Be aware, be purposeful, be balanced

Unsurprisingly, a typical initial draft of my students’ 10-year Personal Development Plan (PDP) has the following top-two goals:

1. Become financially independent

2. Have a happy family life

As an ‘end-game’ these goals maybe somewhat sufficient but they fall well short of igniting action towards a successful life.

Building blocks of success

I often tell my students, what is granular is achievable.

We therefore, breakdown our life goals into seven main categories for improvement with at least three sub-categories each to focus on.

PDP workshop: Saud Masud, Vector Partners (Pvt.) Limited

When asked about the importance of each 10-year life goal in comparison with the current state, I often gather the following snapshot with a disproportionate emphasis on money and relationships.

PDP workshop: Saud Masud, Vector Partners (Pvt.) Limited

Each goal has a maximum achievability of 10 points and it also comes to no surprise that a vast majority of twenty-year olds, gradually tippy-toeing into reality, find themselves far off from their 10-year targets.

Now that the stage is set, I start asking the dreaded action-oriented and reality-based questions: how? why? what? where? who? when? which?

• You want to be financially independent in ten years, that’s admirable!

So how much income should you be making by year five and what job or businesses is affording you that income and based out of which city and what have to done to secure this job by acquiring what skills and networking with who and what are you willing to sacrifice for how long in terms of recreation and environment in order to achieve your financial goals?

• You want to have a happy family life, awesome!

Who would be part of your family in about ten years (wife, kids, parents, close relatives, pets, etc.) and where do you expect to find your family members (same house, city, country, etc.?) and how do you expect to strike a time, energy and finances balance between seeking financial independence and quality family time and what compromises would be short-term in nature (delaying having children, living with or without parents, forgoing travel and recreation to establish oneself financially, etc.).

The point is, achieving holistic success in life is terribly complex.

Success must first be defined. What constitutes a 10? Is it six-pack abs for health? A million dollars in savings for finances? Three international trips for family vacation for recreation? A farmhouse outside the city and a penthouse in the city for environment? Or are the goals more modest?

The next step is to quantify set goals. Is the 10-year goal, lets say, a 7/10 on each of the seven categories outlined above (49/70)? Is its 10/10 for two categories while a 4/10 is still acceptable across the remaining five (40/70)? Is it a 5/10 across all seven (35/70)? Or the perfectionist seeks only a 10/10 across all seven (70/70)?

Trade-offs exist

Regardless of how lives are planned and designed, lets not forget that we almost always give up one thing or other other to make any meaningful progress in one particular category of life goals.

For example, looking at divorce-to-marriage ratios in the western world, European Union and United States are at 44% and 46%, respectively. Worldwide, the global divorce rate has been on the rise for last several decades and it is largely due to incompatibility/growing apart (nearly half of divorces).

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