Plan your life

I’ve attended so many seminars, read so many books on motivation and personal development, heard thousands of audio files and learned so many things, that it becomes impossible for me to share everything in a lifetime. But if I could condense my learnings into two vital life lessons, it would be these two:

I shouldn’t live my life automatically; I need to live my life skillfully.

I don’t just expect my marriage to work, and this is why I work on my marriage every day.

While business organizations pay a great deal of money for me to go to their corporate headquarters, and update and upgrade the skills of their leaders, many people fail to realize the importance of investing in life skills in order to improve their lot in life. And I know many marriages which are on the rocks, reminding me of a message I read once on a card: “While it is true that marriages are designed in heaven, the maintenance work has to be done on earth.” With these thoughts in mind, I ask myself, “How’s my life plan?” This may sound like a sales pitch from a pre-need company, but this is really valid.

How’s your life plan? Let me ask you:

Would you invest in a business that has no business plan?

Would you invest time in a seminar with a speaker or a trainer who doesn’t have a lesson plan?

Would you board a plane with a pilot who doesn’t know the destination?

Would you trust a coach who tells his players, “I just want all of you to get out there, give your best shot and wing it!”?

I don’t think you would.

Most people don’t do any planning for their life. They just improvise their way through it. You’ve heard it before, that “those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” But Scripture is even more precise: “…Those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness. All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:22 – 23, NIV). In God’s opinion, planning is good, and implementing it is essential!

Everybody should have a plan. Author Craig Groeschel said, “A farmer plans, or he wastes his soil and his seed. A sailor plans, or the wind decides where the boat will go (on the rocks, anyone?). A businessperson plans, or the competition will win every time. Moms plan, or families sit down to eat around an empty table.”

Do we simply amble through life letting circumstances, pressures and “necessities” become our driving force for living, like a paper cup rolling down the sidewalk blown by the breeze? We need to identify and prioritize important things, not just urgent ones.

I plan for the future. I don’t want to waste this gift of life that God has given me. So I plan for my family, on how to provide for them and how to teach them to plan for their own lives as well. I have my financial plan, health plan, self-improvement plans and what-I’ll-do-when-I-hit- old-age plans, so I can continuously become productive and be a blessing to others. Also, I already have my future funeral plan in place. But you know the best plan of all? To be serious in my relationship with God. Then all other things will follow.

Plan your life, and trust God who holds your future. He’s the same God who said that He has a plan for us, one that is for good and not for calamity.

So what’s your plan?

(Develop your leadership skills and spend two whole days with Francis Kong, as he facilitates the well-acclaimed Dr. John C. Maxwell Program “Developing The Leader Within You” on April 25-26 at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. For further inquiries, contact Lylee at 09175482876, or call 632-6310912 for details.) –Francis J. Kong (The Philippine Star)