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Today, I will explain how you can connect your day-to-day actions with your long-term direction so that you will live a holistic life.

What you do daily becomes your life over time. Your daily actions are the foundation for your behavior, habits and character. So we must guide our daily actions in light of a bigger purpose and vision. You will feel happy, focused, full filled, and better understand yourself.

Unfortunately, people are busy with daily challenges that they cannot think about their long-term future.

You are busy handling daily challenges.

The following are other reasons people struggle to make actionable progress.

• Reason #1 Detaching from the day-to-day activity is difficult. You have your office, business and family responsibilities. Everything takes time.
• Reason #2 Building a long-term vision requires a more profound understanding of who you are, what you stand for, and what type of life you want. Such clarity requires years of discovery through journaling, self-reflection, and mediation.
• Reason #3 These existential topics could make you freeze from taking further action.

I figured out a system for you in which you can discover these answers progressive. You will start with what you know and build a better understanding over time. I will explain how you can overcome all these problems I just laid out!

Here’s how to step by step:

Step 1: Take account of where you are going.

If you continue to do what you are doing daily & weekly, where will you reach in one year, five years, and ten years?

This exercise is a forward-looking strategy.

I will use an analogy to explain this further. Let’s say you are driving on interstate I-95 from Miami to NY. In about 5 hours, you will reach Jacksonville, FL; in 12 hours, you will pass Raleigh, NC; and in about 20 hours, you will reach New York. Many factors will affect these estimates, but you get an idea.

Similarly, assess where you are now and estimate where you will reach if things stay consistent.

I know life is not that simple, and it will pass through many curveballs on our way. But roughly, you will know when your kids will be in high school and college. When will you buy your next house? How old will you get?

Do this for all areas of your life, such as your work, family, friends, health, hobby, finance, spirituality, etc. These areas can be further categorized. For example, the finance area may have budgeting, savings, vacation, retirement, mortgage, etc.

This reflection always creates new desires, projects, goals, and actions. Save them for the next steps.

Step 2: Look at your life from a different height

The next step is to elevate your view and look at your situation from an elevation.

In his book, Getting Things Done, David Allen shared six horizons.

Images from Unsplash (not an actual height. It is for illustration only)

Horizon 0: Current actions

Your daily work includes emails, calls, memos, errands, stuff to read, files, shopping, house chores, buying groceries, etc.

Horizon 1: Current projects

Projects and goals are the things that take more than one action step to complete, such as arranging a birthday party, buying a car, cleaning your garage, preparing for a certification, paying off a car loan, etc.

Horizon 2: Areas and responsibilities

This includes your primary job, taking care of family & kids, and your day-to-day work.

Horizon 3: One to two-year goals

What will be your life in one to two years from now? What direction are you going? Getting this level clear always creates some new projects and actions.

Horizon 4: three to five-years vision

The goals and direction for your personal & professional aspirations. Where will you be in one to three years from now? Think at this level to identify new projects and action steps.

Horizon 5: Purpose and principles

What work are you here to do on the planet 🌎, with your life? Is this the job you want? Is this the lifestyle you want?

It is like watching your life from different heights.

You will get a different view & perspective from each height. Such as ground (horizon 0), 1,000 feet (horizon 1), 5,000 feet (horizon 2), 10,000 feet (horizon 3), 50,000 feet (Horizon 4), and 100,000 feet (horizon 5).

We are used see life from horizons 0, 1 and 2.

Most of the time, you look at our life from the ground level. You handle current actions, tasks, projects, and day-to-day responsibilities well. Your manager, family, and friends guide you through these levels.

But we face challenges looking at our life from horizons 3, 4, and 5.

This is because those planning levels require a deeper understanding of who you are, what you stand for and spiritual signals. Those plans also depend on many external factors. Your life partner will also have a significant influence on those plans.

The good thing is you don’t have to figure out everything today.

We will use a progressive planning approach in which you will build that understanding over time. We started with a looking ahead strategy and then applied a more Scientific approach of 6 horizons. Now you have a framework to look at your life from different angles and heights.

Let’s keep going. You are doing excellent.

Step 3: Build your quarterly plan

Step 1 & 2 creates existential questions which could freeze you from taking further actions.

The solution is to take action, create momentum and start moving in a direction regardless of whether it is your ultimate direction. So instead of figuring out everything in your life, let’s figure out the next quarter and start taking action. Your actions will create momentum, and you can use that momentum to figure out a deeper version of yourself.

You get 13 weeks in each quarter.

Pick one or two areas from work, family, friends, health, hobby, finance, spirituality, etc.

Start by selecting one or two focus areas for a quarter.

In each area, define one clear goal and put all your energy into those goals.

Pick one or two goals in those selected areas. Try to limit the urge to choose more than two. Because if you set too many goals, you will not accomplish much. People who put in too many goals don’t achieve any.

Example of clear goals: Lose 15 pounds by December 31, 2022 (an outcome goal). Get an AWS Cloud certification by December 31. Write 12 Medium articles by December 31, 2022 (action goal).

Example of unclear goals: Do more exercise. Lose weight. Be more productive at work.

Translate them into weekly & daily action steps and start making progress.

Let’s continue with our example.

To lose 15 pounds, you can divide 15 pounds into three months, which turns out to be about one pound weekly. Next, list the daily activities you will need to lose 5 pounds. Some of the everyday activities include -

• Drink one gallon of water daily
• Instead of eating a big meal, eat a small portion 4 to 6 times a day. Add protein and avoid carbs in your food.
• Exercise 5 days a week for 45 minutes each day. Combine cardio, strength and weight exercise.

Now go deeper and figure out how you will do these daily actions.

There are several strategies to apply when it comes to taking consistent action. The best one is to build a habit by taking action simultaneously every day. When you turn your efforts into habits, you get consistency.

Following is an example.

• I will buy a 1-gallon water bottle. I will fill it every morning and drink it by the end of the day.
• I will hire a meal planner who will provide a daily meal plan.
• I will only eat out once a week.
• I will make a weekly workout plan on Sunday. Will combine cardio, strength and weight exercise. Exercise days will be Monday — Friday.
• I will log my weight daily in the morning.

You see, by breaking your goals into action items, you will get tremendous clarity on what you have to do to get to the finish line.

Quarterly plans & goals will give you an immediate jump-start and energy.

Step 4: Connect the dots between your daily activities, quarterly plans and long-term vision.

By now, you are ahead of millions of people who have never reflected on where they are going or set a specific goal.

Now let’s connect the dots between your daily actions, quarterly planning and long-term objectives. You do this through weekly, monthly, and quarterly reviews. Through these activities, you can observe signals and progressively build your long-term vision, purpose and mission.

Quarterly planning

During the last week of every quarter, review steps 1 and 2.

Perform those exercises again to see where you are headed and how your life looks from various elevations. Do this for all areas of your life — work, family, friends, health, hobby, finance, spirituality, etc.

Then build a new quarterly plan using step 3.

Pick one or two areas for the next quarter and identify one or two goals in those selected areas. New goals could be the next iteration of previous accomplishments or an entirely new idea based on everything you know now.

The cycle restarts with new plans, goals, and action steps.

Monthly review

Last Sunday of every month, do a quick review of the prior month.

It’s a simple, effective way to close out the prior month and set intentions for the month ahead. It allows you to review the progress toward your goals. Did you accomplish your goals last month? Is there any adjustment needed?

Also, take note of the following signals.

• What gave me energy?
• What drained my energy?
• What should I have said no to?
• What could have been delegated?

Weekly review

A weekly review is a glue that sticks to your plan, action and outcome.

Without a weekly review, you will have an excellent start but will soon get distracted by other things. The weekly review allows you to switch between your high-level vision and day-to-day actions.

During your weekly review, you will evaluate what you intended to do and what you accomplished. You will also compare overall progress toward your goal.

Sample weekly review checklist for your goal of losing 15 pound

• Review how many days you were able to stick to your daily actions.
• Review what I have completed this past week
• Review your weight logs and see if you accomplish your weekly goal of losing one pound per week.
• Compare the weeks passed vs. the remaining weeks to know if you are on track to lose 15 pounds by December 31.
• Adjust your weekly goals depending on your remaining weight and weeks.
• Check what is coming up next week. Identify events that could impact your daily actions.

The weekly review will keep your plan up-to-date and current. It will help you understand what you can do daily and weekly to adjust your plan accordingly.

It is entirely okay to readjust your goals based on your findings. Remember that it is your goal, and you can adjust it as you wish. Just don’t abandon it because you did not take any action.

Download my free Quarterly Planning Workbook (Notion).

Please download and use it to pick your top 1 or 2 goals, outlining a strategy and action plan. This workbook will help you create specific goals and action plans and track them to the finish.

TL;DR — Summary

Instead of figuring out everything in your life, let’s figure out the next quarter and start taking action.

Your actions will create momentum, and you can use that momentum to figure out a deeper version of yourself. That’s how you can handle those existential questions which could freeze you from taking further action. The solution is to take action, create momentum and start moving in a direction regardless of whether it is your ultimate direction.

So pick one or two goals for your next quarter, translate them into weekly & daily action steps and start making progress.

Here is a quick summary of the steps.

1. Step 1: Use a forward-looking strategy to review where you will reach in one year, five years, and ten years if you continue to do what you are doing daily & weekly. Do this for all areas of your life — work, family, friends, health, hobby, finance, spirituality, etc.
2. Step 2: Elevate your view and look at your life from 6 horizons (heights).
3. Step 3: Pick one or two areas for the next quarter and identify one or two goals in those selected areas. Translate them into weekly & daily action steps and start making progress.
4. Step 4: Connect the dots between steps 1 to 3 through weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews. Through these activities, you can observe signals and continue building your long-term vision, purpose and mission.

I hope this article will encourage you to start exploring yourself and creating momentum in your life.

You can change your life one step at a time.

I promise you will achieve a lot more than you think. Trust me that you will be able to make tremendous progress during the last few weeks compared to whatever you have achieved in the entire year.

If you like this newsletter, I’m sure you’ll love my tweets. Please follow me on 👉 Twitter @AuthorVinod. I write about career growth, goal-setting, productivity apps & books.

Your friend
Vinod

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