Living Forward

Have you ever stopped to realize that most people invest more time planning a one-week vacation than they do planning their lives? In Living Forward, Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy ask this uncomfortable but vital question. Their answer is a practical, empowering framework for reclaiming control of your life through something they call a Life Plan—a written document that helps you live with purpose, balance, and intention rather than drifting toward an unintended destination. The authors argue that success and fulfillment are not accidents; they result from conscious design, consistent action, and periodic realignment.

Hyatt, a former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, and Harkavy, an executive coach and founder of Building Champions, draw deeply from their own journeys—stories of corporate burnout, personal imbalance, and rediscovered meaning—to show how vital it is to move from reaction to intention. Their message is simple but profound: living forward begins when you stop drifting and start designing.

Why Life Planning Matters

The authors start with an observation many readers will find painfully familiar: life often feels as though it’s happening to us. Without realizing it, we drift from one season to another—caught in a tide of commitments, tasks, and expectations—and wake up one day unsure how we got here. They call this phenomenon the drift, and it’s the hidden enemy of fulfillment. It happens when we’re unaware, distracted, overwhelmed, or deceived—when we confuse busyness for progress.

A Life Plan is the antidote to the drift. It’s a structured yet deeply personal document, eight to fifteen pages long, that captures how you want to be remembered, what matters most, and what actions will move you toward the life you want. Unlike a financial plan or bucket list, it’s meant to be a living guide—reviewed weekly, updated quarterly, and rewritten yearly as you grow. In essence, it is a GPS for your life, constantly recalculating based on your choices and your reality.

The Central Questions

Hyatt and Harkavy center their process on three deceptively simple but powerful questions: 1) How do I want to be remembered? 2) What matters most? and 3) How can I get from where I am to where I want to be? These aren’t just philosophical prompts—they are the structural foundation of the Life Plan process. Each one leads you from awareness to action, beginning with clarifying your legacy, identifying your priorities (what the authors call your Life Accounts), and finally mapping the commitments and disciplines that will close the gap between intention and execution.

What makes these questions so transformative is how they invite ownership. You can’t outsource your answers. As Hyatt notes, “A Life Plan is created by you and for you.” Like Benjamin Franklin’s daily virtue chart—a 1700s version of intentional self-management—this process forces personal reflection and consistent recalibration.

What You’ll Learn from the Book

Throughout Living Forward, you’ll explore a sequence of insights designed to guide you from drift to design. You’ll start by acknowledging why so many people wander off course and the emotional, financial, and relational costs of doing so. You’ll then learn exactly what a Life Plan is, why it works, and what six life-altering benefits come from crafting one—including clarifying priorities, maintaining balance, and avoiding regret. From there, the authors walk you through the practical steps of writing your plan: designing your legacy, determining your priorities, charting your course through well-defined “Life Accounts,” and dedicating a full day to create your first plan.

But the book doesn’t stop at theory. Hyatt and Harkavy spend its second half showing how to implement, review, and renew your plan continuously so it doesn’t gather digital dust in your files. You’ll learn how to schedule your priorities using tools like the “Ideal Week,” say no gracefully to protect margin, and align your personal growth with your professional impact. The authors even illustrate how entire organizations like Chick-fil-A and Cornerstone Home Lending have adopted Life Planning to foster culture-wide well-being among employees.

Why It Matters Now

In a distracted, always-on culture where burnout is common and meaning feels scarce, Living Forward offers a countercultural blueprint for aligning your values, habits, and time with what truly matters. As Andy Stanley has famously said, “Everybody ends up somewhere in life—somewhere on purpose or somewhere by accident.” Hyatt and Harkavy give you the tools to end up somewhere on purpose.

By the end of the process, you won’t just have a document—you’ll have a compass. And more than that, you’ll have a rhythm for living that prioritizes progress over perfection. Whether you’re a CEO, a parent, or someone simply tired of running on autopilot, Living Forward invites you to pause, reflect, and choose intentionality before the undertaker—or time itself—makes the choice for you.

Before you can lead yourself forward, you must first recognize where you’ve lost control. Hyatt and Harkavy begin Living Forward with the metaphor of drift: the subtle, dangerous process of being pulled off course by life’s unseen currents. Like surfers caught in a riptide, many of us are tossed around by obligations, distractions, or false beliefs—certain we’re swimming hard when we’re actually moving further from shore.

The Four Causes of Drift

Drifting rarely feels dramatic at first. The authors identify four main causes:

• Unawareness: We simply don’t know what’s happening. Like a new surfer unfamiliar with coastal currents, we don’t realize which choices carry us away from shore.
• Distraction: Like Michael Hyatt on his snorkeling trip in Hawaii, we become so fascinated by our surroundings that we forget to look up and track where we’re going. Many people drown in busyness—not for lack of effort but for lack of focus.
• Overwhelm: We take on more than we can bear, convincing ourselves it’s temporary: “Once this quarter ends, I’ll slow down.” Yet temporary seasons become permanent lifestyles.
• Deception: We tell ourselves comforting lies: “It’s not that bad,” or “I can’t change.” Like the famous quote attributed to Henry Ford—“Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right”—our beliefs create self-fulfilling limits.

The High Cost of Drifting

Drifting seems harmless—until the consequences hit. The authors break these down into five escalating costs: confusion (losing sight of meaning), expense (wasting time and energy), lost opportunity (missing out on what matters most), pain (emotional and relational fallout), and regrets (the haunting “if onlys” that come too late). Each cost compounds the others, trapping us in a cycle of frustration.

“Life is not a dress rehearsal,” the authors remind us. “There are real consequences to getting it wrong.”

The Power of Awareness

Fortunately, the moment you notice the drift, you can fight back. Recognizing the current is half the battle; awareness creates agency. As Daniel Harkavy’s story about saving his friend from a riptide illustrates, the key isn’t to resist harder but to paddle smarter—away from the pull and toward deliberate direction. Awareness precedes planning, and planning precedes transformation.

This first step—acknowledging the drift—is a wake-up call that sets the tone for everything that follows in Living Forward. It invites you to stop reacting to life as if it happens to you and start acting as if you shape it. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to design your plan.

When Hyatt first heard about “Life Planning,” he pictured a thick corporate binder filled with charts and jargon. What he discovered instead was a surprisingly personal and concise tool—a written declaration of purpose, priorities, and actions. A Life Plan doesn’t resemble a business strategy; it’s more like a personal constitution that keeps you aligned with your values.

Defining the Life Plan

A Life Plan, the authors explain, is a short document—ideally under fifteen pages—crafted by and for you. It describes how you want to be remembered, articulates your most important priorities, and outlines the actions needed to align your present with your desired future. Importantly, it’s a living document, updated as your seasons and circumstances change. Like Franklin’s 13 virtues or the U.S. Constitution, its brevity hides its depth; it’s meant to guide reflection daily, not collect dust on a shelf.

Three Guiding Questions

At its heart, the Life Plan revolves around three core questions:

• How do I want to be remembered? – This frames your legacy and forces you to live with the end in mind.
• What matters most? – This helps you clarify your values and set priorities across what the authors call “Life Accounts.”
• How can I get from here to where I want to be? – This transforms reflection into strategy and strategy into habits.

These questions align with classic goal-setting methods (Stephen Covey’s “begin with the end in mind” and Peter Drucker’s management philosophy), but Hyatt and Harkavy make them deeply practical through applied examples from real coaching clients.

Life Planning as a GPS

The authors liken a Life Plan to a GPS—one that requires a clear destination, constant recalibration, and real-time feedback. Just as navigation apps reroute you when you veer off course, your written plan provides perspective when decisions get cloudy or circumstances shift. It’s not about predicting the future but about orienting yourself after every detour.

“Self-leadership always precedes team leadership,” they emphasize. “If you can’t lead your own life, you can’t lead others well.”

In short, creating a Life Plan isn’t about control—it’s about clarity. It turns vague hopes into actionable commitments and transforms reaction into direction. Once you have this compass, the next step is learning why it’s worth the effort.

Why bother writing a Life Plan at all? Hyatt and Harkavy dedicate an entire chapter to answering this, outlining six transformative benefits that ripple through every area of life. Their real-world stories—leaders balancing companies, families, and calling—demonstrate the profound impact of intentional living.

1. Clarifying Priorities

When Hyatt faced a professional crisis during the Great Recession, his Life Plan helped him make hard choices. Under pressure from investors to cancel a long-planned vacation, he confidently replied, “Work isn’t my whole life.” The plan reminded him that marriage and health mattered as much as profit. This clarity quiets internal conflict and external pressure.

2. Maintaining Balance

When Harkavy was a young leader, he mistook overwork for excellence. Only after ruining dinners with beeping pagers did he understand that success without balance is self-destruction. Balance, he teaches, isn’t about equal attention but appropriate attention. You allocate time in proportion to each domain’s current needs, keeping all of life’s “accounts” solvent.

3. Filtering Opportunities

Success increases opportunity, which often creates chaos. A Life Plan acts like a sieve, helping you say “no” to good things so you can say “yes” to the best things. With a plan, you don’t chase every open door; you choose the ones that align with your purpose.

4. Facing Reality

Without accountability, we drift into denial. The Life Plan forces honesty. Hyatt recalls losing his publishing business and initially blaming others until reflection revealed his own overextension. Facing current reality isn’t self-criticism—it’s the foundation of growth.

5. Envisioning the Future

The Life Plan triggers what the authors call “pull power.” By vividly visualizing a compelling future, you’re drawn toward it. Just as a surfer’s focus determines balance, your life follows your gaze. When you see your envisioned marriage, health, or career clearly, your behavior syncs to align with that image.

6. Avoiding Regrets

Perhaps most importantly, a Life Plan inoculates you against end-of-life regret. Drift leads to disappointment; intentionality leads to peace. Like Harkavy’s client who left a toxic company to protect his family, planning helps you choose environments and actions you’ll be proud of later.

Together, these six benefits build a persuasive case: Life Planning isn’t a luxury for executives—it’s survival for anyone who refuses to drift. It transforms chaos into confidence and regret into reward.

Hyatt and Harkavy challenge readers to perform one of the book’s most moving exercises: write your own eulogy. As morbid as it sounds, it’s a powerful way to frame what truly matters. Imagining what others would say if your life ended today forces you to confront the gap between your current reality and your desired legacy.

Begin at the End

In designing your legacy, you begin where your life will end. Like planning a road trip by choosing the destination first, this exercise clarifies how you want your story to conclude. The authors quote Psalm 90:12: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Facing mortality sharpens perspective, helping you live wisely now.

Crafting Legacy Statements

You do this by naming who you will leave an impact on—spouse, children, colleagues, community—and then describing specifically how you want to be remembered by each. Karen, a stay-at-home mom, envisions Gary recalling her unwavering friendship and attraction; Chad, a teacher, hopes his kids remember late-night conversations and intentional adventures. Legacy statements turn general hopes into relational goals you can live toward each day.

The Urgency of Legacy

The authors share stories like Daniel’s friend Mike, who used his last months battling cancer to pour gratitude and meaning into relationships he once took for granted. Facing death changes the clock speed of the heart. Hyatt and Harkavy urge readers not to wait for a crisis; instead, live your eulogy daily through priorities and presence.

“Leaving a legacy is inevitable,” they write. “Leaving the one you want is not.”

By consciously designing your legacy, you shift from being a passive participant in life’s story to its deliberate author. The exercise anchors every subsequent step: determining priorities, charting your course, and keeping your commitments.

To live intentionally, you must know which “accounts” make up your life’s balance sheet. Hyatt and Harkavy introduce the concept of Life Accounts—distinct areas of responsibility and passion that together form a complete life. Ignoring one risks bankrupting all.

The Three Circles

They organize Life Accounts into three concentric rings:

• Circle of Being – Accounts focused on your inner life: spiritual, intellectual, physical health.
• Circle of Relating – Accounts about relationships: spouse, children, friends, extended family.
• Circle of Doing – Accounts about output: work, finances, hobbies, or service.

Each account, like a financial one, can have a growing, steady, or declining balance. Your goal is positive net worth in every area—strong health, contentment, loving connection, sustainable finances.

Assessing Your Current Balance

The authors use a coaching tool called the Life Assessment Profile, measuring passion (how much you care) and progress (the results you see). Together they create four states: Drift (no passion or progress), Lift (passion without progress), Shift (progress without passion), and Gift (both thriving). The goal is Gift—where energy and results align.

Prioritizing What Matters Most

After creating accounts, you must prioritize them. The authors recommend putting your “being” accounts—especially health and spiritual growth—near the top. As they explain with an airline analogy, you cannot help others if you don’t first “secure your own oxygen mask.” Neglect of self-care undermines every other role.

Organizing your Life Accounts brings specificity and accountability to your plan. Instead of generic resolutions, you’ll have measurable arenas for growth—and a clearer sense of how one area affects another.

Once you know what’s important, you must make it actionable. “Charting the course” is where Living Forward becomes practical—a process for turning each Life Account into a concrete Action Plan with five key components: purpose, envisioned future, inspiring quote, current reality, and specific commitments.

Purpose and Vision

Each account begins with a purpose statement—a declaration of your responsibility. For example, Jon writes of his Health Account: “My purpose is to maintain and care for the temple God has given me.” Then comes the envisioned future, written in the present tense (“I am lean and strong, possessing vibrant health”). This linguistic shift—speaking future goals as current reality—activates belief and emotional commitment (a principle supported by psychologists like Gabriele Oettingen).

Current Reality and Commitments

Here, you face the truth of where you are before bridging the gap. Hyatt shares candid bullet points about lapses in strength training and late-night snacks. Then, using SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-bound), you set clear commitments: e.g., “Run four days a week,” or “Date my spouse weekly.” Small, specific actions compound into transformation.

The Power of Incremental Change

Drawing from Dr. Henry Cloud’s “ant farm” metaphor, the authors remind readers that success rarely comes from giant leaps; it comes from daily grains of effort. Whether paying off debt $200 at a time or improving a marriage through weekly lunches, incremental consistency builds monumental results.

Charting your course transforms good intentions into systems. It’s the difference between wishing and winning—between drifting and leading.

To create your Life Plan, you must do what few people ever do: pause long enough to listen. Hyatt and Harkavy insist you dedicate one full day to this process. Scheduling a Life Planning Day, they argue, can alter not only your trajectory but generations that follow.

Why One Day Matters

Like historic turning points—Independence Day, D-Day, or your wedding day—some days shape lifetimes. Piecemeal planning doesn’t work; it diffuses focus and emotion. A concentrated eight-hour retreat allows your heart and head to synchronize. Using the “law of diminishing intent,” they note that delayed action kills momentum; the window for transformation closes quickly if not seized.

Preparing for the Day

The authors outline five steps: block the date, go somewhere quiet, bring simple tools (paper, laptop, snacks), disconnect fully from tech, and alert family or colleagues you’ll be unreachable. To optimize creativity, cultivate gratitude, anticipation, and openness. A thankful heart fuels insight; dread and perfectionism block it.

Executing the Day

Your goal at day’s end is a completed draft—five to fifteen pages including your eulogy, Life Accounts, and Action Plans. Listen to your heart as you write; notice what energizes or deflates you. Don’t chase perfection; chase authenticity. When the day ends, you’ll have a working compass instead of a wish list—a map for living forward.

“Anything worthwhile is opposed,” the authors warn. Resistance is inevitable, but it’s proof that what you’re doing matters.

Committing a single day to design your Life Plan may just become the most valuable 24 hours you ever invest.

A Life Plan only changes your life if you consistently apply it. Hyatt and Harkavy devote the book’s final section to turning inspiration into discipline. It’s about building margin, reviewing your plan regularly, and sustaining momentum through intentional rhythms.

Creating Margin

Hyatt compares modern life to Lucy in the chocolate factory—tasks come faster than we can wrap them. To regain sanity, you must triage your calendar (cancel or reschedule nonessential commitments), schedule your priorities (“put the big rocks in first”), and say no with grace using William Ury’s “Yes-No-Yes” formula: affirm the person, decline the request, offer an alternative.

Regular Review Cycles

Implementation depends on rhythm. The authors recommend reading your plan daily for the first ninety days, conducting a weekly review (to recalibrate tasks and priorities), a quarterly review (to adjust big-picture goals), and an annual deep dive (to rewrite your plan for the coming year). This creates what they call “working memory”—a living relationship with your commitments.

Spreading the Revolution

In the closing chapter, “Join the Revolution,” the authors highlight organizations integrating Life Planning for employees—from Chick-fil-A to credit unions—proving that intentional living enhances both productivity and joy. When self-leadership multiplies across a culture, companies become more humane and high-performing.

Ultimately, Living Forward ends with a moral challenge: choose your direction. Like the Himalayan story that closes the book, where a wise man tells a boy “the bird is as you choose it to be,” your life, too, “is as you choose it to be.” The plan is a mirror—it won’t move until you do.