How to Write your Future Plan (9 Steps with Templates)

I remember when I was in high school when writing a future plan was introduced. I had a lot of fun making my future plan and got me wondering where I really want to be in life. Truth be told, writing your future plan is one of the most important skills you need to develop. If you want a bright future ahead, then you should know how to plan your future. But if you are just here to finish your assignment, then I still got you covered. I have listed 9 easy steps for you to make your future plan.

Here are the steps on how do you write your future plan.

1. Have a Quiet Time and Reflect
2. Write Down your Goals and Dreams
3. Write Down Where Do You See Yourself in the Future
4. Write Down How Are You Going To Achieve These Goals
5. Identify Your Ultimate Goal
6. Write and Explain Your Ultimate Goal As Your Introduction
7. Write Down Your Other Goals on the Next Paragraphs
8. Conclude Your Goals at the End
9. Proofread To Check for Mistakes

If you are not a student, then it doesn’t matter. As I said, planning for your future is one of the most important skills you need to get in order to achieve big.

Truth is, my future plan when I was in High school was actually different from what I am right now. Is it better? I don’t know. I just know that we change.

But the future plan I’ve developed when I was in my quarter-life crisis became the most important thing I did to change my life. Without the future plan, I’ve made that day, you won’t be in here to read this article. So here, I am going to teach you how to write an effective future plan.

Just follow these steps and I promise you that after you make your future plan, you will have a deeper understanding of yourself. By doing this, you can plan for a successful future.

1. Have a Quiet Time and Reflect

The first step in writing your future plan is to first find a quiet place and do self-reflection. Our absolute goal in doing self-reflection is to be focused on knowing what we really want to achieve. This boosts not just the quality of work, but will also save us time.

Before starting to write your future plan, it is recommended to have a quiet time. The reason for having a quiet time is to have a focus on self-reflection.

Writing our future plan means that we are asking ourselves what we really want to do in the future. To do that, we first need enough quiet time and concentration to really ask ourselves what we want to do.

The reason is simple.

We need absolute focus in order for us to know all the things we need.

That means removing all distractions. Put your phone into silent or airplane mode. Have a quiet time by yourself.

It seems weird when I ask you to do this. But I promise you that by doing that, you will finish your future planning not just better, but also faster.

It is a big time saver and productivity booster.

The perfect time to write your future plan is to be in a self-reflection state or mode. If you are wondering how can you do that, then the simplest thing is to eliminate all distractions.

It will be hard to explain all of the steps to do it in this article, so here is another article where I discussed how can we do self-reflection. Here is the link: How to Develop your Self-Reflection Practice

2. Write Down Your Goals and Dreams

You need to write down all of the goals and dreams you can think of on a piece of paper, notebook, or on a computer. The reason is that we need to figure out all of our goals and dreams when we are writing a future plan.

Now, if you’ve followed step 1 and now have absolute focus, the remaining steps will be very easy.

The reason for this is that in order for us to write down all of our goals, we need to be focused on our tasks.

Aim to have 5 or more goals. The more, the longer your future plan would be.

We will be using all of these goals later.

Ask yourself, what are your dreams and goals in life. This is important as your future plan will greatly depend on your dreams.

It is close to impossible to write down a future plan if we don’t know where we want to go, and the where we want to go part is our goals and dreams.

3. Write Down Where Do You See Yourself in the Future

Write down where do you see yourself in the future. It can be where you want to be 5, 10, or even 15 years from now. In this step, imagination really helps and if you are following since step 1, this will also be a very easy step.

Writing down where you see yourself in the future is an important step to writing your future goals. You can’t write your future goals if you don’t know where do you really want to go. Thus, this step is important.

For some, because they’ve already set their goals and dreams, it is very easy to write this down. For example, if your goal is to be a lawyer, then you will see in the future that you are already a lawyer.

If your goal and dream is to be a writer, then you may see yourself in the future as someone writing in a quiet room.

In short, you may use the goals and dreams you’ve figured out in step 2 in order to find out where do you see yourself in the future.

Furthermore, if you have too many goals, this is where you’re going to see conflict in your goals. If that happens, find out what can you do to prevent conflict in your goals.

This is better because you’re going to find it out before even writing your future plan which is a lot harder to edit once you’re already done.

4. Write Down How Are You Going To Achieve These Goals

Write down what you would do to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself. In a future plan, you are also planning how are you going to achieve these goals and not just your goals. By doing this, it will be easier to write our goals into paragraphs in your future plan.

In future planning, it is important not just to know where you want to go, but also how are you going to reach that goal.

For example. If your goal is to be a doctor, then you’re going to plan it by going to medical school, then having an internship and residency.

We need to do this because we are going to include this in our future plan.

If you just want to make a future plan and you are not a student, you also need to do this step because we need to find out our plan to reach our goals.

5. Identify Your Ultimate Goal

The next step in making your future plan is to identify your ultimate goal. The importance of the ultimate goal is to find out what is the most important goal to you, or what is the product of all the goals you’ve listed. This will be important in the later steps.

If you are doing this because you just want to make a future plan, then this is the final step.

If you are a student, then do not stop because we are just halfway if you plan to submit your future plan essay to your teacher.

If you’re in the self-development journey, then this step is important because we need to find your ultimate reason.

What are the reasons for your goals? What is the ultimate reason? What is your ultimate goal?

Find that out.

For example, if my goal is this blog, then my ultimate goal is to make it first reach 500,000 views each month. That’s why one of my goals is to write 90 articles this quarter.

Your ultimate goal is very important as it will set the goals that are important to you and the goals that don’t need much attention as of now.

In this stage, you already have your goals, how to reach your goals, and your ultimate goals. Those are enough because you already know what you want to do in life.

If you want to really make an essay, then continue so. But this is the final step in the reflection phase.

For students, your ultimate goal is your first paragraph or your ultimate goal. That’s why I said that you also need this. Even if your goal is just to finish this essay, it is still needed.

6. Write and Explain Your Ultimate Goal As Your Introduction

Now that we have all that we need, it is time to write our future plan essay. Don’t worry since if you’ve followed everything until now, this will be extremely easy since I will give a template for you to follow.

It is very simple. Just follow this template in order for you to finish your first paragraph.

My name is (your name). I see myself (years) years into the future as (what is your ultimate goal) after achieving (state some of your goals). To achieve this, I plan to (state how you are going to achieve these goals).

Now, that’s a simple template of the first paragraph.

In the first paragraph, our goal is to actually let the person reading know about the main goal and how to reach that goal.

You need to be very concise and straight to the point in the first paragraph because we are going to explain further in the following paragraphs how we will achieve this goal.

7. Write Down Your Other Goals on the Next Paragraphs

After writing your first paragraph, it is time to write the next paragraphs. As I told you, we already have what it takes to finish it as easily as possible. That’s the reason why the first steps are very important.

In the following paragraphs, we are going to tell if we have a plan B, and we are also going to explain more about the goals we have that would eventually lead to our ultimate goal.

If you have a plan B, then use this template for paragraph 2.

I also want to achieve (your plan B). In order to achieve my other goal, I plan to (state how are you going to reach that goal). I know that I have all the capabilities to do this because (state your strengths or why you believe you can do it.)

If you don’t have a plan B and just want one ultimate goal and then use this template on all of the other goals you have that would lead to your ultimate goal.

One of my other goals is to (state your other goals). I plan to achieve them by (state how you plan to achieve them). The reason why I want to achieve this goal is because (state why you want this to happen in the future.)

Of course, this format is made for it to be easy. You can adjust the sentences to fit your personality. What’s important is that the information being asked for is included in your future plan. Furthermore, it is weird if all your paragraphs will follow the same format. Feel free to adjust some of it if needed since it would look more natural that way.

8. Conclude Your Goals at the End

The 2 most important parts of a future plan are the introduction and the last paragraph. In this paragraph, it is important to indicate that you are going to do your best to reach your goals.

It is important to indicate that you are dedicated and you want to finish this goal because this is the thing that you truly want to do in life.

It is also important to put your time frame and when are you planning to reach your goals.

Here is an example or template.

I am dedicated on doing everything I can for my future plans because these are my dreams. I will be able to do this after (when do you want to do this) since I know that (what are the reasons why you want to achieve your goal).

9. Proofread To Check for Mistakes

Now that you are done, it is important to check for grammar and spelling mistakes.

If you are still below the word count needed, then try to add more goals, or to explain more on how you are going to reach these goals.

One simple trick to easily check for mistakes is to read them aloud. The reason is that you can easily tell by reading if something is wrong with what you’ve written.

Proofread your future plan and then furnish the details. It’s now ready to be submitted and be proud of yourself for doing it yourself instead of copying others’ work.

Teachers know how to check for plagiarism. Trust me since I was a lecturer. I know how to check for plagiarism and if you just copied others’ work.

But if you did use the template and did your own twist, then it is impossible to see that as plagiarism since you have different goals and dreams from others.

What’s next? Save the steps or remember them. Bookmark this website or subscribe to my YouTube channel. Most of us are going to need to make another future plan in the future. Learn this skill and your likelihood to succeed in life will be better.