I didn’t plan to wind up here. How can I take back control of my life?

Imagine you are building a house based solely on whim and what attracts your eye day to day. With no blueprint to follow, you’d likely wind up with three swimming pools, a Jacuzzi, and no bathrooms.

Re-building your life is every bit as challenging as building a house. Your time is limited. Your energy is finite. Only your responsibilities — financial, parental, life management, and decision-making — have likely doubled. There’s one of you to manage and balance the running of your home, paying bills, growing your kids…and then there’s companionship, a social life. How do you fit it all in?

You need a plan — a blueprint to follow that shows you how to move from here — this moment as you sit reading this FAQ — to there — the life you want to be living. Writing a personal plan is much like what successful corporations do to propel themselves forward. An effective plan includes the following elements:

• Situation analysis (taking a deep look at where you’re starting from)
• Values (reconnecting with what’s most important to you)
• Vision (painting a picture of your ideal situation)
• Goals (breaking down your vision into milestones)
• Strengths and Barriers Analysis (maximizing resources and circumventing obstacles)
• Action Plan (a practical, concrete roadmap)
• Accountability (how to ensure you implement your plan)
• Motivation (how to regain it when you’ve lost it)

Having a plan with manageable goals will allow you to take back control of your life, to make deliberate decisions, and to create the life you want.

Roberta Lachman and Julie Grass are partners in The Momentum Group. They work with individuals to set goals and create effective plans to reach them. Distinguished as “outstanding instructors”, they teach their proprietary Personal Strategic Planning method at UCLA Extension.