The rock-pebble-sand-water-in-a-jar story of Dr. Stephen R. Covey (The seven habits of highly effective people) illustrates how a lack of planning can derail your life in significant ways.

The rocks represent the important things in your life such as your family, children, friends, work, or whatever you value in your life. The pebbles, sand, and water represent the less important yet necessary things you do on a regular basis such as commuting to work, running errands, answering emails, shopping, and so on.

If you do not plan your life, there’s a big chance that you will fail to put in all the big rocks in the jar of your life before everything else, so you will not be able to fit them all in. You will find in the end that your life, full as it is of endless tasks and activities, is empty because you failed to fit in important parts of it.

How much time do you spend thinking about the things you’re going to do one day? Do you initiate things in your life or do you just react? Do you feel that life is slipping by quicker than you would like? Have you ever experienced that restless, anxious feeling and weren’t sure what to do about it?

Planning your life helps achieve your purpose. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as it is something you want. Planning your life is all about finding out who you are as a person, what makes you tick, what your values are and what deeply satisfies your soul.

Of course there will be many things beyond us in life. Mapping out your future does not mean that things will happen this way. I am 100% sure that there is no chance that my life will turn out exactly the way I envision it to. And that is OK: the beauty of life is in the unexpected and unplanned events.

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