How We Plan Our Dream Life as a Couple
15 Jul 2025 · 16 min
Lori and Chris Harder walk through their annual couples planning ritual: each partner maps out individual desires, then you merge them into a shared five-year vision. One person has to book the trip, you skip problem-solving, and you ditch self-limiting beliefs. They offer a free 26-page playbook.
Chapters
Anything insane that's ever happened in my life has come because I was like, you know what? I don't know who I'm about to meet. I don't know who I'm about to know. But I am going to put myself in these situations where these incredible manifestations could happen. Do not put a cap on your dreams because of who you're around or what you see right now. All of your biggest opportunities are probably going to come by way of people you haven't even met yet.
And we're back with another episode of.
He Said, she Said.
And we're literally back from our dream life planning, which was really awesome. It's something that we do every single year. And matter of fact, let me kind of set it up for context. Lori and I always try to keep a really like visceral five year vision that we're aligned on. And this could be as simple as things you want to achieve or things you want to have or things you want to be able to do. Anyways, once a year we go somewhere really nice that inspires us, that pulls us out of our environment, and we carve out this very intentional time to review what we had put down last year. Right. What did we think we wanted over the course of five years last year? What things have come true already? Because even though we're talking five year vision, every time we do this, a couple things already come true. So there's some magic in there. And what do we want to change? Because your vision is probably and should probably always be changing because you're always kind of growing. So the last two days we just went to montage in Laguna Beach. You guys probably see us there a lot. We love it there. I guess it's a free shout out to montage, not a paid ad or anything like that. But it's the reason I explain it is matter of fact. Google it, look it up. It is one of the most breathtaking, one of the most gorgeous places that you could ever go for one of these types of sessions. And we sat by the pool in this beautiful setting, looking at a beautiful scenery, surrounded by beautiful people that are also high accomplishing individuals and put ourselves in the energy of, okay, what did we do and what do we want to do?
I think it's crazy what happens when you put yourself in situations like that. Right down to the fact that we ended up connecting and meeting someone at the pool that Chris had connected. But one of my big goals on my life vision is to really go deep with a community in my area and it just happened to be somebody who creates community in the area with incredible people. It's like the type of community that I would want to plug into. People with the same core values, people who feel the exact same way, who want to like, really go deep and talk about deeper things in life and have a grand vision just like we were having. I just feel like it was one of those godwink moments that, like, one of the biggest things on my checklist that I want for my grand vision was community. And this person is there, like, come. I do this thing every two weeks and it's the best. Women, like, it's right in our neighborhood.
And I had seen this person a couple months ago and they're like, hey, we've been meaning to get together with you guys, we want to go out to dinner, blah, blah, blah. And Lori had never met her and I had never met her husband. And it was one of those things that in passing, like, yes, of course you have the intention of getting together, but there were literally one set of chairs over once they placed us in the cabana area there. So it was meant to be.
But I think that things get started the second you even set the date that you're going to do this. So I think that the fact that Chris and I get really intentional with exactly what we want and go somewhere where, quote, unquote, the people are that you would like to connect with. And don't get me wrong, you know, you go to some places, there's different types of people everywhere. But I think when you are really intentional in life, you're only going to start attracting the right people.
Somebody has to take the lead on that, by the way. So you can't be like, with your spouse, your significant other, like, hey, we should do this. Hey, we should do this. Hey, wouldn't it be nice to do this? One of you needs to say, hey, what are some dates? You're free. And then just go book it. And a lot of times Lori is the one, she goes picks up the resort and books it. This time I was, because I knew we were both really busy. Like, guys, it's not ever going to be convenient. It can be a staycation even. You know, Laguna is only a half hour south of where, you know, we live part of the year here. So it can be a, a staycation. Just put yourself in a beautiful setting of some sort. Even if you just went to a beautiful restaurant for the day and did this, or a beautiful park for the day and did this. But one of you has to take the lead and make the reservation and get everything booked and then say, hey, Lori, or hey, spouse. Hey, significant other. On this day, I booked this. Pack your bags.
Yeah. You know, and I have to say, ladies, if your love language is acts of service, which that's definitely one of mine. It's not my main. My main is words of affirmation. But this is huge for women. So many of my girlfriends say, like, they just wish their partner or one of the big. A big reason why some people that I know have separated is because their partner never took initiative to do the things that they felt were important. So, guys, if your girl has sent you this podcast, she wants you to book a dream life.
Yes, overnight.
Overnight vacay. Doesn't have to be crazy, but definitely they want to go get intentional.
Yeah. The attention that you went to, the effort of planning it.
And so this is what this is all about. This is way more than just goal setting. It's about aligning your desires and your values in the direction that you both want. So you always know what you're building, who you're becoming and where you're going. Because I think that life gets so busy, we can forget why we're all building it. It's like that viral reel that's going around. Like, I almost forgot this was the whole point, because here's what we've seen over and over again is that the couples who grew apart, it wasn't because there was like a lack of love. It was because they never created a shared North Star, so they couldn't actually say what they were working on.
I can't stress this enough. If you separated Lori and I in a room, you know, even before this weekend, we tell you separately what our joint goals are, what our five year vision is. And guys, all the people I know that are splitting up or that aren't making it, it's not that they have more hard times than we do or anything like that. It's that they don't have a shared vision. And if you're not chasing something down together, guess what? All you're doing is doing chores and paying bills, right? So the same amount of work can either make you feel like you're just doing chores and paying bills, or the same amount of work can make you feel like you're going after a vision together. And the difference between those two things is that unity is that shared goal is the excitement of, oh, we're going somewhere. I know why I have to do the chores today. I know why I have to do this work today. I know I have to earn this money today instead of just feeling like, oh, checking off the list of chores, checking off the list of paying bills, and it becomes very monotonous. And then, you know, that becomes a downward spiral.
Yeah.
And I'm going to tell you exactly how to do this. In fact, you guys, if you want the exact step by step, Chris and I have made you an entire playbook. So I believe it's the third ritual in my downloadable guide that I'm going to give you for free. All you have to do. Yep, all you have to do is go to my Instagram and you can DM me the word Playbook. One word together, P L, A Y B O, O K. Don't put anything else in the message. Just, just playbook. And it should trigger to send to you. If you have a private account, it's not going to be able to send. And you can put playbook and I'll probably see you anyway and maybe be able to send you the link. Unless my DMs are crazy. But go and do that right now because it's going to give you the step by step of everything that Chris and I do for this. Because we would get asked all the time, whenever I'm like, how do I put this out there?
How do I do it?
And you're going to get exactly what that is. So I give you prompts that you can ask. Essentially, what you would do is individually, you guys could answer all of these questions and then you can compare them, talk about them. You can go from 1 to 5, what is most important, and then you decide what you want on that dream life vision for that year. And I know Chris said this, but you're going to find that you check back in a year and one of those things isn't going to be important anymore. And one became really important. And so you reset this every single year. But, you know, some of the prompts you're going to ask individually are things like, who do I want to be in the world? How do I want to show up as a partner, a parent, a leader, or a friend? What do I want people to say about me? What lifestyle do I want to live one year from now, five years from now? And then you're gonna come together and merge your visions, and you have a ton of questions that are gonna help you merge your vision with the last one kind of ending in what is the big life vision together? What's the dream we're building towards the life, the business, the traditions, where do we live? Where do we travel? Who do we serve? What do we invest in? What communities do we build or lead? And these are all really important questions for you guys to know how you want to start living your life with intention. And one thing that I'll say about Chris and I is our life changed when got so extremely intentional with who we're hanging out with. What are the plans? Okay, if we want to have that community in our life, what does that look like this Monday through Friday, who are we making plans with? Who are we texting? What are we doing? Are we joining that pickleball community? Like you have to get granular or.
It never ever happens.
Yeah. And guys, this is, when you're doing this exercise, one of the most important things about the prompts in this playbook and which is obviously totally free, is just put together to help guide you guys because we needed these guides. But one of the most important things is this is not the time to problem solve. This is not the time for you to start saying, yeah, but I've got this. And yeah, you said you were going to do that. And, and well, what are we going to do about the blah, blah, blah bills and right. Like this is not the time to problem solve.
In fact, you're not allowed to do that, period.
It is a non negotiable. You cannot problem solve during this. This is your dream planning. I don't care if you need a little help from God or a little help from the universe, or a little help from the economy, or a little help from a surprise investor that you don't know where they'd come from. I don't care what you need some little bit of help from. You don't concentrate on what you're missing during this. You concentrate on the vision that you guys are willing to go to war to together to go bite, fight, scratch and claw your way to going where you guys want to end up together. And you keep the entire thing about what you can do about what could be possible, not what is realistic today or not what problems are in the way today.
Yeah, you have to be able to remove the lid that you have put on yourself. And I found myself even going, well, I'm not sure if that's possible. Well, that seems a little crazy. Like what will happen is you'll keep refining this. So like put the big crazy thing down and then what can happen is sometime next year or six months from now, if you guys do every six months, which is also awesome, that you'll be like, actually that number is not that important to me. What feels really good is this.
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So it's gonna keep on changing. But if some big audacious number feels like that's actually what I want, please put that down and then observe maybe what comes up around it, but just observe the limiting beliefs that you actually have, because that's all that it is. Anything insane that's ever happened in my life has come because I was like, you know what? I don't know who I'm about to meet, I don't know who I'm about to know. But I am gonna put myself in these situations where these incredible manifestations could happen. And you guys, the craziest things have. So please, please, please, please do not put a cap on your dreams because of who you're around or what you see right now. All of your like biggest opportunities are probably going to come by way of people you haven't even met yet.
Yeah. So speaking of miraculous things that you can accomplish all that stuff, if you guys are rolling up your sleeves and working really hard to build your business and your life right now. Lori and I have a couple of really high end offerings that are available to kind of put you around those right people and help to speed up some of those miracles. Don't be afraid to sh us a DM and ask about it. You can either DM me on Instagram at Chris W. Harder or you can DM Lori Harder on Instagram. But we've got a couple of these offerings that are just really hands on lock arms, expose you to some of the people that we know in order to accelerate this journey. If you're just listening to this, you're like, I don't know how to even like dip my toes into these circles. I don't know how to get the momentum. I don't have a vision or I don't have the strategy. That is something that we absolutely love helping with through a couple of our different offerings. But no matter who you are absolutely free. Like this playbook. Honey, how long is this playbook? It's like 20 to 30 pages.
It's 26 pages. But don't get overwhelmed because the Ritual 3 is like two pages. It's going to show you exactly how to do it.
But we put all of our rituals.
That have changed our life and our marriage, like, all in this playbook, you guys. So if you want all of it amazing. It's life changing. We have everything in here. But if you just to scroll down to ritual three, you're literally going to get this exact step by step map so that you guys can do this together.
All right, guys, thanks for listening. Love and appreciate you.
We'll see you next week.
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