Iterating your personal plans

Iteration is the process of repeating something deliberately to improve whatever was created initially.  It's like giving it another try.  One could also see iteration as deliberate practice, i.e. doing something again and again in order to gain some kind of mastery.  It's like a directional spiral like this one that you may have seen if you have kids who like to play on playgrounds.

What is a personal plan? I just made up this word a while ago, but a personal plan is the system of actions, steps, or attitudes to be carried out, or cultured in order to bring about a desired outcome.  Personal plans aren't goals per se, though they may include them, but rather they way you will achieve a goal.  It's a series of measurable or at least trackable actions that can be taken on a daily or weekly basis, and this is all in service of achieving something that will take months or years to accomplish.  I haven't had much luck with things that are done on a monthly basis because it's just too easy to lose track of what you've done in a month.

One of the key success points is not only tracking parts of your plan is to review your plan regularly.  I currently have a recurring task in outlook to review my personal plan with a link to the plan (it's in a google doc) to pop up every other weekday.  This means that some weeks I get MWF and then the next week I get TTh.  I like this method.  I have an alarm associated with it so it pops up at a preset time where I tend to be less productive (around lunch time).  If I am in fact busy with other things I dismiss it, but the task itself shows in my list and when I get to my tasks for the day (or a day late if I'm quite busy) I open the task and then click the link and review the points on my plan.  I currently have 9 points.  Here are the kinds of questions I ask myself.

• Am I doing this?  
• Is it just the action that I've written down or am I really doing it wholeheartedly?
• Is this thing really contributing towards the goal of this whole plan?  (you gotta give it time though at least a couple of months)
• Is there a way to modify this that will make it more like that I'll do it?
• (If I'm not doing something) what is my belief the belief I'm choosing to hold that prevents me from doing this?

Sometimes I just read through them and ask myself the first question or two, but if I have time I do all of them.  When I make a change I copy the current version and then paste it (so all the past versions go down the page) and then I modify what I have.  Going back and looking at what I used to do is helpful.  Sometimes I look at what I'm doing and go back, or realize different ways of accomplishing one of my points that I had forgotten about.  The other thing I am doing is looking at how effective my plan is in terms of results on my moodscope scores or how many times behaviors or thoughts that I want to eliminate are showing up in my life.

So why iterate?  So often we set new years resolutions and drop them, or we start a new exercise program and it's too hard. Or we set ambitious goals and make a big part of them or all of it and then you're looking for the next thing.  Instead of just floating along, iterate.  Find the daily or weekly activities that really make you the person you want to be.  Find the principles on which they operate and then get that as part of your plan and iterate on it, see what works best for that.

Here's an example.  One of the things I've noticed makes an impact on my life is reading the scriptures.  What is the principle here though, is it simply reading? no it's being involved with and understanding God's will for me in my life, and how he deals with his children.  Do I get that just from reading? No not exactly.  One part is being consistent, and the other is spending time and getting into a state of flow, really getting into the word.  So now I have two separate parts to my plan on this.  One is being in there everyday, another is taking extended periods of time a few times a week.  

Have you ever iterated goals or plans? How has it worked for you?

Update: I've reread this post and it really lacks clarity and that certain something.  This post was something I've noticed in my life, but the actual personal plan I wanted to share was extremely personal. Yes I want to open up my inner life a lot more, but this would have been quite over the top in some cases.  Without the concreteness of my example this post isn't what it could be.
I would like to report however that I've updated my plan again after writing this post to explicitly include the principles/purposes of each point of my plan.