A goal without a plan is a dream.
Do you often feel your goals are a dream? A fantasy!
You’re stuck. Progress isn’t being made. You’d have more luck entering a Star Wars movie than achieving your goals.
I’ve had the same problem in my company. I laid out our 3-year vision. A detailed story of who we were and what we did 3 years from now.
It was beautiful. You could taste the vision in your mouth. You could feel the future smiles walking down the halls.
The champagne flowed, and the laughter was plentiful.
The problem? We weren’t transferring this vision into action. We weren’t doing what we were saying.
Our goals didn’t have a plan, so they merely were a dream.
Wouldn’t it be amazing to start putting your goals into action? I’ll give you 3 distinct ways that helped me eradicate this issue from my life.
Don’t focus on the future and neglect today.
Dreaming is great. Thinking about the future is a must. Get excited. But let me be clear…
Thinking of the future won’t manifest itself into your goals.
In business, I stick to one and three-year long-term goals.
The issue I was having in my company, and in my life was, I was too scattered. I didn’t have a detailed plan on how I was going to achieve these goals.
I had a messy piece of junk list somewhere that I would periodically look at. That’s not going to cut it.
And for my company, we would have the goals and KPI targets written down, but nothing more.
I had to put my goals into action, here’s what I did…
Commit yourself to a goal action plan. It’s the only way you’ll get your goals moving in the right direction.
I resolved my dreaming problem by committing to a plan.
For me and my businesses, I created one-year goals. These are achievements we must accomplish over the next year.
It didn’t just stop here. That’s futile. Amateurish. With these yearly goals, I broke them down into the next steps I need to take.
Between 3 and 10 for each target.
The next steps aren’t going to get done in a day. They’ll be more significant projects on their own.
But that’s why you…
Create a quarterly action plan for the goals you want to achieve…this quarter.
Once you’ve established yearly goals, you’re going to live in the quarter and for some, in month sprints.
You’ll focus on 3–4 of the yearly goals each quarter.
You’ve already established your next steps. You know where you need to start.
An issue I had is wanting to create a strategic plan for everything. Avoid this. Just get started. The strategy will come and will often change.
Focus on your next steps. Get the ball moving. Start executing.
And then…
Your quarterly next steps will turn in to weekly priorities and your weekly priorities will be broken down by the day.
Your goals are like a waterfall, they’ll start at the top, and once things get flowing, they end up at the ground level.
You’ve established your yearly goals, the next steps, and put attention on a few goals for this quarter. Great!
Now, you’ll determine your weekly top 3 priorities. This will happen in your weekly review.
These are the 3 things that will help you reach your quarter goals. They should be directly related to your goal action items. You’re taking action this week!
You’ll do the same for your daily priority list. You’ll choose your top 3 priorities for that day. These are pulled from your weekly top 3 priority list.
You see, a waterfall. Simple.
You’ll pull all of your actions down into the day. Because if you live on planet earth, today is all you’ve got.
Don’t let your goals develop cobwebs on a mythical shelf. Start putting them into action. The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll achieve them.
Now go achieve your goals.
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This article was written by Nate Anglin, who is a Investor + CEO @ Skylink Group. Optimize Lifes Potential: www.nateanglin.com
