2016 can be way better for you than the previous year depending on how easy your plans are. What was your To Do List like last year? How many of the things planned were you able to achieve? If not much you may just be doing it wrong like many others. In this piece I am going to show you the simple way of planning that you can start implementing right now in order to cut down on your worry level drastically, live a more healthy life and achieve your goals this year.
“Lack of direction, not lack of time is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.” Zig Ziglar.
- Focus on 1 or 2 goals for the whole year. Yes, for the whole year. I was speaking at church last week Sunday when I asked each member of my audience to write down one thing they would love God to do for them this year – this can be something tangible (like I want to buy a new car) or it can be something intangible (like I want to become more like Jesus). It was interesting to see the struggle that most people had in finding just one thing. The reason for this exercise was to get people to focus. The act of focussing is hard for most people and that why many do not achieve much. It was so hard to choose which on thing was the most important. Someone even spoke out her frustration at church that day saying: “Just one?” My aim most importantly at that point was to know where each person was, what he or she was focusing on. I wanted to also know what percentage of the audience retained what I was encouraging them to do in my sermon which was to be fully devoted to a life in Christ. It was really nice to see that about 70% had goals around the topic I was focussed on. Good to know as a speaker.
An easy way to get point number one done is to take a trip mental trip to December 31, yes you will take a trip there in your mind. Just imagine you are sitting with your family over dinner on the 31 December, or around the campfire with your friends, or you out for a party with a few friends to celebrate into the new year, or may be you are you at church, you know, thanking God for the year and transitioning into the new year. As soon as your imagination is clear about where you are, then you must ask yourself ‘what am I happy about right now?’
Remember your current location is the 31st of December at the mental moment. Ask yourself ‘what made me fulfilled, satisfied or excited? What am I happy that I was able to achieve this year? Start writing down whatever comes to mind. These will form goals that you will see if you want to achieve this year. As you do this, you may come up with 10 points, its ok. The next step will be to consider each point and to choose 2 out that you really want by all means. The rest are not all trash, you can leave them in the cooler for next year or as extras as you achieve some. However for now you will only focus only on 2 goals.
Examples: Launch side business, loose 20lbs all year, Finish from Grad school and land a job in your field, Buy or build a home and move in by December.
“The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.” Brian Tracey.
- Break each goal down into smaller goals. After you have decided on 1 or 2 goals, the next step is to break each goal into smaller goals. For example, a goal of starting a side business with a projected December income of 100,000 is a huge goal that can not be achieved just like that. There are so many other things to do in order to be able to start the business before December and make the money. What kind of business idea will I run with, is this a product or service? Who is my target market? Will this business be from home or will I need a facility to work from, is it Virtual or physical business. Would I need some further education at a school or simply take some online course, Do I need to get a license to offer what I want to offer? How much Capital do I need, where do I find Capital? Be as exhaustive and possible. I have some videos that will help you further on this example. Watch them here.
Write down everything that comes to mind as smaller goals towards your major goal. Then you can organize them into a nice Monthly calendar. This will form your monthly time line. This will lead you into the next step.
“Never Confuse Motion with Action” –Benjamin Fraklin.
- Create Your Weekly Todos: At this stage you are ready to create your action steps. Your to do list for each week. Based on what you wrote down as each month’s goal, you will create some steps you need to take within the month in order to complete the goal for that month. For the step you can either use the same calendar you have been using but now go deeper by using the weekly calibrated area to write or you could create your own agenda using Google sheet or excel. I prefer Google sheets, cos Its available for you anywhere, plus you can edit your document offline and update the sheet whenever you are online. That way you always have the same document to work with.
What do I need to do first out of all this things that I’ve written down? You begin to plug them into your calendar by weeks. Determine whether Sunday is the begning of your week or Monday. Plan the easy tasks to finish by the Saturday of week 1 in January, another to finish by week 2 and on that way. Note that its important to plan them chronologically and in a sequence. In other words, whatever must be done before the other must be arranged in a way to achieve them chronologically. As you organize, you are getting acquainted not just with your main goal but the easy steps that makes that goal.
You are not just creating a to-do list like a lot of people do, not just looking for things to do in order to be busy and appear serious, you are more or less gathering the bricks you need to build.
As you organize them on your weekly agenda, you also decide the priority of each step. Some of the steps you come up with will bring you more distraction than progress, you must be ready to quickly put distractions in the back burner.
For example, when I wanted to pick a name for my online clothing business, I wanted a perfect name that I could run with for a long time – that already is an indication for distraction. My business idea was clear but I didn’t have a perfect, attractive name. Of course it took me forever to eventually find a name that I loved, that some of my friends loved and that the domain name was available. However, since there were tasks I could continue working on, what I did was to keep moving – continued doing other apparent tasks while the name simmered in the back burner. I only worked on finding names after I had completed my other weekly tasks. And that way I was able to achieve my goal of launching out in record time and not get stocked looking for a perfect name.
Again remember the point is not to be busy but to be progressively achieving your monthly goal. And since you are doing all these in the planning stage- you are setting a guideline for your self, you are bound to achieve success by the time you start following your plan.
Over the years, I have discovered that when I run through the plan like this, I feel a sense of satisfaction. I can clearly see my goal being achieved on paper and not only that, there is a real feeling of fulfillments around achieving it on paper. It motivates each action in real life. Similar to the way you feel when you have a GPS, when you have an idea of the road map to where you are heading, getting there becomes easier, right?
This is one major reason why I recommend this style for anyone, you will achieve your goal if only you follow through with this plan.
- Zero it Down to what to do Daily. Daily plans are important. You already know what to achieve each month, you have decided what to do each each week and now you will take a massive look at your life, what are you busy doing now? Your daily habits, family structure, your daily responsibilities at home, your work schedule, your commitments outside the home, at church or in the city, you evaluate your 24 hours schedule from Monday to Sunday. Check your availability to know how much time you have on a daily basis or can afford to dedicate towards achieving your goal for the year. This is one major cause of failure for many people. They have all sorts of lofty ideas however, they fail to determine how it will flow smoothly with their current lifestyle. At this stage you may need to cut off some things from your life that are not important or urgent, you may need to reduce your time on Facebook and YouTube if it does not have a direct correlations to achieving your goal.
What you are looking for is to find enough time available to think about and do all the things you have on your weekly todo list. Say you have 2 hours on Monday nights, 1 hour on Wednesday and 3 hours on Saturdays. Then you go ahead and put daily tasks for Monday, Wednesday and Saturday of each week.
Put into consideration some busier time of year as well. Say you have a time at work that you are usually busier, you know from that that you will either need to cut off some more sleep time or reduce the tasks around your goal. Of course this might stretch the achievement of your goals a bit, its ok. You will still achieve, that’s what matters.
There you have it: the simple way to plan so that you can achieve your goals with ease in 2016. The act of going through this process helps a lot because it gives you a guideline, like a roadmap for you. This way, as distractions show up during the year, and they will surely come, (whether in form of an obstacle, other great ideas, people that want you to focus on something else, whatever the distraction) you will be able evaluate things clearly and see if this is God’s way of getting you to change directions or not. Remember to factor in money issues into each step.
So my friend, the long and short of this is to have a well organized and worry free year. With this process you are able to focus on what’s important and get a lot more done.
So go ahead, get started now and pls. share with me which of the steps you found easiest to achieve.
Have an amazing 2016.
I have discovered that in life you need people around you always. We were not designed to do things alone.