So far you’ve written out your lists of Career, Financial and Personal Goals. You’ve gone through each of them and refined them after giving each a more in-depth look. Now it’s time to move on to the next step and pull it all together.

Find those revised and refined pieces of paper. The ones I had you write out all your career, financial and personal goals on 3 sheets of paper and then I had you use them to refine each category. It’s now time to take those out again.

Take 5 new sheets of paper and divide them into 3 sections each. Label the sheets 1-month plan, 1-year plan, 3-year plan, 5-year plan and 10-year plan. Label the sections on each sheet Career Goals, Financial Goals and Personal Goals. Take the original 3 sheets of paper and put each goal listed on them on the appropriate sheet, in the appropriate section according to when you would like to accomplish them.

Once done, take each sheet and section by section prioritize each goal. For example, you may have decided you want children in your 5-year plan and you want to be established in your career. Decide which is more important to you and give it a higher rating. If you see anything that needs to be added, or removed, do it now. You want this to be the last time you have to revise for at least a month.

Once again, and for the last time, rewrite those 5 sheets with each goal listed according to priority. Everything should be clear and organized by this point. You should be able to look at them and clearly see where your priorities are for each and every category and time frame.

Next time I’ll walk you through what I think you should do with those 5 finely tuned pieces of paper. I’ll talk about how often you should review them, update and modify them. As tedious as this may have been the end is almost near and, by now, you should have a sense of accomplishment and a sense of direction.

[Photo Source: cjelli]