Powers of Productive Planning by Diana Baltrusaityte

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DI ANA BALTRUSAI TYTE

POWERS OF PRODUCTIVE PLANNING All the Truths About Planning that Actually Work A Guide to Succeed in Achieving Your Goals

By Diana Baltrusaityte

A first edition of this book was published in 2017. Copyright Ă&#x201C; 2017 by Diana Baltrusaityte. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied. For permission requests contact the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Diana Baltrusaityte is a certified life and time management coach seeking to support people in finding and creating their inner selves. She is an ambassador of “The Gratitude” and “The Success” Journals spreading gratitude sparks all around Denmark. In addition, Diana is a healthy lifestyle enthusiast and the founder and organizer of seminars and workshops of Aarhus Healthy Mindset Meetup group, which purpose is to discuss the topics of nutrition, sports and positive mind-set. She is a passionate environmentalist and nature addict. Diana likes to call herself a creative life explorer, because she constantly explores the world with curious eyes and creative heart. And she would not be able to do it all without powers of productive planning!

FOR ALL THE SEEKERS AND EXPLORERS,

CONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PRODUCTIVE PLANNING BENEFITS

WHAT CAN PRODUCTIVE PLANNING GIVE ME?

WHAT IS PRODUCTIVE PLANNING?

YOUR PLANNING BELIEVES

BASHING THE BELIEVES THAT STOP YOU

BASHING THE MYTHS OF PLANNING

MYTHS ARE JUST MYTHS

PRODUCTIVE PLANNING STAGES

A BROAD PROCESS

PRODUCTIVE PLANNING POWERS BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.

ERROR!

FOREWORD We all have few people in our lives, who seem to have certain superpowers by doing, creating, producing, making, acting, playing and influencing so many things that we constantly question ourselves if these people come from the same planet as us. How they are even able to do this? How can they accomplish any goal they have in mind so easily? Surprisingly, they do not seem stressed or depressed. On the contrary, they radiate energy demonstrating that they do not carry any work overload. I am talking about people, who do not use the world “busy”, because somehow, they still are able to find time. Likewise, they know HOW and WHEN to relax and they constantly find new activities, experiences and unforgettable adventures. From the other side, they are absolutely busy. Busy with life, achieving their dreams and stepping out from their comfort zones, trying new things and constantly self-developing themselves. We all know how we tend to look at these people, with a presence of flair of jealousy nodding our heads “definitely, they are not from the same planet”. However, we want to be like them secretly, or at least to obtain few drops of their energy juices.

What is their true “can-do-it-all” secret? The answer, in fact, is not so alien alike as we might wish it to be. IT IS THEIR ABILITY TO PLAN PRODUCTIVELY! While we clink to the believe that planning restricts us, bores us and tortures us, it creates freedom for these individuals. It nourishes their souls and bodies. It makes them grasp and accomplish the so called “impossible” portrayed by others. So, how do they truly do it? What tools do they use? What things do they do daily? What do they do differently? What helps them and what makes them THEM? Well, these people know the differences between non-planning and planning, but they also know the differences between planning and productive planning, and they use this type of planning daily in their lives. You see, not all kinds of planning tools and techniques unleash the biggest amount of benefits. And honestly, at times, even planning can be unproductive, especially if it is not transformed to action. Are you ready to gain the same powers that those people have, the same powers that inspire so many of us? Are you ready to uncover the powers of productive planning? Because now you have a chance to do it! This book will outline to you all the secrets that these people have “hidden in their sleeves”. Truth is, those people are not

born with these superpowers, because ability to plan productively is obtained through learning. And if it is a skill, it means that YOU CAN LEARN IT too, just like any other skill! Of course, there is one prerequisite â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you need to be eager to commit. And if you are, then you can truly change your life by including productive planning in it. I know it, because as a constant life explorer and life and time management coach, I have transformed my own life and seen many people around me change theirs too by simply learning, understanding and using the powers of planning. As long as you keep reading this book and implementing the tools of productive planning in your life, I promise that you will feel the satisfaction of improvement too. You will feel your goals unfolding and success lurking for you just right on the corner. The question is: ARE YOU READY TO COMMIT? Because if you are â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the beautiful productive planning world awaits you. If you are not, you are going to miss out on an opportunity to improve your life and achieve your goals in a less stressful, enjoyable and creative environment. Be the kind of person that other people will marvel at by looking at your results.

CHAPTER 1 PRODUCTIVE PLANNING BENEFITS

WHAT CAN PRODUCTIVE PLANNING GIVE ME? I can assure you that your ability to use productive planning will create outstanding benefits in your life. In fact, just the understanding of productive planning powers can create big transformations of your beliefs, because once you uncover how good and essential it is – your will start perceiving the world in different colours. That’s what happens when you change the lenses from which you perceive the world. Your old lenses do not need to be your whole life lenses. You can always change the lenses of your beliefs to new ones. Some of the benefits you will obtain from productive planning will be tremendous results that will shift your life to another dimension, while other benefits might seem quite small at the start. You need to be aware of it, because these small benefits might form into the worthy results in the long run. Remember, whatever size the benefit is, it is still the benefit towards your inner growth. You might be asking yourself “what exact benefits can I get from productive planning?”. Well, there is a big list of benefits that you can obtain by learning the productive planning powers and this chapter will go through all of

them to help you indulge in the beneficial advantages that await you. MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD We all know that we have 24 hours to manage our day and we can honestly admit, we often complain that this small amount of period is not enough for us to do all the tasks and wishes, especially if we calculate both work related and personal tasks, including the relaxation phases and those 7–8 hours of sleep that everyone recommends. It already gets fuzzy just thinking about it. So, of course we ask for longer days, complain for our Mondays and celebrate on Fridays, again starting our Mondays with our energy reserves not being fully recharged. In fact, if we would look how much hours we have left minimizing the sleep, toilet and eating – we might get quite depressed. Now, take the work hours and few hours in the gym away, the parties and meetings with friends, and long times spend in the shower. Well, to say it shortly – you do not really have a lot of time left to make a difference in the world. When I say, “making a difference in the world”, I am talking about making the difference in YOUR WORLD. Because the way how you manage your world creates the light to the other worlds too.

Either you admit it or not, but the way you live your life touches others. In the end, we all want to feel important, we all want to achieve our goals, we all want to create something bigger, even if sometimes we are unsure what exactly it is… Productive planning helps you to make a difference in the world, because within it you do not only plan, but you also assess yourself and your world around you. FEELING ENOUGH & HAPPIER There is one significant thing that we all seek. We want to feel happy. No surprise that the happiness books and courses have such a huge success in business and personal educational industry. The happiness formula, whatever it might be, definitely contains US feeling appreciated and invincible, US being and feeling enough. This is why we adore people with planning superpowers, even if we have no idea what superpowers they have. We adore the results they make and we can almost smell their level of excitement. “Do something today that your future self could thank you for.”

We can see their shinny happiness radiating through them, sometimes brighter than the daily sun. Those are the people that achieve what they want and it seems like there

is nothing impossible for them. It looks like they know that everything can be figured out and they go and figure it out. They are happy with their lives and they do not hide it, because it is a part of who they are. Don´t you want to feel happy? Imagine achieving your dreams. Imagine being there at the finish line and holding the “I DID IT” flag in your hands. How would that feel? Wouldn’t that be absolutely magnificent? YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY HAVE IT! Of course, it does not mean that it will come to you today or tomorrow, but it will, if you learn how to plan and use it to improve your life. Once you reach your goal, you probably will hear yourself say “ow, that actually wasn´t so hard”. And from that point on, new bigger adventures will be ready for you lining in your new list of goals. Yet, do not forget to celebrate before jumping to your new goals. Appreciating the moment is also a part of a productive planning, which is going to be explained more in this book by discussing Productive Planning Stages. ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS Of course, the main benefit of productive planning is quite clear – you will achieve your goals: the ones you have always wanted to achieve, the ones you might be dreaming about at nights and days,

the ones that you visualize in your head before you go to sleep, the ones that lurk and catch you every time you drift, the ones you see in the reflection of the mirror. You will achieve it, besides sitting and complaining how devastating your unplanned life is, or even complaining how good it is not to plan. Though, secretly deep down, you know that you are just kicking yourself in the butt. Please, we need to stop that crap. If you are not where you want yourself to be, there is only one starting point – YOU NEED TO PLAN. And once you start it, make sure you select the productive planning, not wasting your time with the planning that might not work, getting yourself stuck and even more frustrated. “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Achieving THAT BIG GOAL, you always have wanted to achieve is a highly fulfilling feeling, allowing you to reach the exponential high level of satisfaction! And who does not want to be satisfied daily? In fact, even the small goals increase your level of satisfaction. Not at the same rate and level, but imagine combining many of these small goals on top of each other. Well, that is just as high! Who can say “NO” to this???

CONTROLING YOUR LIFE Quite shortly after you start including productive planning in your life, you will start feeling that you are taking control of your life in your own hands. Now, you won´t be able to say, “I have or I do not have time”, you will say “I make time”, because time is not something you have. It is something you make. And you make all of your final decisions by yourself. Just an understanding of this concept changes the perceptions of your beliefs. Imagine, you being the controller of the time! Doesn’t that sound magnificent? Well, actually you are already in control of your time. You always have been. Yet, you might have forgotten it, but productive planning will constantly be near to remind you that. I ensure you that the common phrase “I have no idea how fast the time flew” will be used by you only to assess the big level of your own passion and fun you are having, not as an ultimate excuse and a shock therapy. MOTIVATION So, honestly, tell me, are you constantly seeking for motivation? We sort of all look for it, one way or another.

But there is no need to look further – productive planning includes motivation as a core receipt ingredient. In other words, if you want to be motivated – start using productive planning. Once you plan and act on your “to do” list, every accomplishment gives you a fulfilment pill aka motivation pill. How does that work exactly? We always get motivation from two things: either fulfilment that we obtained by doing something, or from seeking to be fulfilled. Try to check the times, when you have had motivation and see how it fits into these factors. You should see that everything fits into these two categories. Clearly, productive planning fits into both of them. It does, because productive planning is a long process starting from brainstorming and finishing with wrap-up, ticking your accomplished goals and celebrating it. Every small goal achieved will create you the motivation to go further making you fulfilled. You will get the feelings of accomplishment and motivation by the creation of your plan, because it will fulfil you by displaying that you are able to take steps towards your wishes! Our eagerness to take action and taken action is the biggest motivation. CLARITY AND ORDER

By establishing the direction on where you want to go, you will start seeing the end image of your dreams more clearly. Everything in our heads is quite blurry, even if we believe it to be quite visible. The more we work with our idea and get more towards it â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the less blurry it becomes. Productive planning makes your dreams clearer by taking the blurry curtains away. Everything becomes much easier, when you have a direct path to lean on. It all becomes less messy, muzzy, bushy and cushy. Do you know that we have around 40.000 thoughts daily?! So, imagine how these thoughts are messing in your head throughout the day. We sometimes might have great ideas and plans, yet it might get pushed by other thoughts. Within this big amount of thoughts, it should not be surprising that we often forget things fast, unless it is very important to us. At times, we even tend to forget important things! In fact, we are not able to judge at 100 percent scale what is exactly important to us, especially if we are not totally sure about our goals and purpose. To be honest, we will never be 100 % sure about anything, including our goals and purpose. So, while we cannot be totally sure about anything, we need to understand that the journey will lead us to our true wants and wishes. Yet, we are the ones that choose to go

on that journey or not. We are the ones that take the step or stop going. If we have so many thoughts, it is evident that it is necessary to store them e.g.: to put them on a paper. And it is very essential to do that as fast as these thoughts arise, at that specific moment or as soon as possible, later on choosing to relook and drift more into them by evaluating and brainstorming. If you feel that the specific thought creates a big spark in you, it might be related to your dream. IT MIGHT BE YOUR DREAM. Imagine that thought drifting apart just because you are “busy” and not ready to give it some of your time. It will find another host, who will be ready to make that dream come true. Do not let this happen to you! Be ready to meet it and even plan the meeting, because it won’t be accomplished by the plain action of thinking. I hope you can see that having so many thoughts can be not only overwhelming, but can harm you in achieving your success. Because it is not enough to have it only in your head. You need clarity and you need order. Productive planning can provide it for you. PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Productive planning does not only allow you to selfdevelop yourself further, but also helps you to achieve personal development in a much faster phase.

Personal development needs to be planned as any other action and as for any other action – you need to find time for it. You need to find time to question what you want and need, and what main steps you need to take towards it. This process is itself a productive planning, we just need to improve our skills towards it, making it more efficient and effective. In fact, with productive planning you will strengthen your strengths and develop new skills. Your creativity will expand and you will notice that you will start uncovering new ideas. You will get to know yourself on a much deeper level. You will become self-aware within your both positive and negative sides of your inner truth. Both of these sides are the part of you, which you need to know and with which you need to work with. Self-development is like an ordinary gym, you buy a subscription and show up, working your ass off. I am not talking about working so hard and intense that you itch afterwards and can barely walk, unable to lift your arms or legs. You just need to find the “sport” you like and push yourself further little by little. If you do that, you will be surprised of your big results in a pretty quick period of time. Important benefit of planning related to self-growth is the increase in your confidence. Yes, by planning you will become more confident with yourself, your decisions and

actions. Of course, the previously discussed benefit to take control of your life is a big part of it. Probably no one will argue that taking control of our time and our life, including life around us, would make us feel confident! Actually, we as individuals always seek the control to choose. We want to have confident control of our decisions and choices, our body and surroundings. From the moment you start planning, your life will not just happen to you. You will create the life you want to happen for you! Occasionally, things will happen, problems will arise and things won’t work out. There will be things that you will never be able to control as the weather or traffic, so getting your grudge on it and complaining about it won’t help anyone, even if you think it helps you. As you plan, you will be able to look at problems with new non-stressful eyes and deal with most of the issues by implementing another plan or changing and improving what is needed. Yes, that is YOU TAKING CONFIDENCE IN YOUR ARMS! In addition, within adequate amount of productive planning you will notice that your focus will be improved and you will become an effective machine, while others will talk about you with amazement: “She/he does so much! How is he/she able to accomplish so much?”

While for you, darling, it will be quite easy. For you it will be the way you live. For you it will become a norm. And that, my dear, is the feeling of true power. PREPARING FOR RISKS We all know how crappy it feels to know that there are risks involved around our goals. Actually, there are always some risks involved around our goals. It often becomes one of our favourite excuses to stop marching towards our goals. Yes, it is absolutely scary and threatening, unknown and worrisome. We always want to avoid it, delete it, break its neck and just let it go for a vacation. Sadly, however hard we try, there will always be some risks involved in any decision we take. Paradoxically, that is the beauty of life. It is critical to avoid the freak out phases during these moments and start clearly thinking what can be done in those cases, even though our inner selves only want to scream â&#x20AC;&#x153;shit shit shitâ&#x20AC;?. The only way how we can start dealing with uncertainties is by preparing for it and getting to know it better. Afterwards you need to think about the solutions that you will use to deal with the risk. Surprise surprise, the answer here is PRODUCTIVE PLANNING.

“In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.” -Abraham Maslow

You prepare for unexpected issues by planning, exposing the risks and blind spots that might be lurking around or are already present in your life. Some of them might not even be visible with unplanned eyes! You will surely uncover some issues using productive planning that you have never seen before. Some of these issues you will eliminate, some you will minimize, some you might solve. Most importantly, you will know them more by expecting them. There is a saying “the only way to defeat your enemy is to get friendly with it” or “befriend your enemy”. I believe we can befriend our fears and problems too by using planning. Either way, it is clear that planning will release you from stress by preparing you. You won’t need to worry what might happen, you will know the possibilities of it and you will be prepared with plans B, C or if needed - with the whole alphabet. A problem won’t hit you anymore as a surprise bomb. Even with few of those bombs exploding in your life, your reaction to it will be changed. You won´t get stressed so much about uncertainties, because you will already know what to do, what you can solve and what you cannot solve.

You will be prepared for unexpected or in other words, the unexpected issues will become expected issues. You will become resilient, able to change much easier, twist and solve problems in an effective and efficient way. FREEDOM This one significant benefit of productive planning usually astonishes people. More precisely, it confuses them, because in our society we tend to perceive planning as an activity that imprisons our freedom. We see planning locking freedom into a black small cell closed from all sides, without any windows and invisible doors with a stinky smell and humid conditions. In fact, we might become so sure about it that we might forget that each activity, even planning, can have both positive and negative sides. Overplanning can definitely cause lack of freedom, but that is not the productive planning. We are not seeking you to get crazy, avoid rest and relaxation, freak out and drown in planning paper sheets. That is by no means unhealthy and no one wants to be thought about benefits of unhealthy life. We all want to be vibrant, energetic and healthy, without stress, not the other way around. So, absolutely, there is a big â&#x20AC;&#x153;NOâ&#x20AC;? here for overplanning and more depression.

“Good fortune is what happened when opportunity meets with planning.” -Thomas Edison

Everything, everything and everything can have a negative side. The productive, efficient and effective planning PROVIDES YOU WITH FREEDOM besides taking away! It gives you the freedom to think creatively, freedom to get what you want, freedom to truly be you. Isn´t that what freedom is? We quite often forget that freedom is not only time bound material. And even if we talk about time management, planning can still be a freedom there too. How? When you get used to planning, you become more productive that you provide quality results with lesser time needed. This means that you will have time left for your freedom! This will be true quality freedom, not the one where you are not exactly sure why you are lazy at least 6 hours per day lying on our bed and questioning the meaning of life. Though, sometimes we all need even that. This benefit will be discussed more in the next chapter, giving you a bigger glimpse of the unique freedom that it provides. Be careful – it might become quite addictive once you taste it!

WHAT IS PRODUCTIVE PLANNING? Before we reach deeper into the techniques of productive planning, we need to discuss the differences between planning and productive planning. After all, you might be questioning why this book is called “productive planning”, not just “planning”. I assure you that is not a coincidence or a cheap marketing trick. We will constantly uncover the differences between planning and productive planning throughout the whole book, yet this chapter includes the basis for you to understand that planning can either be a big non-sense and harm, or it can be a big advantage and joy in your life, if you use PRODUCTIVE PLANNING. What do you choose? Many of us perceive planning process as a picture of an individual sitting in the chair and boringly writing something out. That is not even what the true definition of planning is about and it is absolutely very far from the productive planning explanation. Productive planning goes beyond on what most of us perceive as planning, though it also includes the techniques used in planning. Truth is, you can plan and not do it effectively and efficiently. You can plan and not take the necessary action

required. You can plan and do not enjoy it, because you might choose the methods that you are not fond of, believing that those are the only ones that are present. This is not the type of planning we want and not the type of planning this book is about. Without doubt, you can plan badly, just as you can make mistakes anywhere else and with everything and everyone you encounter in your life! You can plan too little, you can plan too much, you can stress by planning so much that it can even reach risky consequences requiring medical help. Planning can be a true hell and you have a right to know it. On the positive side, productive planning is about creating a vision for your life towards your dreams and having fun with it! The main productive planning core aspect is creating goals and taking actions in an effective and efficient way, within this process also feeling more and more fulfilled. As a bonus, you also constantly develop yourself without too much stress! Productive planning is not just about listing your goals on a piece of paper. It is also about evaluating your present situation and your likes and dislikes about it. It is about looking at your inner self and dragging out all the sides of you from within, uncovering your deepest strengths and weakness before even starting the process of planning. It is about understanding how you perceive the world and how you want to perceive it. Because without that, how

can you be sure what you truly want? Without that you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have any fun planning and going towards your dreams. What kind of life option is that? Arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you here in this life to enjoy what you do? Achieving your dreams and suffering all the time till you do achieve your dreams, just so that you can be happy in that distant moment someday? Screw that type of planning. We must not plan for the future excitement and portray and live reaching it with the present torture. To avoid it, you need to push the stop bottom before you use any planning technique and evaluate your present life and perceptions, your strengths and weaknesses. Only then you can start thinking and brainstorming your wishes and choosing the options where, how and when to do planning. Only after these steps, the planning techniques and the different methods should be applied leading with actions, follow-ups, evaluations, rewards and celebrations. That is all included in the productive planning package, because this package fully looks at your wants and your beliefs. Having this in mind and working with this understanding, every action you take will include a glimpse of awareness of yourself. Getting to truly know and accept yourself is the biggest gift you can give to yourself. I promise you, you will enjoy the process of being present, the process of planning and the whole journey once you

start using the full productive planning package. In fact, as you enjoy the journey, you will start seeing even more amazing things around you and that will make you enjoy the life even more. This is the reason why this book focuses on three building pillars: necessity of identifying present situation and yourself, essence of obtaining knowledge about planning powers, different planning methods and tools. I would recommend reading all of the chapters one by one as they are all highly correlated together. If you leave out the identification of yourself and present situation – you will stay stuck with your present believes and imprison your own personal development. If you do not take time to obtain planning powers – you won’t be able to obtain new habits that are required for you to look at planning with different eyes. If you do not take time to evaluate the methods – you will never start, you will procrastinate or take much longer time in achieving your goals. The methods discussed here truly work, all you need to do is to follow them, select the ones that suit your needs and START YOUR JOURNEY!

CHAPTER 2 YOUR PLANNING BELIEVES

BASHING THE BELIEVES THAT STOP YOU There is one fundamental process that needs to be done before planning occurs. In fact, it is so essential that if we start planning our goals without doing it, we will fail. Always. It is the core building block on which any goal should be planned on. You need to uncover the truths about your own personal beliefs. It is the check-up phase of your present believes of both planning and goals. It is your window from which you perceive the whole world. Do you really know your window well? You need to uncover your personal systems: what you believe to be wrong and right, creative and non-creative, boring and exciting, possible and impossible, hard and easy, stupid and intelligent, bad and good? The list can go on and on. Even though we might believe that we all have the same definitions; our definitions vary between each other. This is the exact reason why we perceive some people to achieve things easier, though, in fact it might not be easier for them at all. These people achieve all they want, because

they take time to uncover their personal believes that stop them. They change these old believes with the new ones. In fact, that is much harder, because getting to know yourself on that deep level and acquiring new habits does not happen from just swinging the magic wand. Though that would be so good! â&#x20AC;&#x153;Your believes pave your way to success or block you.â&#x20AC;? -Marsha Sinetar.

If we want to solve any issue or any question, we need to start uncovering our actions and non-actions, getting deep into the causes of it. Yes, it is a psychology session, where some of the things you might hear inside yourself might hurt you, be sad and seem very untrue by being true. This is often the place where we are afraid to go, because seeing deep inside ourselves is absolutely scary. And at the same time, it is absolutely beautiful, because there is nothing more enlightening than seeing your inner self and accepting it to the fullest. Only from this step on you can start growing yourself into the person you want to be, obtaining new habits and skills, achieving new goals and wishes. If you are unsure what stops you, how would you be able to go on further? There is always an explanation on what stops you and quite often there is more than one explanation. The

question is “why do you think we continue to be in those situations?”. Because we get rewards from everything, even from the situations that we do not want to be in! Those become the reasons why we stay. Do you know that we get rewards even from procrastinating? Procrastination gets a very bad rap in our society. Yet as we discussed previously – nothing is only black or white. Procrastination is a way of us dealing with stress too, it is the saving mechanism we use as a relaxing therapy session. Our complains rewards us, because in the end someone listens to us, so we can feel cared for and understood. Our addictions reward us too as they give us some pleasure. Everything has a reward and this is the reason why we keep doing things that deep down we would like to delete from our lives. It will always be a circling life stage we will be living in, if we do not get deep enough to uncover the truths of our rewards and our inner selves. Do you know what rewards you get from not achieving your goals? Make sure to dig deep and find them, because these are the true things that stop you from achieving your goals. “Your capability and possibility in life are only limited by the wall you create for yourself.”

You just need to try to understand the present situation and go forward with changing your rewards by changing your habits, because new habits will give you new rewards. Every single habit has a positive and a negative reward, depending on your beliefs on positive and negative. Can you see how everything is related? All the answers lie deep inside yourself and however hard I can try, this book cannot get deep inside you and your inner believes, because they are deeply rooted and unique to each of us. Only you are able to do that and I hope you choose this path with an open heart, because true magic will unfold once you question yourself and your beliefs. In the next subchapters of this book, we will touch few of the common negative beliefs of planning stopping individuals from achieving their goals. We will look at them as most common myths of planning and how they might be creating walls towards you and your goals, discussing the harm of them. Afterwards, we will continue with discussing the powers of productive planning, which you can transform into your new habits. Remember, successful productive planners know the true benefits of these powers and also uses them in their daily lives. The benefits of it will be portrayed clearly for you to see all the rewards you can obtain from it. After all, no one

is ready for a change till the adequate amount of rewards can be seen as â&#x20AC;&#x153;a worth itâ&#x20AC;? opportunity. I assure you, productive planning has a lot of rewards to offer you. It is your decision to choose to use them or not.

BASHING THE MYTHS OF PLANNING There are many myths used in our society to explain the disadvantages of planning. Sadly, these myths often become the main causes to avoid planning. You might be very familiar with some of them. Some myths you might have heard from others and you might have smashed, broken, twisted them up; while there might be few that you still hold glued to. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I dream. I test my dreams against my beliefs. I take risks and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.â&#x20AC;? -Walt Disney

Why knowing these myths is important? These myths become our believe systems, the programmes on how we perceive the world. We have a believe system for each area of our life and each single subject. In other words, we have our own story for everything. And we have lots of stories for the things that we do not do and like, and of course for the things we cannot accomplish or do not understand. Within my experience with planning, I have heard a lot of stories from other people about their beliefs on planning, some of which unfortunately kept them stuck in their lives, just because they were strongly grasping to keep the old stereotypical myths in their belief systems.

You know who mainly create myths? Mostly it is people, who never have even tried the discussed topic, subject or activity, or the people, who tried it once and failed. Those are not really the ones you want to be inspired from. Yes? Do you want these stories to hold your life into the cage? I hope there is a big absolutely “NO” coming from your side. Within that “NO” in your mind, we will uncover the biggest myths, explaining what each of these mean and what lies they hold by not allowing people to flourish and obtain planning powers. MYTH. PLANNING IS A PRIVILEGE SOME PEOPLE ARE BORN WITH We already have touched slightly this myth in the introduction chapter. Remember when we said that planning is a skill, hence, it can be learned by anyone? Here, we will indulge more into it showing you that this belief is a total crook (I like how we can call bad, annoying and shitty words in a lovely way). Quite often people believe that a good ability to plan is a gift that is given only for some people. Everyone else is left being just plain ordinary and mentally disable to accomplish the task, because obviously, the task requires a

gift as a checking point to step on the starting line. It is clearly just a privilege that some are just lucky to have. Yes, that would simplify the life so much more. Ever heard that phrase “some people are just born with it”? It is an ultimate virus in society. This is the most ridiculous phrase, because we learn the things during our growth. Why do you think in CV, planning is put near the area of skills and is in fact one of the most valuable skills by many employers? Because firstly, planning is a skill and EVERY SKILL IS LEARNABLE. Secondly, planning is a valuable tool for everyone, both personally and in business environment, because it is a skill or an ability to think about the future and take action. Everyone wants to have a humanplanner in their lives, because professionals and people seeking for future understand that it can help them achieve their goals and eliminate or minimize the risks. As a skill, planning can be trained and can be improved by constant usage. It is all about trying different tools and checking how they work, changing the things and improving, sometimes working easily, sometimes harder, but constantly trying to forecast, evaluate and act on it. Everyone can learn it, so can you! MYTH. I AM NOT ABLE TO/WON’T PLAN, BECAUSE I AM NOT SURE WHAT I WANT

This is one of the major myths that I have heard so many times that the number itself overwhelms me. Some people say that they are happy for others achieving their dreams, though they are not really sure what kind of dreams they want themselves and what kind of results would make them feel that extraordinary level of happiness and fulfilment. Firstly, we all need to understand that happiness and fulfilment start here, at present. If you are not happy at the moment, grateful for what you have – then you won´t achieve happiness and fulfilment even by becoming a president or an astronaut. You will just constantly feel unhappy over and over again. You can surely find lots of books to indulge more into the happiness matter, if you are interested, without no doubt I would encourage you to obtain more knowledge about it by bigger amount of research and study. Secondly, do you really believe that you will be absolutely sure what you want right from the start? Truth is, no one really is sure about it. We even have no exact idea what kind of results will be brought to us and how the situation will change twirling and twisting around. “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”

Achieving your dream is a trip, which you decide to take and on that trip, you might create new opportunities. Honestly, that happens very often. We get to know what we want more during our path. That is why there is a saying “it is not about the goal, it is about the journey”, because the journey is the one that creates the new you. Though, in order to go on a journey, you need to plan and start taking small steps towards it. Even if you think that you are not planning, but you decide to go on a journey today, tomorrow or next month – you are actually planning. And if you want to see more things during the journey, you also plan more by researching on the places. And, truly, darling, you might not be sure what you want, because you never have started planning. You never have taken time to plan what you might want. Does it really surprise you that you do not know what you want, when you did not even take time to think about it? While some ideas might just flow to you suddenly in the shower or driving the bike, even these ideas need planning. It needs planning to brainstorm, to dig deeper into them, to rethink and think more what can be done. This is productive planning – taking time for your ideas, taking time for yourself to think about what you might really want. That does not drop from the sky without you taking time to plan.

Remember, you will never be 100% sure what you want, but you will rebuild your dream by walking the path. Do not feel any shame that you do not know what you are exactly doing. Also, do not feel any shame if you do not know for certain if your taken action is something for you. You will find out. The fact that you gave it a thought is already a message that you should try it out. Constantly take time to plan your dreams. In fact, brainstorming, “a thinking process for your dreams”, can be a chilling and creative experience and you can choose to do it in your favourite and creative places: cosy cafes, libraries, outside in the park or near the sea. Whatever you prefer. All you need to do is just give your mind a green light to go and do not punish yourself if that day is not as productive as you want it to be. Keep trying and doing this and you will notice how with time more and more ideas will come to light, more connections will start to be visible and your dream will start to evolve. Even if it is blurry, there is always something you can reach for. MYTH. PLANNING RESTRICTS YOUR FREEDOM This is a big evil seed that restricts people from planning, because if you have this belief inside yourself – you barricade yourself with huge walls from your own goals

that might be standing close to these walls, hoping to get in. I have been constantly asked “How are you able to do so many things?” and of course my answer always have been “I plan”. I am always fascinated by what often happens next after my answer. Probably around 60 % of the time, people take this myth outside their pockets “but planning restricts the freedom. I better be free”. Right on that spot I know we are in a big problem that needs to be solved. To begin with, we always plan at some level. Whatever we do daily in our lives such as breakfast, dinner, going to work and buying groceries after work is also considered as planning. Every action, where you decide when and what to do is planning. So, be aware when you use the words “I do not plan”, because that is a pure lie to yourself. The only difference in planning and the way how it is done is the productivity level of it. Now, let’s delve into the definition of freedom. Did you ever notice how at times you have a free day and decide to do an important task in the morning, yet you postpone it till the noon? Afterwards, you postpone it till the dinner and in the end, you somehow notice that you have reached the evening. Now it becomes too late to do something, you have other important issues to attend (such as watching Netflix on your sofa, because that is

always truly and extremely important). The important task is left for the next day, sometimes it continues on the next day, the week, even months and…years, actually shifting to “NEVER”. You planned the day, yet it was re-planned BY YOU. In fact, you re-planned it with other tasks, even if those were scrolling through Facebook all day long. Most people would call this day freedom, generally because it included no obligations for anything. The only obligations present are your own decisions. However, if you act this way, in the end of the day do you really feel accomplished? Do you feel fulfilled, when this important task is still nagging you deep inside? Honestly, most often we feel guilty; yet calling it freedom makes it sound so much ow so much much better. “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” -John Wooden.

In fact, freedom equals your choice and you always make your own choices in every single task. Even if you work in the job that you hate, this is your choice and you are making choices every day, during every task. So, in the end, if we choose everything by ourselves and freedom is our personal choice, isn´t planning a sort of freedom too? You just choose it in a different way. You choose time to think more about it, to evaluate it, to brainstorm it. It does not restrict your freedom, because in fact, either everything

you do is freedom or nothing is. Again, even here you have a choice how to view it. I want to whisper to you a little secret. Productive planning is a new freedom. Productive planning lets you have more freedom without guilt, because you accomplish what you want and after that you have time for relaxation! Actually, with planning you start to have more time for relaxation, because as a long-time planner, you start being productive and doing tasks faster without really diminishing the quality. Yes, you even can plan for relaxation! Honestly, I never have had such a big amount of freedom before as I do now. I started understanding how freedom truly feels only when I started planning. As a productive planner, I rarely use the word â&#x20AC;&#x153;busyâ&#x20AC;? and always find time to relax and spend time joyfully. I even was called a chill master for few times! Does that sound to you like a restriction of freedom? In the end, freedom is supposed to be absolutely fulfilling and relaxing, without no or as little stress as possible. You can feel that kind of feeling only when your worries are solved, only when your goals are reached, or by knowing that they will be reached soon! I bet you would like to feel that kind of freedom yourself.

MYTH. PLANNING RESTRICTS THE JOY OF “ON-SPOT” MOMENTS This myth might be slightly associated with previously discussed myth about freedom, as it often appears as twin brother together with it. Yet, at times it might also appear as a separate belief. Just like other discussed myths, I personally have heard this myth many times in my life and I am sure you have heard it at least once too. Some people tend to lean to the inner protection side of their selves and rely on one famous excuse – “on spot” moments correlation with planning. They insist that planning just seems too strict for them and that they rather enjoy on-spot moments than planning, because planning restricts them. Seems that there is some kind of a new trend happening right now. This new trend is the fact that everyone will be fulfilled truly only then they will enjoy and live by on-spot moments and only on-spot moments. Firstly, that is the truth, but it is half of a truth, just like everything else in life. Everything has its dark and bright side, black and white shadows, silly and intelligent remarks, strengths and weaknesses, clouds and sunshines. Enjoying an on spotmoment, suddenly deciding to change something, trying something new, going to unexpected journeys surely should be a part of everyone´s lives. Without any doubt

DO THAT! But let’s be honest, how much of it can we truly do? “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware”. -Martin Buber

Without no means, we should do it occasionally. Ability to do it also expands our comfort zones as we become more open minded to the world around us. However, even if you do not like hearing it or admitting it – you have responsibilities. You choose these responsibilities by yourself and you are the one, who chooses to continue them or not. No need to be angry with the word “responsibility”. It just explains something that we constantly do to make ourselves alive: safe, healthy and fulfilled. Isn’t that a part of happiness formula? Responsibilities are a part of your values, because these are the things that you do to fulfil yourself. Even if you are working at a place you hate, you do it to obtain money for your living expenses. This is what YOU CHOOSE to do for your life. You can love your responsibilities or you can hate it, but in the end, you are the one, who chooses them and no one else. Just as there are people that plan and do not know how to enjoy on spot moments, there are also people that do not plan and do not know how to enjoy on spot moments. That accounts for both rich and poor, both intelligent and

stupid, and both mean and nice. World never works in the one-way direction, where one side is plainly evil and another is good. This means that there is no correlation, which should incline that productive planners are unable to enjoy on-spot moments. In fact, I always highly recommend enjoyment of onspot moments for every planner as an occasional vitamin supplement, because things might happen and plans might change too. Your life partner might get very sick and you might need to change the plans and stay with her/him to help. You might suddenly encounter a past missed problem that could be presently influencing your business operations in a negative way and you might need to allocate time right now to solve it, rescheduling everything else. While these examples are ranging more towards the negative side, meaning that they are all accidents that create discomfort, not joy, they still require on spot attention too. Of course, there are other situations leaning more towards a positive side such as getting a rare opportunity to attend a seminar of the highly inspired person for free, to go on a vacation you always wanted to go, to try something with a big discount that you always wanted to or your good friend visiting your city unexpectedly. If you would select these options, you might change your plans. You might decide to enjoy on spot moments, which would require you to reschedule few of your other plans, or

maybe even the whole planned day. And you know what? THAT IS PERFECTLY FINE. I have seen people taking this choice and I have done it myself many times. I am absolutely sure I am going to do it in my future too. I enjoy and plan to enjoy those onspot moments to their fullest! In fact, I might enjoy them even more, because I do not need to stress what might happen LATER ON, because I planned for LATER ON! I know I do not need to worry about it, because I know that I will be just fine, because in the end, I am a good planner and I know I will solve it. Actually, some people live and take on-spot moments and still end up not enjoying it. In fact, that happens often, because taking an action and taking an action and enjoying it are two different things. On-spot taker is not necessarily a happier person just like the planner is not necessarily better at achieving his goals, because that depends on the productivity level. So yes, you can plan and live an enjoying on spot moment, live in a NOW world, fully be present and happy. Planning does not take that away from you, nothing does. MYTH. PLANNING IS BORING Yea wellâ&#x20AC;Ś so does eating, sleeping and going to the toilet every day. Do you notice how everything that can be

considered a habit or a routine is constantly portrayed as a boring activity? We logically vastly believe that the same things that we do over and over again produce us a varied level of boredom. Scientifically, that is the truth. Our brain does not produce such an intense level of excitement for something we are used to do often. Though, to live â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you need to breath, eat and drink, to rest â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you need to sleep, to flourish â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you need to love and receive love. These are the things we constantly crave and do all the time! The daily routine system is similar for everyone, yet at the same time we can make the system slightly different too. How? Simply by changing the methods, for example: the meals and drinks you consume, select different sleeping places, deciding to get on a new adventure and etc. There are many ways how you can make your ordinary tasks more creative and many ways how you can switch boring to adoring! Once you start changing your activities even slightly, at least occasionally, your brain will start answering with excitement after a while. Excited brain = excited YOU! Yes, it is so simple! You might be thinking that there are only few options that you can choose from, only few changes that you can select from time to time. But believe me, you can always find ways how to change things, whatever it is. New ways will never get out of stock. You just need try to find new ways that you have never

tried before. Yes, some might not be easy, some will look weird and maybe quite stupid, some too hard or even too easy and not worthy to try. Yet, the true magic lies inside all of them and you can’t know what sort of magic it holds till you open it. You do not need to use the same technique over and over again in your planning activity too: to sit there and write it on a small and same piece of paper, always the same notebook or planner every single day, always the same way and with the same pencil. Unless you want it to be so. There is a tremendous amount of different ways how you can plan in a creative way, letting your creative sparks flourish. I need to admit to you; my home and work walls are full of different kind of drawings and action plans. Some of these are full of colours and stickers. I also have a magnet board near my desk, which I can use for planning notes and keywords, a little bucket full of notes working as my bucket list holder that is waiting for me on my window sill. “Designing your new life can never be boring. It is absolutely outstanding, amazing and breath taking.”

All of these ways can be expressed more and broadened into bigger action plans on your notebook or paper, where you put most of your planning activities, but the process of planning itself such as the main notes, lists, pictures,

specific dates and brainstorming maps can be changed constantly, and it can be highly creative, fulfilling your creativity bowl and breaking the legs of boredom. As you can see, planning is not so boring as we might make it to be. It becomes boring just because we do not try new ways and forget to take our creativity for a walk. It is not the planning itself that needs to be judged by ugly words. You are the one making these boring decisions. Now, that does not mean that we are going to start calling you by ugly words, yep? And you surely must not! Just know and remember that there is always a present possibility to make the action that we perceive as boring into a more creative one. You might be lacking the courage to try something new, but try to push yourself to experiment and step out from your comfort zone. We cannot blame one or few types of planning we are familiar with and put the â&#x20AC;&#x153;boredomâ&#x20AC;? level on it. This is not how you start a new relationship. Surely, not a good way to start or continue any kind of relationship.

MYTHS ARE JUST MYTHS I hope that this chapter of myths provided you with more knowledge about what planning is and what it is not. Many people get lost in the myths believing that some things are true, while these things are on a totally different side of spectrum. These myths like winds are being brought from one person to another, creating beliefs of reality, twisting them from the truth. This is by no means not an innocent thing to believe in, because it slowly kills your dreams! I hope you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t allow these things to happen to you and your precious dreams. Question everything, test it yourself and try everything more than once to make sure that the answer is right. You might be surprised how many myths lurk around us daily stopping us from developing our worlds. Once you start seeing it and start letting it in, you can also start changing the beliefs. Once you do that â&#x20AC;&#x201C; your life changes by opening new doors to you. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s open few productive planning doors together.

CHAPTER 3 PRODUCTIVE PLANNING STAGES

A BROAD PROCESS Though, many people believe that planning encompasses just the process of planning for goals, the overall productive planning process does not start and does not stop only at this stage. Productive planning is a complex process, though, when we say â&#x20AC;&#x153;complexâ&#x20AC;?, it does not mean that it is complicated. It just means that it has a lot of phases inside it. Once you get used with these phases â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all complexity disappears. Productive planning can be compared to an iceberg, where the visible eye foresees only the small part rising over the water, while the biggest part lies hidden beneath our eyes, under the deep waters. Everyone sees what is on top, yet only few people truly know what lies under it, truly seeing what is hiding from outer perceptions. Planning is an iceberg, because for the eyes of others, only the small part of planning is visible, while the participant, the planner, knows that it contains different stages, where every stage leads to another stage. All the stages are very intertwined, meaning that the things that you will accomplish in one stage might require your attention again in another stage. This intertwining process coming from stage to stage is essential when you need to clarify the situation, remind yourself some forgotten aspects, solve

the arisen problems or change few details due to found better alternatives in your journey. Yet, you need to remember that each stage is unique by its own, each stage cannot be forgotten and taken for granted. Now, we are ready to take a look at different planning stages: brainstorming, drafting the plan, action plan, action, re-evaluation, appreciating the moment, follow up, finish line and starting new. This chapter only gives a glimpse on specific stages for you to get bigger understanding on “what are the stages and what they mean?” and “why is it essential?”. Later on, the book will further explain how these stages can be accomplished in different ways using varied methods. STAGE 1. BRAINSTORMING Let’s make one thing clear – your productive planning never starts straight forward with the action plan. There is another fundamental process happening before you sit to write your goals precisely. Everything starts with the idea generation, thinking and brainstorming the idea further. Truth is, everything is born once: by production and by idea. Brainstorming is the preparation to start the race, the creative process of visualizing your goals and asking yourself: What do I exactly want? How do I want it?

Why do I actually want it? What would it give to me? You might get a hint for an idea, get that famous longing, the “AHA” moment. Yet, that is not enough – you need to step down and find time to brainstorm towards the idea, to get familiar with it and twist more thoughts around it. If you do not give this permission to yourself, the idea will leave you. The way how you decide to do this process depends on you and we will discuss the techniques that you can use later on in the book. Though, make sure that you do not ditch your thoughts giving them the licence to leave. In fact, many plans do not reach the lighting start just because people do not give themselves time for brainstorming. This is why it is critical to take brainstorming stage seriously, just like any other important task that can give you lots of benefits. Schedule a meeting with it and attend it functionally. Brainstorming is a green signal light, which you give yourself TO GO. At this stage, you do not need to worry about anything, just let your mind drift towards your dreams and leave the worries for later. “You do not have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

You can do as many brainstorming sessions as you want as long as you move to the stage â&#x20AC;&#x153;Drafting of the planâ&#x20AC;?. You should also keep in mind that brainstorming is not something that happens only once. It is recommended and actually needed to brainstorm the same goal in the whole productive planning process once in a while, as you might get some new and better ideas or see some angles that you have not seen before by walking the path of the on-going planning process. STAGE 2. DRAFTING OF THE PLAN This is the stage where you take your goal on the leash and show that you control the situation. Here, you commit to your goals fully. Here, you take full commitment and promise yourself to take action. In this stage, you start by structuring your brainstorming ideas into a draft plan. However, this is not the structured plan, containing each detail; you will be doing this in the next stage. It is a very productive aspect to split these two things apart as this process might help you to avoid getting overwhelming feelings. A lot of new information at once can over burn our minds. We all know how confusing new ideas can be when we start giving our focus to every detail. This is the point where you brainstorm the overall process, the key points you need to do, the essential tools

you need to get to achieve it. It is a list of everything you need to get to achieve your goal, yet we are not thinking about HOWs and WHENs. We focus on WHATs. At this stage, it is advisable to write all relevant aspects and tools that you will need, even if it is perceived as a simple activity such as calling someone for a favour. After that, you can start digging into each point deeper, uncovering each single detail, clearly explaining what you want and WHY it might be beneficial to you. You do not need to limit yourself with only one plan. You can create as many different plans as you want to. Think about all the options you have and create a plan for each of the option. There should be at least few ways how you can reach your goal; make sure to put all of these pathways in this stage for evaluation. Even if it is something you are unsure with or not really up to doing, write advantages and disadvantages for all of them. This will allow you to weigh all the options. When you are done, check all the options and choose the one that feels the most suitable, enthusiastic and fun for you by looking at all benefits and obstacles. Notice that I have not said â&#x20AC;&#x153;choose the easiest optionâ&#x20AC;?, because the one you might choose might be the hardest one too! Though, it might still be the one that you perceive being attractive and fun. Carefully listen to your intuition and your dreams whispering to you.

If you are ready with you draft plan, jump to the stage “Action plan”, structuring your goals even further. STAGE 3. ACTION PLAN Once you have selected the option you want to go with, you will need to create an action plan, which is an even more detailed plan towards your goals. It does not contain any “blah blah blah”, “I am not sure when”, “let´s see”, “let´s postpone” or other similar excuses. This is your key plan that you will be using during your whole path towards your goals, so it needs to be precise and straightforward. This is your blueprint for success and success depends on the type of blueprint you have. The action plan differs from a previous drafting plan stage, because it ALWAYS contains the schedule, your deadlines for every little goal and smaller goals, also called milestones, which lead you to your biggest goal. This is a precise plan, which you create telling and promising to yourself “I will accomplish this till this specific time”. Why deadlines are important? It pushes you to commit fully, kicking you to continue further by motivating you. In addition, if you won’t have key point actions with deadlines that are simple to understand – you will procrastinate, do things slower and most often you might not even finish it.

“The enemy of the good plan is the dream of the perfect plan. Perfection does not exist.”

After this stage, you might end up with a big action plan and the bigger your action plan – the better it is, because the more you delve towards each detail, the more you learn, notice and get prepared. Yet, after you are done with your big action plan that might contain many arrows, clouds and anything you would like to draw or not to draw, make the headlines and key points that are easy to understand. It should be so easy that another person would be able to clearly understand your goal and ways to achieve it in a few minutes just by looking at your action plan. Clarity should be very critical for yourself too, as you will need to look at your action plan constantly and find information easily, without getting frustrated with it. It happens quite often that many people get stuck on productive planning stage two without continuing with stage three or they tend to mix everything so much that they lose themselves into the mess, ditching the goals in order to avoid stress. I won’t lie to you, creating an action plan might not be easy for everyone, but you can get used to it once you try. You will not always succeed with your deadlines, some things will take longer as you have thought, while some things will be done much faster. Yet,

your ability to estimate will get better and better. Remember, it is all about commitment and pushing yourself to do what you need to do and the process becomes so much easier when you clearly know your end points. STAGE 4. ACTION And when, you simply act on your action plan! You take little steps and you do what you need to do. You just do what you have planned, deleting all the “what ifs” from your mind. Do not worry about “what ifs”, because you need to deal with them only when they occur! You do not need to put worries into your head that do not even exist at this specific moment. Otherwise, you will find worries and issues anywhere and in everything. Do you really want to overwhelm yourself so much? “Planning without action is futile, action without planning is fatal.”

The action itself is not a hard process to understand, yet surprisingly this is where majority of people get stuck. And you might get stuck too. That is ok; but do not let it define you. Start again! Re-plan if needed and believe in yourself to catch the deadlines you have created. Mostly people get stuck, because something either happens not

according to their plan or the plan itself is not created properly. The later version most often happens, because it lacks some details and deadlines. Either way, in both cases, you just create a new plan based on the situation and think about new aspects and obstacles you need to overcome. Just re-do all the process till stage four and then again take action till you reach every milestone you want to reach. Once we really comprehend how much easier it is than we make it to be, we stop overcomplicating it in our minds.

STAGE 5. RE-EVALUATION. A CIRCLING PHASE The key in understanding the present situation of the progress is always the evaluation. Present situation can change even in minutes; hence, it is substantial to reevaluate it constantly. In order to follow with re-evaluation without a visit of procrastination, you need to plan specific days for your reevaluation. I do my own evaluations weekly, yet some people prefer it to do more often and some do it twice per month. Things change and honestly, things change quite often, so it is essential to look and evaluate the present situation as much as possible. Some people are certain that they are finished with the productive planning once they start their plans. That is the

big mistake that can crush your goals! We learn by stepping out and taking time to think about our actions and this applies for productive planning too. You need to step out occasionally and evaluate what you have done and what you have not done: What issues and problems appeared? What are the present challenges? With what issues and problems you have dealt already? How did that feel? What did you learn? Can you use this experience in the future? Remember, you can use both negative and positive occurrences for your future actions as lessons. This stage is your main learning stage; so, make sure you give it an adequate amount of your precious time. It is your academy from which you will obtain a big amount of self-awareness and lessons, as long as you give yourself time to learn. The more you will invest in it - the more you will harvest. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Experience does not make you wiser. Evaluated experience makes you wiser.â&#x20AC;? -Andy Stanley

Keep in mind that re-evaluation is a circling phase, so even though it is listed as the number five phase, you can use it at any time in your progress and you should use it as much as possible. Your evaluation will always identify the amount of how much you will grow!

STAGE 6. APPRECIATING THE MOMENT Even though this stage might seem simple and easy, do not even dare to look at this stage for granted! We, humans, can get so thrilled in doing things that at times we can become “doing machines” eager to reach our goals as faster as we can, yet blind and forgetting that we learn the most during our journeys. Learn to appreciate the whole process, not only the destination. If you move towards your goal every single day, however small that step might be, you always have what to appreciate and you always have what to be thankful for. Say thanks for your lessons, the things you learn during the day, the people that are caring for and about you, even for the people that are not there anymore! Because, that is the way of feeling alive, things change and we need to be thankful for any change the life brings us by appreciating the present moment as a new lesson every single day. There is so much to appreciate: waking up and being able to walk, talk and listen, see and touch, being able to continue with your goals by having current resources. The list does not have an end. If you don’t do it, you might reach your goal and be surprised that you are not even as happy as you thought you would be.

“Appreciate life as it happens. Moments will soon pass and you will wish you had treasured them more.”

This situation happens for many people, because they went with so much force to get what they want without taking time to absorb the beauty of their journey. Believe me, each single journey you take, each single day, each single act is so unique, that no one, even you, will ever experience it again. Appreciation stage also contains the rewards, including encouragement for yourself and saying nice words to yourself such as “you did a great job”, “you are amazing”, “congratulations to your awesomeness” and etc. Reward yourself a lot after you have achieved your big dream, but also do not forget to reward yourself after each single goal. Reward is a part of your motivation! Let your brain know that you appreciate yourself and that it should celebrate after each single goal is achieved. You can reward yourself with words, with actions, with gifts and procedures. It can be anything starting from a call to a friend, sharing it on social media, getting a relaxing massage, taking a hot bath or taking a trip abroad for a week. Whatever you do, choose something that makes you feel good! If you choose not to reward yourself – you choose not to be happy.

If you think that awarding yourself in the finish line is the only reward you need, I promise you that you will be more stressed during your journey and unhappy in the finish line. In fact, taking time for pampering yourself will make you more eager to go further. Sometimes taking a little time away and treating yourself nicely is all you need to lift yourself in doing magnificent things, continuing and rocking it all the way up. STAGE 7. FINISH LINE The triumph of the finish line always greets with few questions. How do you feel reaching the goal? Do you feel the way you wanted to feel? Is crossing the finish line enough for you? At times, even the future orientated question â&#x20AC;&#x153;what is next?â&#x20AC;? crosses the mind. But, however tempting it might be to start something new, first make sure you deal with your harvest properly. Harvesting it properly means that you should take time to look at the whole process and evaluate how it went. These are your fruits that you have grown. The finish line stage incorporates two sub stages: follow-up and celebration. For follow up stage you should ask yourself:

What challenges did you solve? What strengths did you obtain? What weaknesses in yourself did you find? How do you feel reaching it and why? It is the re-evaluation of the whole journey you have taken. Of course, by doing this do not forget to thank everyone that has been a part of your plan and helped you along the way. But before you do that - FEEL SPECIAL, FEEL POWERFUL, FEEL AMAZING for achieving something that you truly wanted! Congratulate yourself, praise yourself and let this amazing feeling sink inside yourself. You are worth it! You rock! You can achieve anything you want! Without no doubt, you are an outstanding human being and you should be proud of yourself. Likewise, share your success with others, because you can inspire them to achieve their own goals. Remember, there is no arrogance present if you do it from the heart. That also does not mean you believe you are more superior than others. You just have decided to act and have found courage inside yourself, you unleashed yourself to opportunities. We all have that power inside ourselves, yet so many of us tend to forget it. Remind them about that power. Yet, you are the one, who have understood the

importance of it. Yes, you are special, but so is each one of us. Embrace your special and help others find their own special. You can do that easily now, because you are the expert. “The finish line is just the beginning of a whole new race.”

While you should show appreciation for yourself during all the process of your planning, here you should make it HUGE in order to let your brain know that you are rewarding yourself for something magnificent. Give yourself the biggest reward you can! Celebrate with full excitement. STAGE 8. STARTING A NEW PLAN Here we are done with your goal. And once we are done with our goal, we always ask ourselves “WHAT NOW”? Well, the answer here is easy – you start a new plan and achieve your other dreams, follow with the next one and the next one and the next after that. Yes, it will never stop, because from now on you will always be eager to learn something new, seeking to achieve something you want. Once you get a taste of success, it will become your ordinary meal! Of course, take as much time as you need to rest and relax before you jump to your new journeys. After all, if you do not know how to relax – you do not

know how to work and this rule accounts for planning too. But whatever you do, make sure you do not stop walking. The world awaits you to uncover new secrets with lots of ordinary magic lurking around every corner you turn.

CHAPTER 4 PRODUCTIVE PLANNING POWERS

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