How many of you who are reading this enjoy planning? You don’t have to raise your hand, just kindly check off ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in your mind. I hope that most of you have checked off ‘yes,’ because, I certainly did. I love planning every project, every trip, every vacation or road trip must be planned. Why so, why do I so strongly believe that planning is something everyone must do before taking on an important action or project? The answer here is surprisingly a very simple one – planning helps us to make what initially seemed as a complex task into a very simple one.

Let’s take vacation planning as an example. How many of you plan your vacations? Ok, make another note in your mind. I plan my family’s vacations to the smallest detail, from transportation to food, lodging, entertainment, finances, etc. You may be thinking why go to the extreme? Why not just go and see what happens? Because, peace of mind and mine and and my family members’ happiness is very important to me. The last thing that I want is to find myself trying to do is figure out the logistics during the vacation, which often causes frustration, confusion, unhappiness for everyone involved in the absence of a clear plan.

Take for example a family trip to a Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Many people would find it a very complex and often anxious experience, especially when you are traveling with little kids. I have personally observed several families with kids having a very difficult time, being upset, disappointed, and frustrated while at Disney World. Why? I would say that the biggest reason would have to be the lack of planning before the trip. However, when you plan everything out well in advance, know where you are going, the attractions you want to see, rides you want to ride, reserve fast passes to the rides and shows that you absolutely must see and experience, purchase meals well in advance, securing transportation and lodging, then the entire Disney experience will be very enjoyable for the entire family. So, that is why I view planning as a very important key to a success and happiness for all involved.

By the way, planning does not only apply to vacations, it applies to virtually all aspects of our personal and professional lives. When you are assigned a large project at work, the very first step that one should take is to break down this project into smaller sub projects, and then create a plan of action – how will you tackle each sub project along the entire timeline to ensure that complete product is delivered before the deadline, while meeting and often exceeding quality controls and expectations set by the business. Remove planning out of the equation and you are stuck with big unknown, with a challenge that you do not know where to begin in handling, or if you can even complete it before the requested due date. This creates unnecessary stress and pressure placed on our shoulders. So, why not planned it out and tackle the task or project in smaller, much more manageable chunks?

I would challenge you to look at each task, project, or event as a planner. Have a plan clearly outlined listing step-by-step action items to be completed over time without preestablished guidelines or requirements should they be present in your specific situation. Write down you detailed plan on a paper, and if you choose not to user paper and pen, then have it typed up on a pc/tablet/phone, where you can easily access it at any time. Remember, if you are working on a project for your employer and you happened to run into an obstacle or a roadblock along your project journey, be sure to raise your concerns to the appropriate individual(s) proactively, especially if/when you are at risk of missing a deadline. Do not wait until the very end, as it may be a very difficult and often impossible to address any of the concerns near or at the ‘finish line.’

So, if you have previously viewed planning as a non-important or unnecessary task, hopefully you now see how important the process of planning is in all aspects of our lives and will begin viewing planning as necessity and part of everything you do in your personal and professional lives.​

​ hope you enjoyed reading this module as much as I enjoyed writing it, and hope that you found it to be very useful for you or someone else that you may know. Please feel free to share this post if you know someone who may benefit from reading it same way you did

Most of us strive for bigger, better, and more luxurious or prestigious things throughout the course of our life, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with wanting the best for yourself, your family and your friends. For example, one would much rather stay in luxurious 5-star hotel vs. a 2-star one, because, he or she would like to have access to a multitude of amenities that may be available in a 5-star hotel, better location, closer to all entertainment, restaurants, etc. However, could we have as much fun with your family staying in a 2-star hotel? Absolutely. It’s all how we look at each experience and our priorities and values. When the most important thing to us is being with people that we love and care about, and going on various adventures together, then it really does not matter whether we stay in a luxury hotel, motel, or somewhere else. Why? Because, our attention is fully absorbed by our significant other and/or our child(ren). We can absolutely make the best travel or vacation experience with those that we love and care bout if our priorities are aligned with our values.

It does not matter where we go with my family on vacation, or where we end up staying, we always make the best out of each and every situation no matter what. Sometimes, when we go to a big event and when all hotels are sold out around the venue, we end up staying few nights in a nearby motel, and guess what, we always have a wonderful experience together regardless where we are, because, our top priority is to have a great time together, so everything else comes second.

I often observe families have a very challenging time vacationing, because, either their plane was few minutes delayed, or Uber car was not as big as they were hoping for, or room at the hotel was on a lower level than expected, and so on. What’s often observed in such situations is unhappy travelers, frustrated parents, disappointed children. But why? Why ruin your days, week or month when frustration can be avoided by simply shifting our focus on what’s most important to us – people that we love and care about and doing everything that we can to make them happy.
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Now, I completely understand that we all have our own unique thoughts, opinions, and priorities in life. So, my goal with this article was to simply highlight one point that happiness can be found wherever we may be in life as long as we are surrounded by those that we love and care about, and remember that even small happy moments in life can make a big memorable difference

How many of you thought about giving up on your goals and dreams in life, or your lifetime passion and/or hobby, just because you did not see any progress whether you were hoping to monetize your hobby or attract people to support your vision and sharing your passion with them? I know I have. But then I reminded myself why following through on my goals and passion is important and what it means to me and my family. It’s easy to give up, and that is exactly what takes place whenever someone loses patience, gets discouraged due to lack of results or progress, loses motivation. But why? If it’s our lifetime passion, whatever it may be for you, that we are pursuing, it is something that we deeply care about, there should be nothing that could stop us from following through on our goals, dreams, and live our life with unbreakable determination of reaching that what we set to accomplish. Isn’t that is what we love to do? Isn’t that is what we care about? I would assume that the answer here is a strong “Yes.’ So, let’s not forget that regardless how slow the progress may be, how many challenges or problems we may have to face along the way, regardless what other people are telling us of what we can or cannot do, trying to discourage us, we know what we want to accomplish in our life, we know the lifestyle we want to create for ourselves and for those that we love and care about. So, let’s get after it. At the end of the day our passion, our hobby, is what we have created in our mind and we know how it would make us feel once we accomplish it. We must believe in ourselves, motivate ourselves, and never give up on our passion and our dreams.

Even if you are far from being great at what you love to do, for example, being a writer or blogger, keep working on it, keep honing your skill, keep learning, because, every day we get more experienced and more knowledgeable. So, keep learning and exploring something new daily, and eventually everything will align just like you had envisioned it in its ideal state.​

How often do you stop and appreciate everything and everyone that is present in your life today? I know that in my case, I can certainly do a much better job at this than I have done thus far. So often we get carried away by the routine that we all live in, that we simply forget to pause and recognize everyone who is present in our life today, to appreciate their presence, their support, and their genuine love. Often, we take it for granted. Many of us, myself included, often take our present for granted and not making time to really appreciate and to think the universe for everyone who is by our side and have been by our side for many years. But why? Why not pause our extremely busy life for just few minutes and do just that? Why not send our thanks and appreciation back to the universe showing how thankful we are for having people that we love in our love? Why not share our thoughts with those that we love and care about every day, letting them know how happy we are for having them in our life? Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to this question. What I do know is that very often we wake up and realize that people that we cared very deeply about and loved are no longer there for us to tell them in-person how much we cared about them. So, why wait until it is tool late? No reason at all. It does not take much effort or time to show our love and appreciation to those whom we love and care about. If we are not doing this today, if we are not making time, then we simply creating excuses for our own lack of action in making a first step in approaching those that we love and letting them know how much we care and appreciate them. You never know how much the display of genuine care and appreciation may mean to the other person, whether it is your spouse, husband, parent, child, grandparent, or your close friend. Perhaps that’s what they’ve been waiting for all their life. Perhaps that is what they need to keep moving forward in life and fight through any roadblocks or challenges that they may be dealing with in their own life today. You never know. If you never take the first step and reach out to them, you may never find out until it’s too late. So, don’t wait for a better time, don’t put it off for another day, do it today, do it now, especially if people that you love and care about are right by your side, and if not, if you are separated by a long distance, then pick up a phone and give them a call, as they may be sitting by their phone right now waiting for your call. If you have an ability to drive or fly and go see your loved ones in-person, then do so. It’s not going to require much effort on your part, but it will mean a world to another person, probably more then you can possibly imagine.

One of the biggest regrets that I have is not making more time, creating more opportunities to go and see my grandparents in-person on the regular basis while they were still alive. I kept on telling myself that I can always to do so later, whether it was next day, week or month, putting my visits away for another time, because, either I was too busy or did not have financial resources available. Well, now I have one out of four grandparents alive, you bet that I make every effort to go and see him in-person every week or at the minimum every other week. I can tell you will very strong level of confidence that there’s nothing that puts a bigger smile on my grandfather’s face than seeing his grand-grand children come visiting him and spending some time with them. How much move can I ask for then seeing him and my children happy.

Many of us have people in our lives whom we care about and love, so can we say that we spend time with them regularly or at a minimum call them on the regular basis? If not, then we really should think about our present and our past and do some deep searching inside of us, asking us one question – “Why not”” I vividly remember a scene from the movie – ‘Home Alone’ – where child had asked his neighbor, why doesn’t he speak with his son? Why doesn’t he give him a call? To which neighbor replied that he believes that his son does not want to speak with him, because, of long-standing disagreement they have had with him, which also kept him from spending time with his granddaughter that he loved very much. Only after the neighbor got enough courage to call his son, he realized that such simple step was the barrier between him and his son, him and his granddaughter, one phone call was a solution to a longstanding disagreement and/or misunderstanding.
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Earlier example is exactly how many of us create barriers in our own mind that may not even exist or may be completely irrelevant. So, let’s remove those barriers in our own mind, let’s overcome any hesitations and our own egos and make a genuine effort to reach out to those around us, those whom we love and care about today, letting them know how much we care about them and live the life free of regrets about our past, present, or future. We only live once, so why waste our time living in anger, misunderstandings, disagreements, or “what if.” Be happy, be thankful for everyone that you have in your life today, and don’t waste precious time living surrounded by walls built by our own doubts and fears anchored in our mind.