The 4 Stages Of Life Planning

I’ve been talking a lot about creating a life plan these last few weeks… and I’ve received many questions from parents/caregivers on this topic.

It’s clear that there’s a question almost all parents and caregivers have on their minds, and it is: “Where do I start?!!!”

This is a fundamental question because if you start in the wrong place, you’ll quickly feel stuck or like you’re at a dead end.

I don’t want that to happen to you, so I’ve created a Life Planning Model with 4 key stages for you to focus on. These 4 stages have been super helpful for the over 500 families I’ve helped create a better life for their loved ones.

Discover the 4 Key Stages in the Life Planning Model in this short explainer video I made for you. (There is also a written transcript below for accessibility)

Register for the Life Plan Workshop here: https://www.empoweringability.org/workshop/

Written Article/ Transcript:

What is the biggest struggle you’re having when it comes to helping your loved one live in adult life? This is the question I’ve been asking families. And I’ve got an overwhelming response back, hundreds of responses, almost 500 responses, actually. And some common themes are coming out. But there’s clearly one most popular response that parents and caregivers are sharing to this question. I’m going to spill the beans here. The number one reply is, “where do I start?” There are so many places where you could start. It could be, you know, do I start with independence? Do I start with getting supports in place? Do I start with finances or trusts or creating a home? There’s just so so many starting places, it can become overwhelming! Where do we start? How do we get started? This is what I help families with, and I’ve helped hundreds and hundreds of families get started in my role as a family coach, and I also lean on my experience as a family member.

So I want to help you get started. Okay, so we’ve got an upcoming free workshop to help you start life planning. And you can click the link below and start with me live in this workshop. And we’d love to have you there if you haven’t yet signed up. But I want to give you some insights into how I support families to

There are 4 Key Stages to Life Planning. E-O-B-P.

Okay, so the E, what does the E mean? E means emotional readiness. And that means your level of readiness because there’s so much emotionally involved with thinking about how do I support my loved one to move forward? What does the future look like for my loved one? That’s a scary question! I get it, there’s a lot of fears that come up within that, and a lot of them are linked to safety. So this is an area where we need to do a little bit of work, you need to do a little bit of work. And this is where I help you do some work around this and to process some of these fears. Because if we don’t do that, the fears get in the way, and we can’t get started, you can’t get started. It’s a hard thing to do, but we need to do some of this emotional readiness work. Okay, so that’s the E.

Next is O, the O stands for ordinary possibilities, ordinary possibilities. Now, what does that mean? Well, are often what’s presented to us, our family, as are you as maybe a parent or a caregiver is, the special needs are the SN possibilities. And there’s more, there’s better! There’s more than a group home for your love, there’s better than a group home for your loved one to live in, there’s better than a day program for your loved one to go to. And those are the ordinary possibilities. Some of those ordinary possibilities are opportunities where everybody else gets opportunities. The ordinary places in community. We need to think through if your loved ones 20 or 25, or 16, or 30, or 40, or whatever age they are… what are some of the ordinary things that someone of that age might be doing in your community and, and to explore those ordinary possibilities. And in the upcoming live workshop that we’ve got around life planning, we’ll dive into what are some of those ordinary possibilities available for your loved one. You need to know what’s possible, to be able to think differently and imagine better with your loved one.

The next letter is B. B is best practices. Other families have gone before us. And there are lots of things we can learn from those families that will save us a lot of headaches and a lot of heartaches. And a lot of stress and anxiety. We can cut through some of that. There are best practices that will help us and I want to share some of those best practices with you. I’m going to do that in the life plan workshop that’s upcoming.

And then the last letter is P – plan. You need a plan, and I want to help you build that plan. In other words, a vision. You might have heard this be referred to as a person-centred or person-directed plan. Okay, so in this free workshop, we’ll help you get started on that plan. Okay, so going back to this big question that so many of you have, where do I start? You start with emotional readiness, then figuring out the ordinary opportunities, you learn some of the best practices, and then pull all of that together into an awesome ordinary life plan for your loved one. Okay. And you get started by joining me in the upcoming workshop, if you haven’t registered yet, I’d love you to join us and click the link below to join us.

I’m Eric Goll. Together, let’s take a step forward.

Register for the Life Plan Workshop here: https://www.empoweringability.org/workshop/