The Potential Benefits of a Strategic Plan for Your Spiritual Development

Good morning, Happy Souls!

Are you feeling motivated this morning? I certainly hope so. I know that I am!

Are you delighted with your spiritual life?

Do you know what your spiritual objectives are?

Do you know how to reach your spiritual objectives?

Do you always feel in touch with your Creator?

If you answered "no" to any of these questions, this blog post may be helpful for you.

Few billionaires talk about their spirituality. This may be because of wanting to keep a sense of privacy. Or it may be because they don't focus much in this dimension. Or it may be that they have a poverty of spirit within them that keeps them from focusing on the spiritual.

If a billionaire wanted help with his or her spirituality, I'm certain that someone would be willing to help. But perhaps a person begging in the street wouldn't receive the same spiritual support from other people.

Where can you obtain the spiritual support you need?

Chances are that you haven't considered the question in detail before.

While most people cannot become billionaires, almost everyone can enjoy spiritual riches.

Let's look at how creating a strategic plan can help.

Many people pursue spirituality as a sort of reflex. They might be responding to a sense of feeling that something's missing, a problem . . . or a continuation of spiritual habits acquired years earlier. Be you can do a lot better than that.

1. Decide what you want to accomplish with your spirituality.

Reasonable people differ on this point. In my own case, I'm looking to live and act more like Jesus . . . and to be with God and Jesus after I die. While I'm alive, I also want the Holy Spirit to guide my pathway to do God's work and to praise God for all He has given me. In addition, I want to let my spiritual self transcend my material self in positive ways.

But without a goal, it's hard to develop your spirituality.

2. Read spiritual texts that explore your goals.

These texts may be Divine works, religious analyses, thoughts by moral leaders, or instruction in spiritual practices.

Depending on your goal, you will select different sources.

As a Christian, I find myself informed by the Bible, Biblical commentaries, written sermons and my experiences with my inner voice which is informed by the Holy Spirit. As a spiritual person, I also find myself informed by writings about other religions, work on the meditative practices of other religions and belief systems, and autobiographies of moral leaders.

3. Find commentaries that unexpectedly engage your interest by making the spiritual part of life easier to appreciate and engage.

The scientific community occasionally surprises me by learning something of spiritual significance. For instance, there have been scientific studies of prayer that show prayer affecting the physical world such as by helping healing. Or, as I will describe next Thursday, Dr. Emoto's work on the crystalline structure of ice shows that spoken and written words and thoughts influence the physical structure of our surroundings.

4. Develop a success model of what it means to you to be a spiritual person with your goals.

Think of this as a description of perfectly achieving your goals. In some religions or spiritual practices, this success model is spelled out. In other religions and spiritual practices, there is a role model. For Christians, our Lord Jesus provides such a role model. In other spiritual traditions, the success model has to be experienced first before it can be understood.

5. Identify the key tasks that you need to accomplish to meet your goals in terms of the success model.

In terms of Christianity, I think of the key tasks this way:

a. Praise God.
b. Share my beliefs with others.
c. Emulate Jesus in everything I do.
d. Ask God's forgiveness when I sin and reform myself to avoid the same sin in the future.
e. Pray for guidance and strength to do God's will.
f. Listen to the Holy Spirit.
g. Follow the 10 Commandments.
h. When in doubt about what's right, follow the Golden Rule.
i. Forgive others their errors.
j. Read the Bible daily.

As a spiritual person in general, I also see these tasks:

a. Strengthen my spirit through daily meditation.
b. Share what I learn about spiritual practices with those who can benefit from them.
c. Explore positive, new elements of my spiritual life.

6. Develop a plan for accomplishing those tasks.

We all know ourselves better than most other people do. You can build on that self knowledge to schedule every day so that you accomplish your spiritual tasks and avoid influences that would divert you from those tasks.

Part of that plan should be to deal with unexpected problems. By thinking about scenarios concerning what could come up, you will be in a better position to handle reverses that test you in difficult ways.

7. Keep track of how you do.

Keeping track lets you see where you are succeeding and where you are having problems. That's half the battle in improving.

8. Pay extra attention to those areas where you are not getting your key tasks accomplished.

Do some extra praying, more meditation and extra reading to find sources of influence to help you do those tasks.

9. Have a spiritual mentor with whom you can talk over the plan and your progress in implementing it.

Making these commitments to others will strengthen your desire to do them. You'll also have other people who can help you find ways to reach closer to your spiritual ideal. In the process, you'll also meet some delightful people!

10. Review and revise your strategic plan at least once a year.

As you grow spiritually, your concept of what you want to accomplish and how to do it will grow. Delight in that progress that your strategic plan has helped you achieve!

Can any billionaire do better? I don't think so!

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N.B. As you can tell, I'm experimenting with color. Let me know what you like and what I should change about my use of color. Many thanks to Linda Grace for her suggestions which I am following!

Please let me know what else you would like to learn, and I'll do my best to help in future blog entries.

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Check out the latest index at http://livebetterthanabillionaireon5dollars.blogspot.com/2005/10/latest-table-of-contents-to-this-blogs.html to pick out your choice.

Thank you to my many friends, students, clients and blog readers who are spreading the good word about this blog.

If you are visiting today because someone invited you, I'm delighted to meet you! Let's stay in touch.

Remember to also visit

Be More Successful than a Billionaire at http://bemoresuccessfulthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/,

Enjoy Mansions Better than a Billionaire at http://enjoymansionsbetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/,

Enjoy Football Better than a Billionaire at http://enjoyfootballbetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/ and

Be a World Hero Better than a Billionaire at http://beaworldherobetterthanabillionaire.blogspot.com/.

I am available to you as a speaker on these subjects. You can find my background at http://livebetterthanabillionaireon5dollars.blogspot.com/2005_08_30_livebetterthanabillionaireon5dollars_archive.html/.

May God bless you.

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2005 Donald W. Mitchell