Sometime in the next eight weeks, you will be asked for a plan.
Priorities for 2027. Budget. Headcount. What you’ll deliver, and by when.
You’ll write it well. You always have.
Now think about the last time you wrote one for your own life.
What you want your days to hold. Who you want time for. What you’re building toward that no one is reviewing.
Many successful leaders have led organizations through planning cycles for decades without applying that same discipline to their own lives.
Not because they couldn’t. Because no one asked. Because the organization’s plan was always due first.
I spent forty years on the organization’s side of that table.
Organizations plan for a simple reason. They know what happens without one.
Without a plan, the calendar becomes the plan. Whatever arrives first gets the time. Whoever asks loudest gets the attention. The year ends busy, productive, and nobody’s choice.
You know this about every team you’ve led. It’s just as true for the leader.
So why hasn’t yours been written?
Because it feels like a luxury. Work has deadlines, owners, and reviewers. This has none.
Because it never feels urgent. Nothing breaks when it’s missing. That’s how Devitalization settles in: not through a crisis, but through years of full calendars that were never quite yours.
And because it feels like something for later, once things calm down. They won’t calm down on their own.
The first four editions of this newsletter asked you to notice. This one asks you to build.
A plan for your life has three parts. You already know how to write all three.
1. What matters most.
Not everything. The few things you would protect if your week lost half its hours.
A test: if this were gone a year from now, would you feel the loss? If not, it isn’t what matters most. It’s what’s loud.
If your list runs past five, keep cutting.
2. What you’ll stop.
A good organizational plan names what the organization will stop doing. Yours needs the same.
Stopping is the hard part, because planning usually adds. A new goal. A new commitment. A new thing to track.
Look for the standing meeting you attend out of habit. The yes you gave to be agreeable. The role you keep because you’ve always held it.
You don’t have to stop all of it. Choose one.
3. The next ninety days.
Not the next decade. One change small enough to fit inside a week you already have.
Ninety days is long enough to see a change and short enough to believe in it.
Write it as an action with a start date. Not “be more present.” Something like “leave the office by 5:30 on Thursdays, starting next week.”
That’s the foundation of your plan.
That clarity matters to the organization, too. When leaders are intentional about their priorities and commitments, they are better positioned to make thoughtful decisions, delegate effectively, and give their teams clear direction.
Once it exists, decisions get simpler. A new request arrives, and you have something to hold it against. Some become easier yeses. More become honest nos.
An example:
· What matters most to me right now is time with my family, my health, and the work I’m proudest of.
· One thing I’m ready to stop is answering email on Sunday nights.
· In the next ninety days, I will take a thirty-minute walk every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, beginning November 2.
Yours will look different. That’s the point.
Try it now. Set a timer for ten minutes and write three lines:
· What matters most to me right now is ______.
· One thing I’m ready to stop is ______.
· In the next ninety days, I will ______, starting ______.
Don’t polish it. A plan for your life doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to exist.
Notice which line came hardest. Start there next time.
Then put ninety minutes on your calendar before the year ends. Use that time to turn these priorities into commitments on your calendar and decide what needs to move to make room.
You’d give any team that much time. Give it to yourself.
If you’re willing, share your first line in the comments. One word is enough.
The full framework behind this, Reconnect, Rebuild, and Rise, is in my book, The Rise: Lead with Energy and Clarity for Maximum Impact, out November 17.
Keep Rising, My Friends! 💗
New editions of Beyond the Title come out on the first of each month.