If you’ve been reading this blog recently, a few foundational pieces of content have been shared that will help you drive greater clarity and intention – building towards an action oriented approach to gearing up your energy and achievement levels in your life.
The EAF is a six stage framework that you can use to flexibly arrange your intentions, energy, and actions across all 13 Dimensions of your life.
The initial stage is taking stock of where you are currently. You may be curled up in a ball, kneeling, standing tall, or totally clueless before you engage on this stage. There is likely a range of realities for you as you evaluate your position. Leaving this stage – you will have a HL (Happiness Level) score across all 13 DOLs, an assessment of your daily rituals, a better appreciation for the completeness of your personal vision and blueprint, and possibly some content to evaluate around your core values and strengths.
Once you have this baseline written down, and understood – the next step is aimed at writing down a vision statement, crafting a blueprint for your soul that can be summarized in 3-5 succinct statements about your future self, and a few dreams written down. Getting the word on paper (digital or analog it does not matter) as fueled by your inner voice – it may not be completed when you move onto the next stage, but for the level of completeness you’ve achieved – it is your truth.
The second step forward is getting really clear on your core values and grouping them into primary and secondary categories – along with being open to moving them around as you develop and things continue to evolve for you.
Now with this all in hand, you are set to truly take a fresh look at your next 12 months. It does NOT need to wait for the first of the year, the first of the next month, it doesn’t need to wait at all. You could start randomly in the middle of May if that is when you are ready to begin. The point has been made before, and it bears repeating again…
Just get started on it today, momentum is a force that is generally under appreciated by the masses.
Crafting A One Year Mission / OYM
So this third step – how do you truly get a One Year Mission in hand?
I recommend you establish an overall theme for yourself that can serve as a guiding force across all Dimensions of Your Life. The theme should not be an absolute statement of ‘I shall…’ rather it needs to be flexible enough to withstand tactical adjustments through the year as you learn more on your journey. The statement itself should address what it is you seek to accomplish both outwardly, inwardly, and in those zones that play both in terms of your inner game and outer game – such as your personal discipline as this spans your inner and outer conduct. Accomplishment is whatever you want it to be, it could be an increase in something or decrease in something or even continuing where you are at the moment. The best themes are succinct and memorable to the point that they are effectively a daily mantra for you.
Your one year mission will be much more compelling if you can readily tie it to your current vision, blueprint, and a dream or two. The one year mission is in essence a set of statements aimed at prioritizing your Dimensions of Life and the level of intention, energy, and action you’ll be pouring into them.
My first One Year Mission (OYM) that I crafted as part of this current version of the framework was time bound for the first six months, as I couldn’t forecast beyond 180 days. Turns out, the statement carried for the entire year just fine, and it fueled me forward in ways that I could not have predicted.
The OYM you’ve crafted will have a memorable theme and a handful (5 or less is ideal) of sentences that outlines your envisioned future 12 months out from the day you’ve drafted the thing. Be open to revisions as you go to refine the statement, not necessarily the spirit behind the statement.
If you don’t have a theme that is grabbing at your heart and getting you fired up – you likely need to spend some more thought and time on this.
Getting this clarity is worth taking the time, as you will outpace many around you – once you have this in hand.
Many today are meandering down a path previously given to them, and they are shuffling along. Those that come out of this stage with a clear(er?) picture of their future one year out are the steady ones that will make more progress towards their future than those following someone else’s set of choices, particularly those that are doing this ‘path following’ unconsciously and unintentionally.
Your One Year Mission will fuel you in ways that you cannot predict, as the written statements we are doing here in this framework do take on a life of their own. Things will open up for you, and you will have attracted all sorts of help in your endeavors by writing these things down.
Locking in on Your DOLs
The second piece of this stage is figuring out which of the 13 DOLs are yours to carry forward this year. You may find that a handful of the DOLs do not apply to your situation or stage in life – totally cool with me. You may find that you have a 14th DOL that I have yet to consider, and if you do – I’d love to hear from you. These 13 have been battle tested, and I believe everyone that is ‘of age’ should have a handle on each of the 13 DOLs in terms of where they are headed. If you want to cross out a few as not applicable, that’s cool too.
The point here is this – choose the DOLs that apply to you now and for the next 12 months. If you are unsure or unable to make the call on the inclusion/exclusion/addition of the 13 – start with the 13 DOLs, knowing that you can always modify later in time.
The Wrap
At the end of this stage you will have a theme for the year, a succinct set of statements aimed at supporting your theme, and a solidified set of DOLs that apply to you for the next 12 months. In the next stage, we begin to get plans and actions down on paper to start the journey on this 12 month theme and OYM.
The time spent on this stage is directly related to how clear you got in the preceding stages.
If you are exceptionally clear on where you stand today, on your overall vision, and your primary core values – this stage is about making choices based upon the knowledge you have already secured. If you are bit wobbly on the prior stages, crafting the OYM will serve as a safety valve to ensure you have this clarity. I have seen this stage trigger revisions of visions and of goal statements – as establishing a theme for the next 12 months is an incredibly grounding experience.
If you think this stage of the EAF is getting a bit more real, you will thoroughly enjoy the next stage where we get into very tangible actions that will begin to build stairs to your castles in the sky…
- Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany – under the pull of the moon.
