So, I guess we finally have it right after all these years of not

A few weeks ago, I was able to join my husband in an all day Life Plan meeting that was set up by his workplace. I know, it sounds new-agey, which I'm not. And when I heard the words "life" and "plan" put together, I thought to myself, well, this is going to be interesting because everything I try to plan in my life never quite works out the way I intend.

My husband works for Otterbox, an amazing local company here in Fort Collins that is growing at a massive rate. His employment there has drastically changed our life for the better. This is just another example of that betterment. Otterbox really cares about their employees and everyone is given the chance to sit down with a life coach to develop this master Life Plan to figure out where they want to go in the company and how their skill sets will be best utilized. It's a fantastic tool for a business, but this plan also touches on personal and family life aspects...

The Life Plan experience, designed by Tom Patterson, is an intense two-day meeting that designs your total life strategy. It is heavily rooted in Christian beliefs where "God has a plan for you", which I don't buy for a second (says the Atheist in me.) However, I do believe in the importance of planning, having direction and focus in all aspects of your life. That's just common sense.

The first day is spent entirely on gaining perspective and understanding your story - where you've come from and why. You look for behavioral patterns and themes with life decisions you make. It's all about delving into who you are and what you do. I missed this day, but would have loved to experience it. I'm kind of a geek for insightful moments and gaining perspective.

The second day is nothing but planing and figuring out how parts of your life fit together. It's such a complicated, multidimensional experience with lists, circles, colors and 17 large sheets of flip chart papers covering the room from all four walls and to floor to ceiling. It all seems to flow along flawlessly. Each aspect of your life (Personal, Family, and Professional) is rated with a color: green = good, yellow = needs some work, and red = poor. It's just like a traffic light.

When we were going over the family aspect of Bill's life, every point was green, meaning that we had perfect balance. In our discussion, we concluded that our family life and our marriage is incredibly positive, strong and balanced, if I dare say near "perfect". It's never been better.

What an incredibly powerful moment for me. To see without a shadow of a doubt, right there on paper full of green circles, that all of the many years of hard work we've put into our relationship has paid off. We've reached our goal of a harmonious house and an amazing marriage. It hasn't always been this way, in fact, we've always been insanely imperfect and there were times we didn't think we were going to make it. It took many, many years of tears, stress, strife and counseling to get here. But we did it and only just recently. We couldn't be more proud of each other.

While this Life Plan was enormously beneficial and literally life changing for my husband when it came to his professional life at Otterbox, it was such a huge gift for me to be able to experience the second half and recognize the effort we've put into us and our family life. I don't believe God has a master plan already mapped out, but I do believe in us and the tremendous amount of work we've accomplished to get here.

So, I guess we finally have it right after all these years of not.

Kristin Mastre