***Planning to Reach Your Goals

“A goal without a plan is just a wish”, said French Writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Just knowing what you want won’t get you there. Having a goal is the first step. Now you must step it up a notch if you plan to achieve it. To step it up you must have a plan and course of action to get you the desired result. nnThis is what I call MAPin’. MAPin stands for Make-A-Plan. When you go on vacation you don’t just jump in your car and start to drive, do you? Not likely. You figure out where you want to go, that’s setting a goal. Then you have to figure out how to get there. If you are going on a road trip you get some maps or go online and chart out the best path to take. Can you imagine how long it would take to get you to your destination if you just jumped in your car and started driving with hopes of stumbling into the place you wanted to be? That’s leaving a whole lot to chance, don’t you think? An unknown author said, “If you fly by the seat of your pants, expect turbulence.”nnBreak down what needs to be done into small bite size pieces. I call this dicing. Take the big task or end result and list all the steps it will take to get you there. Then set a course of action for what you are going to do every month to reach the end result. When you have your monthly plan set, dice it up some more. Now write a list of things to do every week for that month. Then break that down to what you need to do every day. And that is making a plan.nnIf you first write down your goal, then make a plan, and dice that plan up into small, daily, bite size, doable pieces, before you know it you will have reached your goal. nnnTo learn more about planning, go to www.sharspeaks.com