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234 Power Up Your Mind

for yourself if you are on your own at the moment.
Once a year—over a couple of weekends in the summer—we
invest time in looking back over the year, taking stock of where we
are, and planning forward for the coming months. As a result of
this, we produce a Family Life Plan. It has taken different forms for
the last five years, but it is essentially a map and set of instructions
for the next phase of our lives together. It is like a business plan in
that it describes what we want to do, but it is quite unlike any busi-
ness plan I have ever seen when it comes to its mode of expression
and the emphasis it places on values and feelings.
The process goes something like this. It has seven stages. I
have assumed that you will be sharing this with your partner, but it
might be possible for an individual to use these ideas to prompt dis-
cussions about their life with a close friend:

1. Set one whole weekend aside when you will not be disturbed by family or friends

2. Plan to do some of the things you most enjoy doing together and, while you are
doing these things, make lots of time to talk, listen, learn, feel, and think

3. Start by looking back over the highs and lows of the last year and taking stock

4.Talk about and agree where you currently think you want to get to in your lives and
what you need in order to do this that you do not currently have

5. Focus on what you want to do in the next twelve months

6. Focus on how you can do what you want to do in the next twelve months

7. Produce some kind of written or pictorial record of how and when you are going to
do what you have agreed that you want to do

Stage 1: Making space

It is really important that you invest time in this activity. If one of
you does not want to do it and is there under sufferance, it will not