It is the end of the year and time to think about “plans for next year” (also called “new year’s resolutions”).   I’m still formulating my “strategy for 2013”, and I have some progress worth sharing.

One powerful way to think about “design for the next year of your life” is to apply the fundamentals of design.  Those fundamentals apply to design of anything, including your life.   The first two design fundamentals are “direction” and “focus” for the design.

The concept is straightforward:  the design direction sets the general context (as in “something to sit on”) and the focus defines a more specific set of desired characteristics (“a chair for my living room”).   Being clear about direction and focus allow me to organize thoughts and actions in effective ways.   There are other fundamental aspects of design that I may write about at some other time.

This post was prompted by reading Peter Bergman’s post: Consider not setting goals in 2013.   He proposes a similar approach:  picking the right focus matters usually more than “goals”, since “goals” can cause people to take shortcuts, and in business can cause unethical behavior “to make the numbers”.  Another thing that happens is people pick “easy goals” and don’t really stretch themselves to improve and create the best possible future.

Picking the right directions for next year may seem like a challenging task, particularly if you don’t have a clear sense of purpose for life.    To help you with this process,  I’ll share one technique of the many that I have used.

A powerful way to think about your direction for the next year is to first visualize the future you want to have in your older age (for example, at age 70), then work backward to what is needed to get there.   This visualization must start with survival:   how will you be doing financially?  emotionally? physically?     If you can first get a good image of what you want for survival, you can add other aspects of a good life, like living in a nice house.   If thinking about your desired life at age 70 is too scary, pick 10 years from now.

I periodically do the exercise described below to ensure my direction is “on track”.   It is a meditation, and use of Hemisync Music can be helpful to maintain focus.   If you are new to meditation, check on the web, there are many resources available.

From within the meditative state, I first relax, then imagine looking a calendar to pick a date in the future on which I will focus.  Recently, I’ve been using the date of my 70th birthday as a target.  I then broaden my view and notice what I see and feel.   How is my body doing?   How clear is my thinking?  As I breath deeper, I can get a better sense of this desired future.

Now if you mind goes to worrisome images (death, disability, end of the world, or poverty), let those thoughts go and use a mantra to get your mind back on a positive thought.  My current mantra for this is “my loving, curiosity and joy are creating an abundant world where I survive and live a good life”.  Repeating this phrase in my mind helps to banish the negative thoughts and enable me to focus on the positive future that I want to create.

From within the meditative state, answer these questions:  How much money will you be making?  How much will you have saved?  How healthy will you be?   What kind of relationships and friendships will you have?   What career accomplishments will you have?   What kinds of fun will you have had along the way?

Then the hard questions:  what direction and focus do I need now to get to that future?  Are there specific actions or directions I need to take in the next year?  Are there specific actions to take this week?

I often journal the resulting thoughts as a way of helping me make this vision of the future into a more complete and real picture that I can focus on creating.

I’ve found the above process to be very helpful in discovering the directions that I need to take.  Please share your experiences in the comments.