Planning According To You

With the beginning of December under our belts and a buzz about what 2012 could hold, it really is time to get intentional about what to bring in to your life - if you haven't set your vision already. If your stomach is sinking, relax! Here's for a frank admission: Being an optimist with a tendency to enthusiastic objectives, my plans, visions and goals all too often became a means with which to beat myself! (Can you relate to that?) Have you disappointed yourself once too often because you haven't reached targets you set for yourself? Yes, me too. I practice a strictly "no self abuse" rule, so I went through a phase of dropping planning at all! That didn't work either.

One of the first orders of success is knowing your outcome and then plotting how to get there. So I went back to the drawing board and designed a system that gives a range of possibilities. It's working so well, I want to share it with you.

The overview is to clearly set out three levels of intention:

1. Long range massive goals (that can be "unrealistic")
2. Midrange hopeful goals
3. Short term doable goals - must be achievable

I'm a big picture person, so I begin with the long range potentiality. As I draw up the scope of these visions I dream with the built acceptance factor that these are ambitions, bigger goals that may not happen. I can have them in the frame, regardless. They must be there and align with mission and purpose.

If you are a detail person you could begin with the short term, reachable bottom line scenarios that you know have at least a 90% chance of happening. You need to know, "I can hit this goal" . You need to have a sense that you'd be satisfied by achieving this outcome.

Set yourself a middle scenario that you would be happy with. A bottom line scenario that you would be satisfied with and a long range vision that would be outstanding to accomplish.

In terms of timing, if you have no reference points for having done something before, then multiply your estimated timing by four! Apply this rule to cost, also. With the production, design and completion of my soon to be launched "Precision Questioning for Coaches" ebook, I found this four times rule to be true. It did take four times as long and four times the initial costing to bring it to a place where I am ready to launch it.

What to do right now now?
Schedule time to make your short, midrange and long term plans.

Take into account:

1. A knowledge of yourself. What boundaries do you need to create for yourself to give yourself the best possible opportunity to achieve what you're setting out to? For me, it has to be personal agreements around being realistic and ecological. I have a five and a half year old daughter to consider.
2. Contingencies for unexpected events. Last week I crashed my car, tore a ligament in my foot and came down with a head cold. I also made time for an interview and photo-shoot for the Sunshine Daily Newspaper that were unforeseen. I'm running a tight ship, whilst there was some baggage allowance in my planning, I learned I needed to create more. Life happens.
3. Acceptance. Cultivate gracious acceptance. When you're planning, the whole point is to come up with a framework that works for you and supports your life the way you would love it to be. I notice when I'm mapping out what's possible, it's important to take out the emotion and accept what's really doable.
There's a transformational ingredient that will make this whole system rock for you: Utilisation. Whatever shows up for you, make it out to be the greatest thing that's happened and frame it to serve you. Take your plan, take action and take what shows up as absolutely perfect - because it is and you are - perfect.