The first time I was bitten by the “entrepreneurial” bug was in 1998. I can still remember the moment vividly to this day. My co-worker Rob Davis had been casually trying to get me involved with a Multi-level Marketing company called Excel Communications, and I wouldn’t have anything to do with it. After many unsuccessful weeks, Rob walked up to my cubical and said, “Brian, some people earn $20,000 per year, and other people earn $20,000,000.” I responded, “Uh, yeah, some people are just rich Rob.” The he replied, “That’s true, but the guy earning $20,000 and the guy earning $20,000,000 both have the exact same 24 hours in a day.” He walked off without saying another word.
I just couldn’t shake that thought out of my head. It was actually driving me a little crazy to be honest. And so I set out on a journey to uncover why one person could earn so little while another could earn so much, when I arrived at a very simple logical conclusion – they are just doing different things to earn money.
In my search to discover what I could do differently to earn more money, I kept running across people with a plan for their life. Now, I’ve had many plans since college. I’ve seen many small successes, and a few major failures since then, but I still believe in the power of plans.
Having recently decided to rework my life plan, I began searching for software to assist in the process. I found Goalscape, and it’s one of the most impressive pieces of software that I’ve ever used! (And I’m a technology junkie) Goalscape‘s elegant interface makes creating, managing, changing, manipulating, adding/deleting/moving goals, etc. extremely simple and very intuitive. In many ways it reminds me of my iPhone or an iPad in the sense that it responds exactly as you naturally think it would, making it a no-brainer to use. And the icing on the cake in my opinion? You can track the progress towards your goals as well! (Notice the gray shaded areas in My 2yr Plan above)
Now, don’t make too much fun of My 2yr Plan. A person’s personal goals are just that, personal goals. In fact, you should feel very special that I’m giving you a glimpse! 
It’s a work in progress, so if you have any ideas for me please leave a comment below.
Wow, that’s quite impressive. I’ve been thinking about my own 2 yr/5 yr Plans for a while, but up to now I have not really done anything about it. So I’ve downloaded the trial and started work!
It’s quite hard as it forces you to really think about your goals, but it’s definitely worthwhile and has given me some good ideas. i read somewhere (was it in Eat That Frog?) that people who have written goals are “5 to 20 times as effective as those who do not”. Goalscape seems to be a really good way to collect my thoughts, build a proper structure and start making actual plans.
I have shown it to my wife – so I have already amended some of my priorities!
Awesome Brian! I won’t make fun of it at all and only skimmed it. It’s the fact that you are putting work into that matters.
A friend got me started a couple years ago with a very similar breakdown, but a 6 year plan. I’ll have to check out this software you found though, looks pretty slick.
The tough part, for me at least, is the discipline of constantly reviewing it (reading it aloud regularly). Accountability helps too of course. And breaking it down into shorter term pieces that support the longer term.
Oh, and this is Paul R. Icky_Thump has just become my standard forums ID.