The One-Year Plan: Complete this Must-Haves Exercise

This is part of a four-post series detailing how to create—and make the most of—your business plan. Read other posts in the series and stay tuned for more: 

• The One-Year Plan: Determine Your Why Behind Your Must-Haves
• The One-Year Plan: Determine How Many Transactions You Need to Close

We’re going step-by-step on how to build a proper business plan. And yes, that includes life goals. 

As 1099 real estate professionals, we are now in control of all aspects of our lives. No one’s telling us when to work, how to work, or how much money we can make. We control all of that. And we also control our lives.

Your biggest vision and goal—your “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal,” or BHAG, as they say in the book, Good to Great, — is going to determine your one-year plan, which we’ll go through here. 

Likewise, your BHAG will determine your three-year plan and your long-term vision. Having a vision for your future and writing it down is just the beginning. But it’s a beginning relatively few people are willing to make.

Step-by-step, start to finish

Let’s start by going step-by-step through the making of your business plan. In this post, we’ll go through the must-have exercise—what you must have in your life.

This is the first step in organizing your goals and understanding what you need. By breaking down all the things you need, you set yourself up to know exactly what you need to make to support your goals.

The Must-Have Exercise

Part One of building your business and life plan is the must-haves exercise.

Take out a sheet of paper. When you write this out, it sinks in a lot deeper than when you type text into a digital spreadsheet. So, if possible, do this by hand.

On that sheet of paper, you’ll create three columns: 

• Must-haves – Everything you need to survive (bills, car payment, mortgage/rent, groceries, gas). You need to know the monthly cost of things you need just to get by.  
• Wants –  This is the longest list, including things like vacations you want to go on, new clothes, savings, investments, bucket list experiences, etc.
• Big Goals – One to three things (BHAGs): something so big, it feels far out of reach.

Once you’ve listed everything…

Once you’ve finished with these columns and you know the total cost of your “Must-Haves” list, go ahead and circle the things in your “Wants” column that you want to happen in the next twelve months. 

These things are going to happen. You’re going to commit to everything you’ve circled, along with everything in your Must-Haves list.

This is the first step—listing out everything you’re going to need money for here in the next 12 months. 

Stay tuned for my next post, where we’ll take a closer look at the why behind the things you put on your list—and why it’s important to you and your life.