that ensures you are on the right track and continuously making progress towards making this vision a reality. Imagine you are driving cross country: your Vision is your destination, your Values are the rules you’ll follow (like obeying speed limits and stoplights). Your Planning System is your GPS that breaks the journey down into the right specific steps to get there. And if you complete each step, you will arrive at your destination of your Vision of your ideal future life.

In the book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey, Habit #2 is “Begin with the end in mind.” The Happiful Planning System does just that: it starts with your Vision, which is the end you are seeking. Through a series of simple but structured and recurring planning steps, it guides you to know exactly what you should do each day to ensure that you reach that vision.

The Planning System consists of the following:

  1. 5-Year Goals

  2. 1-Year Goals and Plan

  3. Quarterly Plan

  4. Weekly Plan

  5. Daily Plan

The Planning System results in extraordinary clarity and focus. It is also highly motivating as you can see that your high priority tasks each day will directly lead to you living your ideal future life Vision.

“Success is goals and all else is commentary. All successful people are intensely goal oriented. They know what they want and they are focused single-mindedly on achieving it, every single day. Your ability to set goals is the master skill of success. Goals unlock your positive mind and release ideas and energy for goal attainment. Without goals, you simply drift and flow in the currents of life. With goals, you fly like an arrow, straight and true to your target. … After countless talks on various themes, if I was given only five minutes to speak to you and I could convey only one thought that would help you to be more successful, I would tell you ‘Write down your goals, make plans to achieve them, and work on your plans every single day.’”
— Goals! by Brian Tracy