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Weekend Reading: Use Strategic Thinking to Create the Life You Want

This article appears as part of Casey Weade's Weekend Reading for Retirees series. Every Friday, Casey highlights four hand-picked articles on trending retirement topics and delivers them straight to your email inbox. Get on the list here.
Weekend reading strategic thinking happy life Weekend reading strategic thinking happy life

Weekend Reading

Can the factors that lend to large corporation success also lead you to live a fulfilling life?

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Here, you’ll find an adapted model for strategic thinking used in organization planning to help you design a better future for yourself (spot the downloadable worksheet at the end). For a brief overview on necessary steps, they involve asking yourself fhe following:

📌 How do I define a great life? Identify what constitutes a great life for yourself. The PERMA-V model (Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievement, and Vitality) can be leveraged to assess various dimensions of your happiness.

📌 What is my life purpose? Assess your strengths, values, passions and the societal needs you can have an impact on.

📌 What is my life vision? Who do you want to become in the future and how do you want others to remember you when you’re gone?

📌 How do I assess my life portfolio? You have 168 hours in a week. Find out if you’re allocating your time in a way that mirrors your values by categorizing your daily activities, then evaluating the satisfaction derived from each area (reference the article chart).

📌 What can I learn from benchmarks? Identify role models in your personal and professional life, explore what aspects of them motivate you and use their experiences as learning opportunities.

📌 How can I ensure a successful, sustained life change? Set objectives and key results (OKRs) for each change commitment, break down objectives into actionable steps and shift as needed.

You’ll have to put in the work and do some deep reflection if you truly want to enhance the meaning and purpose you experience in life, but when years are numbered and there’s no guarantees, what’s stopping you from starting now?