How to Transform Your Life with A 3 Year Life Plan

May 15, 2022

Table of Contents

When life is busy, it’s easy to go with the flow and live without a clear plan.

However, doing so often leads to feeling stuck and living a life we never really choose.

If you want to live a life you will love to wake up to, you need to plan for it.

And this is where writing a 3-year life plan is a game-changer.

So many people spend more time planning their next vacation than reflecting on their life goals. Then, they wonder why they seem to get less from life than others and blame the Universe.

Don’t be one of them.

Writing a 3-year life plan will help you start living a fulfilling life aligned with your values.

Ready to get started?

Let’s dive in!

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Why Should You Write a 3-Year Life Plan

3 years is the perfect horizon to transform your life.

It’s enough time to profoundly change your life and create a better version of yourself while not giving yourself too much time.

Human beings struggle to represent their future self over a long period of time.

This is why it can be complicated to plan years in advance.

Creating a 3-year life plan is a great way to plan your future.

3 years is long enough to give up on your old habits, create a new you, change your perspective in life, and achieve success.

Short deadlines are far more motivating than extended deadlines.

Indeed, giving yourself too much time to achieve a goal usually leads to procrastination due to the lack of urgency.

This is why you will have to define milestones along your journey to keep yourself accountable and accomplish your long-term goals in 3 years.

How to Create Your Life Plan

Before writing your 3-year life plan, you need to define your ideal life and vision of success.

The representation of success varies greatly from one person to another.

Some people will link success to the amount of money they have in the bank.

Others will consider that reaching success implies launching a successful business or having a family.

We all find satisfaction and happiness in very different things.

Hence, you will first have to draw your vision of success to ensure you focus on the right things in the upcoming years.

Your 3-year life plan needs to outline all aspects of your life, from your career to health and money.

Keep in mind that you need to have a holistic approach when creating your plan and following the steps below.

Creating your ideal life is about more than having what you want; it is also about finding your purpose in life.

Now that we are clear on why you need a 3-year life plan, grab your favorite pen and notebook, pour yourself a cup of tea, and let’s get started!

Questions to Ask Yourself to Create Your Life Plan

To figure out what you want your life to look like, you need to ask yourself many questions, including :

What are your dreams?
What would you like to do for a living in 3 years?
Would you like to be self-employed?
What are your passions and talents?
Can you turn any of them into a career?
Where would you like to live?
Who would you like to be?
What would you like to accomplish?
What are your values?
How do you picture your future self?
What is your biggest life goal?
Why aren’t you there yet?
Who/What is holding you back?

You will have first to imagine your ideal life and then reflect on your past.

You need to be honest with yourself and reflect on your mistakes, why you made them, and what lessons you have learned from them.

This step of the process aims to picture your ideal life and compare it to your life at this exact moment.

This is your square one and your day one.

You need to own your life and design a life you will be excited to live.

This process will take time.

But it’s fine because remember; you have 3 entire years to get there.

Steps To Create Your 3-Year Life Plan

1. Make Yourself a Priority

This is a long process, and it is a very personal one.

Even if you’re married, have kids, or live with a partner, it’s essential to prioritize your own happiness and personal goals.

At first, this might feel selfish, but it’s not. In fact, it’s really the opposite.

Focusing on yourself is about making sure you love and care for yourself, live a life you’re happy with, and reach a place where you can truly give love and support to those around you.

You don’t have to neglect your loved ones, but you must understand that self-love is the foundation for being able to care for others.

You can’t live a fulfilling life or fully support your family if you haven’t made peace with yourself first.

That’s why it’s crucial to focus on your personal growth and goals—no matter your current situation.

Defining what you want to achieve as an individual is the first step. Once you’ve made progress toward your personal goals, you’ll have the clarity and energy to focus on what you want to achieve as a family or couple.

2. Define Your Goals and Deadlines

It’s now time to define your personal goals.

Think about all the things you want to accomplish.

You can look at the answers you wrote to the questions above and translate these ideas and visions into SMART goals.

As you probably know, SMART stands for:

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based goals:

Each dimension of the SMART framework is linked and creates a clear, carefully planned, and trackable goal.

When writing your 3-year life plan, setting goals can be a bit difficult.

You can get so many things done in 3 years that it is easy to get overwhelmed or super excited and set a trillion goals.

The easiest approach to defining your goals is to think backward:

Start by setting the goals you want to achieve in 3 years. For instance, being financially independent, owning a business, or being healthy and fit.
Think about how you can break them into yearly goals, such as developing 2 additional income streams, launching a website, or losing 30 lbs.
Break down these yearly goals into quarterly plans: open an Etsy shop, launch your first product, or lose 10 lbs.

90-day goals are my favorites because it is the perfect period to implement new habits and routines.

You can get so much done in 90 days.

It gives you enough time to make positive changes while not giving you too much time to procrastinate.

It is also much easier to track your progress with 90-day goals, making reassessing your plans super easy.

3. Define New Habits

After defining your goals, you can start thinking about the daily activities that will help you achieve them.

For each goal, think about the daily habits that will help you achieve it and write them down.

Writing things down is essential to focus your energy on your goals and plans.

Did you know that, according to CNBC, people who write their goals down on paper have 42% more chances of achieving them?

Yes, 42%!

If writing to-do lists and journaling is not part of your daily habits, you will have to give it some thought because this simple habit will increase your chances of success.

If you want to change your life and reach success, you need to start planning for it.

Related read: 11 mistakes to avoid to achieve goals

4. Stop Sabotaging Yourself

Defining new healthy habits is important to achieving your goals, but even though you stick to these new habits, you might still fail.

And there’s a pretty simple reason behind that failure.

Implementing new habits will not work if you are still following habits that are holding you back.

To increase your chances of success, you need to identify and break your bad habits.

It is important to replace negative habits with habits that support your goals.

But it is also essential to understand why you stuck to these bad habits in the first place.

Habits like procrastination, mindless scrolling on social media, and binge-watching Netflix always have hidden cues that you need to understand.

In most cases, people unconsciously follow these bad habits because they are unsatisfied with their lives, need a distraction, or are afraid to take action.

Understanding the cues of your bad habits and breaking the cycle is just as important as making new habits stick.

5. Create Powerful Routines

Now that you know what habits you need to implement and break, the next step is to create your new routines.

Several types of routines can help you achieve your goals.

Morning routines
Afternoon routines
Night routines
Sunday Routines
Weekly routines
Monthly routines
and so on

You get the point.

If you have been around for a while, you probably know how much I LOVE routines.

I believe the secrets behind one’s success can be found in the habits they follow daily.

When it comes to routines, the easiest way to get started is to define your daily routines based on the habits you want to implement to achieve your goals.

Writing your new routines down is also key to making sure you follow them until they become automatic.

To do so, you can use a paper planner, a printable habit tracker, or an app.

I personally love this To-do List app. It is super cute and user-friendly.

Related read: 8 Productive Things to Do Before 8 AM

6. Know the Power of Habit Stacking

Habit stacking is the art of implementing a new habit right after another, always in the same order, to fit it into a routine.

This simple process creates routines that are easy to stick to.

An example of a daily habit stacking is :

When I wake up:

I open the blinds to let natural light in (old habit)
Open the windows to get some fresh air (old habit)
Boil water to make tea (old habit)
Prepare breakfast (old habit)
Sit down and have breakfast (old habit)
Log my meal into Lifesum (new habit)
Write my to-do list for the day (old habit)
Journal for 15 minutes (new habit)
Do skincare (old habit)
Make bed (old habit)
Get dressed (old habit)
Do my hair and makeup (old habit)

The power of habit stacking is that doing the activities in the same order every day helps integrating new habits and making them stick.

7. Don’t Underestimate Mindset Shifts

To change your life, you need to change your mindset and beliefs.

This is where things can get complicated.

Many people fail to achieve their goals because they do not decide to change who they are.

They imagine changing what they do daily is what will change their mindset.

But this is not how it works.

To transform your life, you need to change your beliefs and your reactions to make your new habits stick.

This is what helped me lose 37 pounds.

I faked it until I made it and changed my perspective.

Thinking like a healthy person helped me become one

I asked myself, “What would a healthy person do?” every time I had to make a decision:

When to wake up
What to eat
What to do after a hard day at work
Etc.

Our brains are such powerful tools.

Fooling them can have incredible results, and this is why you need to change your mindset if you want to change your life.

8. Stay Motivated

Writing your goals down does help you stay motivated and focused.

Unfortunately, it might not be enough.

Staying motivated after a bad day/week/month at work can be challenging.

However, staying focused is key to ensuring you keep going and do not skip your new routines and fail to achieve goals.

It is easy to skip your new habits and return to square one.

This is what most people do because creating a new life is hard.

But living a life you hate is also hard. So choose your hard.

A few months of hard work can get you years ahead in life. This is why you need to add cues to your everyday life to trigger your motivation and keep going no matter what.

A lot of things can help you stay motivated. It can be, for instance:

Reading a personal growth book
Listening to an inspiring podcast
Watching a motivating TedTalk
Listening to upbeat music
Creating a vision board and setting it as your phone and desktop wallpapers
Creating Pinterest mood boards
Following on social media people who have already achieved the same goals
Finding FB communities around the same goals

No matter what you do to stay motivated, make sure you do something daily.

This simple tip will help you stay focused on your goals even when you don’t feel like it or when you forget why you started.

9. Track Your Progress

Tracking your progress is just as important as setting the right goals.

It will allow you to reflect on your journey, the progress you have made already, the things you still have to improve, and the things that are just not working for you.

This step is a big part of your overall success.

I used to skip it and, as a result, wasted years of my life wondering why I could not achieve my goals as planned.

The truth is that transforming your life will be a long process, and things will not always go as planned.

You can achieve some goals faster than you imagine, while others will take more time.

This is why, just as for habits, you need a tracker to ensure you progress as planned and, if that’s not the case, can highlight what’s slowing you down and make the necessary changes.

10. Reassess Your Plans if Needed

Another essential thing to remember when writing your 3-year life plan is that nothing is set in stone.

You will evolve a lot in the upcoming months and years. Hence, your version of the ideal life will evolve as well.

This is why reviewing your plans is also an important part of the process.

Don’t be scared to admit that things have changed.

If you realize that you want to achieve something different than you used to, simply acknowledge that and adapt your plan.

Doing so is essential to ensuring you do not get demotivated and simply give up.

If you feel like your plans need to be adapted because your vision of your dream life has changed, re-do a life audit to redefine your priorities and set new goals.

Final Thoughts

This whole process is about creating a life you will love.

You will evolve as you grow, so it is normal that your vision of life will also change.

Whatever the goals you define for yourself, stay focused, have a written plan, and work on them every day.

You will be surprised by all the hard work you can accomplish in just 3 years!

It all starts here. It all starts now with your 3-year life plan!