Life strategy: What are you here for?
Strategy cometh before the budget
While churches follow the liturgical calendar, corporations also have seasons of predictable rhythms and rituals.
After the summer vacations wind up and the kids go back to school, many companies begin their annual strategic planning process. Then, as temperatures drop and the leaves change colors, the fall brings with it budget season: a joyous season (insert sarcasm) when all functions and business units advocate for their claim on limited resources.
There is a reason things happen in this order. The strategy must shape the investment priorities. The organization’s financial decisions must be in service to the company’s strategy.
If having a clear strategy is a critically important for well-run organizations, shouldn’t it be for individuals and families as well? Many people have budgets or new year’s resolutions, but these are insufficient on their own. These tools need to fit into a broader personal strategic plan.
Creating your life strategy
Borrowing from the principles of corporate strategy, I’ve attempted to articulate my personal life strategy using 6 steps.
Life Strategy Process
To make it more concrete, I’ll first explain the conceptual theory for each step and follow it with my own personal strategic plan as an example.
Disclaimer: I make no claim of a perfect approach here – just humbly sharing what has been helpful to me. I would love to hear what’s worked for you in the comment section.
Step 1: Mission
This is your reason for existence. It articulates the fundamental essence of what your life is focused on. You should write this with the goal that it can stand the test of time. Keep it short and pithy.
***
My mission statement: Love God, Love Family, & Make a Difference.
Step 2: Values
These are your attitudes and behaviors that will shape how you will get to your ultimate destination. Life is a journey, and how you move through it is often more important than what you accomplish. The end does not justify the means. Values tell you what behavior to celebrate, and what actions are out of bounds.
***
I’ve adopted 10 biblical values into my life strategy. Paul’s letter to the Galatians instructs on how to ‘walk by the Spirit’ and how to avoid the desires of the flesh. He writes that there are 9 fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22). Peter also provides guidance on the characteristics of the godly life. One of these is perseverance, which I’ve added as the 10th value in my life strategy (2 Peter 1:5-7).
Step 3: Strategic Aspirations
Next, it’s time to determine the 5-7 core macro aspirations (think “themes”) that define who you are as a person and what you want your life to be about. If someone else saw these, they would see what matters most to you and begin to understand what makes you different than other people. Collectively, these aspirations should capture most of where you devote your time, energy, and finances. They are likely lifelong pursuits - you never stop working on them on this side of heaven. When you reach the end of your life, these will be the lens through which you reflect on your earthly days. Remember, this is still the vision casting, so the strategic aspirations will be what you are aiming for, not precisely what each means or how you will achieve them (those come later).
***
For myself, I landed on 7 strategic aspirations, best communicated through a visual.
Strategic Aspirations
It may look simple but it took me years to land on this. Every single component has significance to me: the shape, the colors, and each individual word.
Let me highlight briefly how this strategic vision provides more individualized insight and clarity than might initially meet the eye.
“Live for Christ” - While there are 7 total aspirations, this one stands alone in its importance. This pursuit should be the core of everything I do, influencing and shaping all other facets of my life. Thus, the color scheme and the honeycomb shape which demonstrate the centrality of this aspiration and how all other strategic pursuits must be rooted in it.
“Tight Family” – The word ‘tight’ captures a vision my wife and I have for our family. You will hear frequently at our house, “We’re all on the same team”. To my sons I often say, “Boys stick together.” My hope is that, with God’s grace, we create bonds of exceptional strength that can be the source of great joy for decades to come.
“Close Friends” – While friendship is important to many, the word “close” is carefully chosen. I have no aspiration to have the most friends. A small number who know me deeply and will walk through all of life’s ups and downs is my perpetual hope.
“Great Fitness” – I’ve always been an active person and love sports. I want to be the guy in his 60s still playing pick-up basketball. Health is intrinsically important, but also a key enabler of everything else.
“Impactful Work” – In an earlier iteration, I focused on ‘career’. But I eventually realized that while my career will hopefully someday end (retirement), my work never will.
“Intentional Fun” – It may seem like this one doesn’t belong on the same level as the others. However, I need it here. I’m tempted to overly focus on the to-do list and ‘productive things’. I want to remind myself to carve out time for fun – and I know I must be intentional to ensure it happens.
“Continuous Learning” – I’ve always loved learning and find it vital to my intellectual health and overall happiness. It’s how I’m wired. I suspect that for many people this wouldn’t elevate to the importance of a strategic aspiration. This is a good example of how my strategy is mine. It wouldn’t work for everyone else – which is the point!
Step 4: Lifelong Imperatives
These are prongs that define what each strategic aspiration really means to you. They provide color commentary and dimensionality. The imperatives provide direction on how you want to live. Like the strategic aspirations, you can’t ever stop pushing on these dimensions. This makes them fundamentally different than goals (step 5), which by definition can be completed. Your lifelong imperatives will guide you until you meet your maker.
***
I have articulated 3 lifelong imperatives to further define each strategic aspiration. These give more specificity to my aspirations and help me stay grounded on the life I want to live.
The below graphic shows the combination of steps 1-4 and is my “strategy on a page”. This becomes a powerful tool that helps guide me through big life decisions and day-to-day tradeoffs.
My “strategy on a page”
Step 5: Goals
This is (finally!) where you define concrete goals that can be accomplished. I like the SMART framework, which recommends that goals be: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.
A friend of mine recently told me that he has decade goals, which inform annual goals, which in turn cascade into quarterly goals. I was impressed! This is undoubtedly the best practice but start with a version that works for you. There is lots of good advice out there on goal setting, so I won’t repeat the common points here (e.g. write them down, get an accountability system, etc.)
When I set my annual goals, I map each back to the strategic aspiration that it is intended to support. This helps me make sure the goal I’m contemplating is rooted in my strategic vision, and that I have active goals supporting each aspiration. If I’m not doing anything in pursuit of one pillar of the strategy, that is a warning sign!
***
Here is a subset of my 2024 goals to illustrate how I map them back to the strategic aspirations:
Regarding measurement, one tool I’ve used is a daily self-survey. For example, I’ll answer a 10 second survey at the end of each day on if I ate food after 8pm or went to bed by 10:30pm. That allows me to measure my actual success rate vs my target threshold.
Step 6: Tactics
They say that a goal without a plan is just a wish. Tactics are the day-to-day life hacks we utilize to achieve our goals. For example, block time on your calendar for family dinners. Or buy a gift card in advance to ensure you do that date night. How do you grease the wheels to help you stay on top of your goals?
***
One recent realization I had was that some goals/tactics have a multiplying force. For example, my goal to consistently go to bed at 10:30pm was inspired by research indicating that consistency in sleep times was important for health (not just quantity of hours). But I quickly found that doing so made it easier to avoid the late-night junk food that gets more tempting at 11:30pm. And going to bed earlier enabled waking up earlier and using the time to read the Bible. Buy one get two goals free!
Conclusion
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
I’m increasingly convinced that without articulating a personal life strategy and gripping it tightly, most people will move with the latest winds of modern culture and ultimately live someone else’s view of life. I don’t want that.
When is the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. The second-best time? Today.
If you haven’t yet created a personal life strategy, I highly recommend you begin the journey to craft one. The clarity it can provide is well worth the time investment.
With a strategic foundation now set, my next post will begin to explore financial goals. Like a good organization, household financial goals will need to be in sync with the overall strategic plan.
Postscript
It is important to me that each of my strategic aspirations is grounded in God’s Word. Below are some of my favorite verses related to my strategic pillars.
Live for Christ
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Matthew 22:37-39
Tight Family
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”
Ephesians 5:25
“Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6
Close Friends
“Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.”
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”
Proverbs 27:17
Great Fitness
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Impactful Work
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’“
Matthew 25:21
“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings.”
Proverbs 22:29
Intentional Fun
“So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 8:15
Continuous Learning
“Let the wise listen and add to their learning…The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Proverbs 1:5a, 7
“The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.”
Proverbs 18:15