As part of our Annual Review series I talked about reflecting on the achievements of the past year before setting my sights on the current year.
If you’ve already gone through the process outlined above, then what did you learn?
– what went well
– what could have gone better
For me, the creation of this site and the number of site visitors and being able to attract an interview with new authors are some of the highlights.
What could have gone better, is that I’ve been disappointed with the amount of time I’ve been able to spend on exercise following a sporting injury in 2008.
Taking these lessons into account I am now in the position to start the process of making my plans for 2010.
4 Step Process
When planning for the year ahead, I adopt a 4 step planning process to determine what I’m going to do over the coming 12 months, starting with:
Dreaming
Dreaming – Is the start of the process. What do I want to achieve? A dream car, a dream holiday or spending time with the family. Do you have a dream chart? If you have have one is this up to date and current? Have you have updated the pictures or statements for the items that you have already achieved?
However, to make a dream come true you need to – Idealise, Visualise, Verbalise and Materialise all aspects of your Dreams.
In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill describes the power of affirmations, saying out aloud what you want to achieve and by when. You need to repeat these affirmations regularly.
Do you do affirmations and visualisations twice a day…?
Goals
Goal – Next I update my goals list. This is a list of everything I want to achieve (which may well extend over 12 months)
Do you have a list of your 101 (that’s right 101!) goals?
These need to be listed in priority and dated as to when these are going to be achieved. You can make them a certainty by planning when you are going to do these by adding what resources you need e.g. money(if any) to do these.
Putting the acquisition of the required resource into your plans then focuses you on providing that resource so you can achieve your goals.
Plan
Next we plan.
Plan – I have a 90 Day Plan which I update every quarter, this identifies what I am going to do to generate the business, or what actions to take to provide the resources to achieve my goals.
The plan must include the expected outcome of your weekly, monthly and quarterly activities and must also have identified the performance indicators in your daily tasks that are linked to your actionable metrics / key performance indicators that are measured at least daily.
Staying focused on your actionable metrics gives you the focus you need every day to ‘Do’.
Just DO IT
This is the most important element of the planning process.
Do – You now just need to do what your plan tells you to do. You need to have the focus, discipline and commitment to actually do it.
The four step process is summarised as:
DREAM – GOAL – PLAN – DO
What’s your Dreams for 2010?
