A Practical Guide for Planning Designed for Catholic Men - Part 1
Over
the years, we've posted suggestions about planning for your
business from a Catholic perspective. The
reason I post them now is so that your plan will be pretty much completed by
Thanksgiving, at the latest by year end. This way you'll have your plan in place when the New Year
begins.
(Note: As you'll see below, what we'd like to do is get our plans in sync with the Liturgical Calendar, i.e., the Church's year. The Church's Liturgical Calendar begins the first Sunday of Advent - this year, the Sunday after Thanksgiving.)
You may want to take some extra time reading what follows. And have a paper and pen handy so you can just write things down. You'll see why once we get started.
I'm sure you all know that, if you're serious about your work, you've got to plan your business. Now, since our focus is Catholic men at work, we're going to talk about how we Catholic men can plan our business life - in fact our whole lives - so that we're always acting consistently with our beliefs. We're looking for a seamless approach.
Don't worry. This won't be complicated, although you'll have to devote some time and energy to it. We'll keep this simple by borrowing two basic tools from the treasury of Holy Mother Church: the four cardinal virtues and the liturgical calendar.
Question: why the liturgical calendar? Answer: it gets you in sync with the Church Year. Your everyday life, including your business life, will function seamlessly with your faith. Plus there's a practical benefit. By having your goals and your business plan in order at the start of the liturgical year, you'll be ahead of the game. You'll be ready when the New Year rolls around to hit the ground running.
(As already pointed out, the liturgical begins the First Sunday of Advent.)
So let's get to work. Start by writing down your important goals.
While setting goals - business or personal - isn't unique to Catholics, I think it's particularly important to us. You'll never keep God at the center of your busy day unless you make the effort to keep Him there. Planning is the best way I know to do this effectively and consistently. When you plan well, you're less subject to the immediate and urgent things that attack us throughout the work day because your priorities are clear and you focus on important matters first and foremost. While you'll always need to deal with emergencies and some urgent matters on a practical level, the distraction and anxiety caused by these will be reduced. You'll be more in control and therefore more likely to work productively and - this is important - peacefully. Working this way leaves more space for God.
An effective plan is based upon clear written goals. Clear goals can be stated in a sentence or two and are written down. Note the written down. If you don't write your goals down, they practically don't exist. That's why we'll start with writing down our goals.
My suggestion is to have four important goals. Why? Just trial and error. It works for me. Maybe two or three are right for you. In any case, I'd have more than one, not more than four.
Now let's recognize right off the bat that all of us Catholics share one overriding goal: get to Heaven. So you can't use that as one of your four goals. We all have that one. And everything we do in setting our four (or whatever) important goals will serve this one, fundamental, most important goal. Clear? OK, let's get to work. Let's write down our four important goals.
Important point: you're looking for long-term goals here. Long-term goals are goals that take, let's say, ten years to accomplish - not stuff like buying a new car. If you're not sure what's long-term, ask yourself something like, "What do I want to accomplish before I die."
A good way to start is by writing down every goal that seems important to you. When I did this a while back, I found it helpful to think of some categories like spiritual progress, family security, physical well-being, intellectual development.
Pray as you think and write.
Think in terms of the four cardinal virtues. Prudence and temperance are especially helpful here. Let your imagination run wild to get started; feel free to write whatever pops into your head; don't hold back. But once you've done that, you're going to have to winnow all those great ideas down into those important goals - the most important ones.
Suggestions on how to use prudence and temperance:
Prudence: an intellectual habit enabling us to see in any given juncture of human affairs what is virtuous and what is not, and how to come to the one and avoid the other. Shorter definition: right reason applied to practice (definitions from the Catholic Encyclopedia).
Use prudence to help you see through any goals that are selfish (e.g., make a boatload of money so I can drive a Porsche), vain (e.g., build my body so I look like a Greek god), etc. Get the picture?
Temperance: the righteous habit which makes a man govern his natural appetite for pleasures of the senses in accordance with the norm prescribed by reason. Temperance controls the yearning for pleasures and delights which most powerfully attract the human heart. Think: moderation.
So, for example, if you like wine and you want to pursue a life-long desire to become an expert (remember there's nothing wrong with eating great food and drinking great wine if you can afford it), be careful you don't become a drunk.
Once you get all those goals written down, edit your list and pick out the most important. If you use my categories, you might wind up with something like this:
Once you've got your two, three, four most important goals (again, four is a good practical limit), I find it helpful to pick a #1 Goal. It helps to do this, since you probably do have one that's most important and there are only so many hours in a day. So when it comes time to prioritize things, you'll know which comes first.
Next, you've got to know how and when you want to accomplish them. We'll get to that in our next installment. Meanwhile, block out some serious time to concentrate on this first phase of your planning.
(Note: As you'll see below, what we'd like to do is get our plans in sync with the Liturgical Calendar, i.e., the Church's year. The Church's Liturgical Calendar begins the first Sunday of Advent - this year, the Sunday after Thanksgiving.)
You may want to take some extra time reading what follows. And have a paper and pen handy so you can just write things down. You'll see why once we get started.
I'm sure you all know that, if you're serious about your work, you've got to plan your business. Now, since our focus is Catholic men at work, we're going to talk about how we Catholic men can plan our business life - in fact our whole lives - so that we're always acting consistently with our beliefs. We're looking for a seamless approach.
Don't worry. This won't be complicated, although you'll have to devote some time and energy to it. We'll keep this simple by borrowing two basic tools from the treasury of Holy Mother Church: the four cardinal virtues and the liturgical calendar.
Question: why the liturgical calendar? Answer: it gets you in sync with the Church Year. Your everyday life, including your business life, will function seamlessly with your faith. Plus there's a practical benefit. By having your goals and your business plan in order at the start of the liturgical year, you'll be ahead of the game. You'll be ready when the New Year rolls around to hit the ground running.
(As already pointed out, the liturgical begins the First Sunday of Advent.)
So let's get to work. Start by writing down your important goals.
While setting goals - business or personal - isn't unique to Catholics, I think it's particularly important to us. You'll never keep God at the center of your busy day unless you make the effort to keep Him there. Planning is the best way I know to do this effectively and consistently. When you plan well, you're less subject to the immediate and urgent things that attack us throughout the work day because your priorities are clear and you focus on important matters first and foremost. While you'll always need to deal with emergencies and some urgent matters on a practical level, the distraction and anxiety caused by these will be reduced. You'll be more in control and therefore more likely to work productively and - this is important - peacefully. Working this way leaves more space for God.
An effective plan is based upon clear written goals. Clear goals can be stated in a sentence or two and are written down. Note the written down. If you don't write your goals down, they practically don't exist. That's why we'll start with writing down our goals.
My suggestion is to have four important goals. Why? Just trial and error. It works for me. Maybe two or three are right for you. In any case, I'd have more than one, not more than four.
Now let's recognize right off the bat that all of us Catholics share one overriding goal: get to Heaven. So you can't use that as one of your four goals. We all have that one. And everything we do in setting our four (or whatever) important goals will serve this one, fundamental, most important goal. Clear? OK, let's get to work. Let's write down our four important goals.
Important point: you're looking for long-term goals here. Long-term goals are goals that take, let's say, ten years to accomplish - not stuff like buying a new car. If you're not sure what's long-term, ask yourself something like, "What do I want to accomplish before I die."
A good way to start is by writing down every goal that seems important to you. When I did this a while back, I found it helpful to think of some categories like spiritual progress, family security, physical well-being, intellectual development.
Pray as you think and write.
Think in terms of the four cardinal virtues. Prudence and temperance are especially helpful here. Let your imagination run wild to get started; feel free to write whatever pops into your head; don't hold back. But once you've done that, you're going to have to winnow all those great ideas down into those important goals - the most important ones.
Suggestions on how to use prudence and temperance:
Prudence: an intellectual habit enabling us to see in any given juncture of human affairs what is virtuous and what is not, and how to come to the one and avoid the other. Shorter definition: right reason applied to practice (definitions from the Catholic Encyclopedia).
Use prudence to help you see through any goals that are selfish (e.g., make a boatload of money so I can drive a Porsche), vain (e.g., build my body so I look like a Greek god), etc. Get the picture?
Temperance: the righteous habit which makes a man govern his natural appetite for pleasures of the senses in accordance with the norm prescribed by reason. Temperance controls the yearning for pleasures and delights which most powerfully attract the human heart. Think: moderation.
So, for example, if you like wine and you want to pursue a life-long desire to become an expert (remember there's nothing wrong with eating great food and drinking great wine if you can afford it), be careful you don't become a drunk.
Once you get all those goals written down, edit your list and pick out the most important. If you use my categories, you might wind up with something like this:
- Spritual: Be consistent with reading scripture, spiritual reading, meditation and getting to Mass every day, if at all possible.
- Physical: Get into shape so that I am treating my body like a temple of the Holy Spirit.
- Financial: Reduce or get out of debt; learn to live within my means.
Once you've got your two, three, four most important goals (again, four is a good practical limit), I find it helpful to pick a #1 Goal. It helps to do this, since you probably do have one that's most important and there are only so many hours in a day. So when it comes time to prioritize things, you'll know which comes first.
Next, you've got to know how and when you want to accomplish them. We'll get to that in our next installment. Meanwhile, block out some serious time to concentrate on this first phase of your planning.
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