I'm Jenna Rein. This is The Intern Hustle's YouTube channel and I show up
here every Monday to help college students flex their initiative muscle
and take control of their future. Today I'm doing something a little different.
I'm not giving away resume tips or teaching you how to create your elevator
pitch. Today I'm going to walk you through my life plan. The blog post that
I wrote about my life plan is by far the most popular content I put out to date.
It was even featured on Thrive Global and Arianna Huffington herself shared it
with her LinkedIn network. So I thought why not create a video about it and just
get even more vulnerable with you. Hey there! I'm Jenna Rein from theinternhustle.com
and this is Initiative Muscle Monday. Helping you to start each
week with an intentional step toward a successful future.
Let's do this! You may have noticed that I'm in a different location today. I'm
not filming from my typical setup in San Francisco. That's because I'm currently
sitting in an Airbnb in Columbus, Ohio.
This past weekend I attended the Summit
of Greatness. It's an annual event put on by entrepreneur, Lewis Howes. If you
haven't listened to his podcast the School of Greatness, I encourage you to
check it out after this video. I will link to it in the description below. And
if you are already a listener of the School of Greatness podcast, type GREATNESS
in the comments below. This is my second year attending summit and I was so
excited to go back. Last year I met some lifelong friends, and I even met my
boyfriend. And this year we were all back there together. And I brought my parents
along so that they could experience the energy of this event.
And there was
definitely a lot of energy this year. Speakers included Shaun T. (Yes the dancing
eight-pack of a man from the Insanity workout videos), Lindsey Stirling (the pop
violinist who dances and plays violin across the stage like a magical fairy),
and Eric Thomas (aka ET the hip hop preacher). And that's just to name a few.
Again this is my second year attending Summit and it did not disappoint. But
what was it that made me sign up for Summit of Greatness last year? And attend
it by myself? Well it all goes back to my life plan. I
know you're probably thinking what the heck is a life plan.
Yeah, I get it. I would be asking the same thing if I were in your shoes. I used to
be a person who had no idea what a life plan was, and frankly I had too much
going on to think that I should be wasting my time creating one. But then
life happened to me. And it kind of slapped me in the face Because you see that's what happens when you don't have a plan life happens to
you have no plan. And no I'm not saying that we're in control of everything that will happen
to us, but we are in control of how we react to the things that happen to us.
How we bounce back. How we charge ahead. And ultimately how we get back on track.
That's where a life plan comes into play. It keeps you focused and it keeps you
from drifting throughout life. So rewind to about 18 months ago. Spring
of 2017. I had just gone through a bad breakup. I was frustrated and suffering
from extreme burnout with work. And I was just in a straight-up funk. I was
drifting and it took all of these obstacles getting into an extreme state
for me to wake up from my drift. I was forced to reevaluate what I was doing
with my life. What was my bigger picture? And that's what I realized,
I didn't know what my bigger picture was. All along I thought I was doing the
right things. I'm an achiever and professionally speaking I was achieving.
I was reaching new milestone after new milestone and climbing that professional
ladder. And it wasn't until I drifted through all of those achievement
milestones, all the way to age 30, that I realized I had been overachieving in one
area of my life (career) and not paying any attention to the other areas of my
life (relationships, self-care, personal development). I had completely lost focus
of the bigger picture. I was navigating life from the wrong
altitude and it was limiting my ability to live my most fulfilling life.
Perspective was off. I was out of whack. And I hit some emotional lows. And that's
when I picked up a book that my parents got me a few years back. It had been
sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust, but something drew me to it.
The book is
Living Forward by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy, and in the book they
teach you the benefits of, and how to create, a life plan. Now I don't have the
book with me since I'm on the road, but I will post an image somewhere on this
screen and I'll link to in the description below. Now it was at the same
time that I started listening to more podcasts. One of which, the
School of Greatness with Lewis Howes. Both Living Forward and the School of Greatness
podcast really jump-started me, and that's why I'm sharing them with you
today. Both of them helped me get back into alignment with my life. Living
Forward helped me to design and maintain my life plan, and the School of Greatness
podcast presented me with an opportunity to learn from hundreds of virtual
mentors -- authors, professional athletes, motivational speakers, and entrepreneurs.
Now before I dive into more on both of these and how they helped to refocus my
future, I want to illustrate how being too hyper-focused on one area (like career)
can be detrimental to your future. And believe me, I get the irony in that
statement considering I run a business called The Intern Hustle. But that's exactly
why I created The Intern Hustle -- To help students act with intention now, so that
they can take control of their future later. Not to drift through college and
ultimately career letting life take control of them. Because I don't want you
to wake up at 30 like me and wonder what your bigger picture is. I want to share
the things that I had to learn the hard way so that hopefully you can avoid some
of them and start living out your bigger picture today. So think of it like this:
by age 30 I was super successful in one area of my life (career). I was making a
very comfortable six-figure income (and had been since age 25), I was living in
the beautiful city of San Francisco, and I had created a successful program and
built a team that I was proud of. But here's the but. The problem is, is that I
lost sight of the forest for the trees. Each professional goal or milestone was
a new tree that distracted me from looking across the forest at my bigger
picture. And again that bigger picture involved a lot more than just career. So
how can you start to get more intentional now and avoid the drift? Well,
let's start with Living Forward and the life planning exercise within it. What is
a life plan? Think about it, people create plans all the time. You wouldn't earn a
college degree without a set plan of coursework and credits. You wouldn't
think about launching a business without first creating some semblance of a
business plan. So why wander through life with no overarching plan. A life plan is
exactly what it sounds like -- you are charting out a course to guide you to
your ideal life. Authors Michael and Daniel call it an app
for your life. Now I like to say whether you decide to design it like Google Maps
or Waze is up to you. A life plan helps you address your
current realities and clarify your priorities. Sounds perfect for a college
student seeking purpose and direction with next steps in life, amirite? In the
book Living Forward there is a step by step template laid out for how you can
design your life plan. Ultimately you establish the areas of your life that
are important to you, determine their current condition, prioritize them,
state your envisioned future for each, and then outline the commitments that
will take you from current to future state. The authors encourage you to step
outside of your current environment to create this life plan, because by
eliminating distractions and giving yourself the space to think you're going to
get a lot more out of the exercise. So I did just that. Last year, after reading
the book, I took myself on a life planning retreat. I drove up to the
mountains and stayed at a cabin by myself. And I only socialized with the
locals at dinner time. Otherwise, I was heads down determined to create my life
plan. And create I did. I ended up typing up a 15-page document in Microsoft Word
on that first life planning retreat. And to my surprise, career ranked 8 out of 11
on my list of priorities. Say what? Say what? If you were to ask anyone close to me in
my life they would say that career would be 1 or 2 on my list. But 8?? And look,
obviously career is still important to me, I mean I launched my own business
just six months after creating that life plan. And building a business from the
ground up is no small career feat. However, what I learned about myself in
doing this life planning exercise is that there are other areas that are more
important to me. Areas that deserve more of my attention going forward. And by
paying more attention to them I am building myself up to show up in an even
more powerful way in my career going forward. So what was toward the top of my
life planning list? Faith, family, relationships, self-care and most
importantly self-development. The purpose statement that I wrote for my self
development section states: Always seek to learn and grow, step outside of my
comfort zone, and pursue opportunities that support where I find my joy. And
that's what leads me to attending the Summit of Greatness in 2017.
One day I just decided to buy a ticket. And attending the event by myself... was
that comfortable for me? No. I don't really love walking up to strangers and
introducing myself, and if I'm being honest, the energy at events like Summit
can be a little overwhelming at first. But at the same time, I knew that I would
get value out of the event and that I would grow. I wanted to experience my
favorite podcast in real life. Learn from the amazing speakers, and really force
myself to meet new people. Buying that ticket and taking myself to the event
was one of the best decisions I could have ever made. It opened my mind to see
new ideas, I made lifelong friends, and as I mentioned earlier I even met my
boyfriend. So as it turns out I incidentally checked some boxes in other
areas of my life plan as well. Amazing things happen when you get intentional
AND step outside of your comfort zone. So here's my call to action for you -- start
today. Start setting intentions for what you want out of your life. And if you're
looking for a place to start buy Living Forward and follow the life plan
template within it. I have since gone on to recommend or buy the book for many
people in my life and they all came away with great insights and pursuing new
intentions. Again, these are just a couple of the resources that helped stop my
drift and give me the jumpstart that I needed 18 months ago. I will link to both
the book, Living Forward, and the School of Greatness podcast in the description
below. And as I experience new resources that help me on my own journey, I'll
continue to share them with you too. Hopefully something within this video
resonated with you today. If it did I would love to hear your thoughts in the
comments below. And this is a different type of video than I've created in the
past, but if you liked it please give it a thumbs up and I will know to create
more like it in the future. This whole YouTube channel is an example of me
continuing to push outside of my comfort zone and put out content for an audience
that I'm not even sure is watching it. But if I can do this, you can do whatever
makes you uncomfortable too. So keep flexing that initiative muscle and
taking intentional steps toward a successful future.
I will be here cheering you on.