Some of the most successful and happy people we know are food truck vendors who created a mobile food business that works perfectly with what they want out of life. If you do what you love, you’ll work harder and happier. Today we’ll explain what a life plan is and why prospective food truck vendors should develop one.
Elements Of AÂ Life Plan:
Your Current Life
Before you start your food truck business plan, a prospective vendor must think carefully and honestly about where you are in your life. Consider work, recreation, relationships, finances and anything else that’s important to you.
- Quality rating of your life on a scale of 1 through 100, with 100 being the best possible life
- Realities in your life, including responsibilities, funds available to start a food truck, expenses
- Things that make you happy
- Things that make you unhappy
Your Ideal Life
This area will be a snapshot of your ideal life, in a brief, bulleted list. Don’t be afraid of being bold. Factor in things like family time, hobbies, charity work, or retirement.
What You Like Doing
Think about the types of things that you enjoy. These could be at work, at home, or in your community. Don’t worry if some things have started being repeated in each section, that just means you have some focused ideas about what you want out of life.
What You Do Well
List the abilities, experience and strengths you can build on to attain your ideal life. Be sure these skills aren’t strictly from your professional life. List skills developed in your personal life as well.
What’s Your Experience
List your accomplishments in both professional and personal life that you’re most proud. Pay attention to successes you’ve had that would be helpful in starting a food truck and managing it successfully.
Your Ideal Work Style
Whether full-time or part-time, in an office or on the road, working behind the scenes or interacting with customers, you need to understand what your work style priorities are so you can determine if a food truck is the place for you.
Create A One Page Life Mission Statement
This is the time to write your personal mission statement that includes, your values and what drives you wrapped into a one page statement. To write this, you should draw on everything you’ve already discovered about yourself in steps 1 through 6 of your Life Plan, and bring it together into a clear mission statement of your principles and priorities.
RELATED:Â Creating Your Food Truck Mission Statement
Take Action
Now that you have these points in place you need to convert your Life Plan from self-assessment into action. At this point in life planning, you know where you want to go, what skills you have, as well as what type of work suits you best. Draw from that information a list of moves you’ll need to make to achieve your ideal life and determine if the life of a food truck owner fits in it.
RELATED:Â Is Owning A Food Truck Right For You?
The Bottom Line
Use your Life plan to provide context for both life and business decisions you make. Your Life plan will position you to do what you love and that will always bring out the best in you.
Have you written a Life plan? We’d like to know what you found from this exercise and how it helped you start your food truck. Share your ideas in the comment section, our food truck forum or social media. Facebook | Twitter
