Living Forward Book Summary - Living Forward Book explained in key points

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Living Forward summary

Name: Living Forward
Rating: 4.5 (245 reviews)
Author: Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy

Michael Hyatt Daniel Harkavy

A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want

4.5 (245 ratings)

25 mins

Brief summary

Living Forward by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy offers a step-by-step guide for creating a life plan, allowing readers to prioritize their goals and live intentionally. This book provides valuable tools for achieving success and happiness in all areas of life.

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Table of Contents

Living Forward
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Learn how to prioritize what matters most so you can live your best life.

If you’re really being honest with yourself, how happy are you with the life you’re living? Are your relationships authentic and meaningful? Is your career going from strength to strength? Are you fit and healthy in body, mind, and spirit?

Or have some aspects of your life been sidelined and neglected?

If that’s the case, you might tell yourself it isn’t your fault. If life weren’t so hectic, you’d have time for that loved one, or that creative project, or that community cause that brings you a sense of fulfillment. You promise yourself that you’ll find time for the things that matter – soon. But demands never ease up, and that day never comes. Before you know it, your life doesn’t look anything like what you’d imagined.

The good news is, it doesn’t have to be this way. You have the potential to take control of your time and live the life you want. All you need is a pen, paper, and the commitment to create your own Life Plan.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why thinking about death is essential if you want to live well;
how to choose what to do this weekend; and
why you need to become a triage officer.

To take control of your life, you need a Life Plan.

Imagine you’re on a surfboard, out beyond the breaking waves. You’re enjoying the sun and the fresh sea breeze, patiently waiting for that perfect moment. But when you look back at the coastline, you realize you’re being carried away by a riptide. You paddle against the current, but it’s stronger than you and bears you out into the sea, far from where you want to be.

For many of us, that riptide is life.

By the time we hit forty or fifty, we find ourselves disoriented, exhausted, and adrift. We’re overworked, our health isn’t great, and our relationships have deteriorated. Life doesn’t look anything like what we previously imagined – and we have no idea how we’ve drifted so far off course.

The key message here is: To take control of your life, you need a Life Plan.

Your life circumstances play a major role in how far you drift away from your ideal life. You might not always have control over these circumstances. But you can control how you respond to them.

Maybe you already know this. You know that being overworked and living near a fast-food restaurant – your circumstances – doesn't mean you should regularly eat fast food. And yet, you consistently delay addressing your eating habits. You think, “I’ll stop eating fast food after this work deadline. I’m too stressed to change my diet now.” But once that project is done, you find another reason not to change your diet.

Other times, you might incorrectly assume that certain circumstances are beyond your control. You tell yourself you can’t help eating takeout every night because your boss pressures you to stay late, so you don’t have time to shop for groceries and cook at home. These kinds of thought patterns trick you into thinking that you can’t take control of your life. But that’s simply not true! You can regain ownership of how you live. All you need is a Life Plan.

Creating a Life Plan means taking responsibility for your life. It will help you proactively and intentionally make decisions that lead you in the direction you want to go. It will act as a reference point you can use to make sure you don’t get carried off by the current. And, importantly, it will empower you to stand up against those external influences that lure you away from the life you want to live.

Your Life Plan will help you identify your priorities, set goals, and create a strategy to actualize them.

A GPS is a great tool for helping you reach a new destination. What’s more, if you accidentally take a wrong turn, it’ll reroute your journey without judgment or criticism. Wouldn’t it be great if navigating through life were just as straightforward?

Unfortunately, life is far more complicated than just getting from point A to point B. Sometimes new roads appear out of nowhere. Or a tree unexpectedly falls down and blocks your path. In situations like these, you need to be paying attention to the changes around you so that you can reassess where you’re going – and how you’re going to get there. This is precisely where a Life Plan can help.

Your vision of your legacy will guide the design of your Life Plan.

To create a life plan, you must start at the end. The first question you will have to ask yourself is, What will my legacy be?

You might think legacy is restricted to important public figures like Martin Luther King Jr. or Abraham Lincoln. But this isn’t the case. Every individual leaves behind a legacy – and you will, too. Once your life has ended, your legacy is the way you’ll be remembered by the communities you’ve been a part of. In the context of your Life Plan, your legacy is your final destination.

Determine your priorities by evaluating your Life Accounts.

Fifty-two. That’s the number of Saturdays you get every year – not very many, if you think about it! And if you’re spending half of them racing around, consumed by busyness and preoccupied with stress? That means you have even less time to do what really matters.

Most of us spend a disturbingly large portion of our lives meeting other people’s expectations. It can be extremely difficult to cut through the noise of these demands and stick to our own priorities.

To fulfill your Life Plan, you need to commit to a clear course of action.

Life is a bit like running a cross-country race – without a map. You might have already figured out your ideal destination. But if you’re not completely clear on how to get there, you’re at risk of taking a wrong turn along the way.

Taking the wrong turn happens when you follow someone’s advice without questioning whether or not it aligns with your goals. Opportunities can also take you on a tangent. That work promotion might be tantalizing, but will it bring you closer to the life you’ve envisioned? To avoid detours that lead you away from your Life Plan, you must ask yourself the final Life Plan question: How will I get from where I am to the ending that I’ve imagined?

Dedicate a full day within the next two weeks to writing your Life Plan.

Picture yourself standing at the edge of a lake. You’ve just witnessed something extraordinary. A chest holding three million dollars has been dumped into the water, and it’s yours for the taking – if you can get to it.

There’s a rowboat at your disposal, but the chest will be too heavy to lift by yourself. You could call a friend and ask for help. But the current is dragging the chest away, and you’re at risk of losing it. What do you do?

To implement your Life Plan, you must take responsibility for how you spend your time.

In an episode of the TV show I Love Lucy, Lucy gets a job wrapping chocolates in a candy factory. But the chocolates come down the conveyor belt faster than she can wrap them. Worried she’ll get fired, Lucy frantically stuffs unwrapped chocolates into her clothes to hide them.

Life can often seem like Lucy’s conveyor belt. Demands bombard you faster than you can manage, making you feel forever behind and overwhelmed. If you’re like most people, you’re juggling family, social, and community demands on top of work. How on earth will you get everything done – and still have time to factor the Action Plans into your Life Plan?

Your Life Plan will only serve you if you put it into action.

Years ago, one of the authors, Michael Hyatt, was working at a fast-growing organization that needed a formal strategic plan. The company’s leaders went to a three-day retreat led by an external consultant. It was a huge success. After vibrant discussions, the attendees drew up a detailed plan complete with action points and accountabilities.

But after the retreat, no one consulted the plan. It just sat on every executive’s bookshelf, gathering dust. As a result, none of its amazing ideas were implemented the way they should have been – nor were they later adapted to suit a new set of circumstances.

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Key ideas in Living Forward

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What is Living Forward about?

Living Forward (2016) offers a solution to a realization many of us face: our life hasn’t turned out the way we’d hoped. When we don’t have a clear and relevant plan in place, our lives tend to get carried away on tangents and filled up with other people’s agendas. These blinks offer step-by-step instructions on how to create a Life Plan so you can regain control and get to where you really want to be.

Living Forward Review

Living Forward (2016) by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy is a practical guide to creating a life plan and living with purpose. Here's why this book is worth reading:

With its step-by-step approach and actionable frameworks, it empowers readers to take control of their lives and make intentional decisions.
Through personal anecdotes and relatable stories, the book brings the concepts to life and shows how they can be applied in real-life situations.
The authors' focus on personal fulfillment and overall life satisfaction makes this book a valuable resource for anyone looking to align their actions with their goals.

Best quote from Living Forward

The people who live and lead with the most joy and contentment are those who have clarity about their priorities.

—Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy

Who should read Living Forward?

Drifters who want to take control of their lives
Procrastinators who can’t work out where they want to go
Stress-heads who struggle with prioritizing personal goals

About the Author

Michael Hyatt, the former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, is the author of Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, a New York Times best seller. Every month, over 300,000 listeners download his podcast, This Is Your Life.

Daniel Harkavy is the founder of Building Champions, a company focused on helping corporate leaders achieve peak performance and profitability. He is the author of Becoming a Coaching Leader: The Proven Strategy for Building Your Own Team of Champions, which draws on his experiences as an executive coach.

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