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Just how are we going to pull this off? These are some grand dreams, aggressive goals, and this path is not for the faint of heart for sure. It is also a long slog. It’s more like a marathon than a sprint. So how do we think we’re going to get there?

Have a Plan and Be On That Plan

The first key to pulling this off is to have a plan and to be on that plan.  Without a plan, we would be left aimless to be blown by the wind. To pursue things that are not in line with our plan or our values. To live in the moment rather than invest for the future. To take an easier path when the going gets tough rather than to stay the course that will get us to our goals. 

Our plan, which has evolved over time, is what you’ll read about on this site. Hundreds (or even thousands) of hours of brainstorming, care, thought, prayer, and research has gone into where we’re headed and how we will get there.

Turn Your Dream Into a Plan

Our plans typically ask: 

1. Where do we want to end up (the dream)?
2. When do we want to get there?
3. What are the smaller steps necessary to get to there?
4. What digestible chunk of those steps, or changes, do we need to make this day/week/month to advance on our goals? 

For example, you don’t pay off $75,000 in debt overnight or without a plan. We laid out our “debt snowball” with a list of all of our debts, smallest to largest, and their minimum payments. We figured out how much money we could scrape together out of our budget to throw at the first one, what we could sell on Craigslist, and how quickly we could do it. We then applied that to the next one and so on. When we determined what our plan was, we could more easily see what sacrifices it would take and how long before we hit our goal. We knew that we wanted to get out of debt. We knew we wanted to do that before we had kids. We knew the steps involved paying our debts off one at a time through the debt snowball. We also knew that not eating out or buying that shiny new thing were the immediate actions we could take. 

Although doing something like taking a year off for a family adventure or saving for an early retirement seems huge and daunting, if we follow this formula, it becomes clear that it can be done.  That’s how we make our plan, but executing to that plan is also important.

How Do We Execute Our Plan?

Yes, but HOW?  We’ve covered a bit about WHY we plan, a little about HOW we plan, and have shared some tips on executing that plan.  Here are a few other tactical ways we stay on our plan in our family:

Take the First Bite

You know the old saying “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” It’s true, but sometimes that first bite is hard. You just need to take that first bite and then the rest becomes easier. Once you form a habit of taking a bite out each day, at some point you look up and are surprised to find a half-eaten elephant!

Get the Monkey Off Your Back

In our family, we recognize the weight of having a monkey on your back. We frequently ask ourselves, what’s your monkey? What’s the big nasty task that is weighing you down today? What’s that thing on your to-do list that you’re dreading? If you can take swift action to get the hard things done quickly, it frees your mind (and your time) to go do something else. We can ask this throughout the day to keep our daily goals on track. What’s the first bite of an elephant you can take right now? You’ll feel better when you get that monkey off your back and you’ll be one step closer to your goal. For more tips on this, read The ONE Thing by Gary Keller.

Family Meetings

Daily

The 5-minute meetup. Our rudder of the day. We meet as a couple first thing in the morning, just for 5 minutes, to ask each other what we’re facing, how our love tanks are doing, hug, and then move on to start our day. It gives us an opportunity to think through our priorities and tasks and also to offer assistance to each other to lighten the load. It allows us the opportunity to happen to our day rather than letting it happen to us.

Weekly

We have a more in-depth and longer family meeting every week where we talk about our calendar for the upcoming week. We’ve chosen to do it this often at this point, but monthly is probably where we will end up.

Monthly

We have a monthly meeting where we talk about our budget and talk about our progress toward our resolutions for the year. It doesn’t do any good to set goals on January 1^st and then never look at them again for a year.

Life Hacks

The Progress Journal

There are countless ways to journal and good reasons for this habit. The Progress Journal is one I’ve found particularly useful for, a number of reasons. This is a combination of a daily, weekly, and monthly tool.

Daily, it keeps your top 3 priority tasks front and center (on paper, on purpose, the night before your day begins). The journaling aspect can show you how much progress you’ve made and removes the “did I even get anything done today?” feeling we get sometimes. The gratitude section helps keep you thankful and puts your day in perspective.  There is a habit tracker for starting new habits or ending bad ones, which helps with accountability and gamifying (i.e. don’t break your streak).

Weekly, it asks how you’re trending toward your monthly goal so you can stay on track or pivot where necessary. It asks what you’re most proud of that week. It asks you to reflect on the obstacles or struggles you faced.

Monthly (a perfect amount of time for a sprint goal), it has a section for reflection on what went well over the last month, gives you a tracking section for your measurable goals, and has you start fresh on the next month’s goal. 

Annual – Couples Planning Retreat

This is a new habit for us (we are fresh off of our first one), but it was so valuable that this will definitely be part of our annual behavior going forward. Here’s a link to the free guide we used to get started. We may even need two of these a year! We set out for a weekend trip to plan our year. Our agenda included time to talk about the big areas of our lives and to dream big dreams. It’s where our plan for onFIREfamily was conceived and where the possibility of doing the Great Loop became real. 

Annual – New Year’s Resolutions

We have a family tradition that each year we gather to write our New Years Resolutions as a family on January 1st. My family did this when I was growing up and it’s exciting to share this tradition in my own family now. There are countless templates you can use for this. One year, I selected just one word as my focus for the entire year. Other times I’ve set SMART goals for 8 key areas of life (maybe I went a little too crazy on that one). However you decide when and how to set annual goals, do set a time to reflect and guide where you’re headed. We file them each year so it’s fun to see what we thought was important over the years. It’s clear to see how long-term planning like this has influenced our ability to dream big, plan, and execute those plans over the years.

So, how do we answer the question: “How do we stay on our plan?”

• First, have a plan to stay on!
• Second, take the first bite of that elephant.
• Third, get those monkeys off your back.
• Fourth, meet.  Often and with intention.
• Finally, employ some “life hacks” that work for you and your personality

Thank you for joining us to learn a little about how we are making our plans and executing to them. This looks brilliant and well thought out on a blog but that doesn’t reflect the several decades of missteps along the way. We’ve learned a few things about ourselves and what works and doesn’t work for us. You may glean an idea or two from these posts but planning and executing to get you to your dreams is a very personal process. Best of luck to you on your individual journey! Reach out if we can help. It’s worth it!