Fuel your life for next year with new personal strategic goal setting!
The increasing complexity of our environment demands more and more of us. How can we be prepared as individuals, as well as organizations, for uncertainties? –Through creating our own future on the basis of a strong personal strategic action plan.
If you haven’t yet set up your new strategic action plan for coming year, it’s time to do so. Draw a line under your last chapter and start writing the new one. First of all, although you have no influence whatsoever on the past, it’s essential to know how you did last year, good or bad. Go back to your last personal plan, and take a pen and paper.
Let’s examine the various resolutions you took and how you have accomplished them. A quick check, right now should inspire and drive your new plan:
-You have organized your goals around key items, like: professional, career, finance, family, health, leasure, arts, social, religion or ethics, for instance.
-For each subject, you have a final goal that is clearly related to a governing value, a core value of your life, are you with me? You see, when you read the mission statement of a company, you discover its core values, what its goals are and the ideals it is based on. The problem is that most of the time, internal action plans are not really, or poorly or vaguely related to these values. You should perform better for yourself and be specific, because it’s your own life we’re talking about. Each of your governing values should be crystal-clear, short and in black and white, that goes without saying!
-Now, let’s go a step further than your previous plan: each of your goals was re-inforced with figures or a measured time allocation, right? And you had various milestones, with dates, of course, month after month for adequate timing. If you didn’t do so, don’t miss out this time!
-How successful have you been? After you initial enthusiasm, did you stay committed and keep moving successfully? Analyze your results. Don’t tell yourself stories. Face your failures, learn the lessons, and improve your plan accordingly.
Supposing you didn’t achieve all your goals, ask yourself the 6 following questions so you can start fresh Next Monday Morning:
- When I set a primary goal for my carreer, for instance, what was the governing value that is behind it?
- Did I check if all my goals did clearly match the core values of my life?
- Is each of my goals linked with a real set of actions?
- Is there a balance between all the goals or did I set up an impossible list of 50 or more?
- Are they sufficiently ambitious to drive my enthusiasm during the whole process?
- What are the rewards that I have prepared to keep myself motivated?
When I work with clients on business or personal strategic action planning, we use to mindmap 6 to 8 key subjects to make the follow-up easier. See previous post “Hating the hierarchy or demanding change” to see a mindmap example. Of course, you can use a spreadsheet, but it is less flexible.
Want to test your draft strategic plan? ◊Email me to know more about my phone consults◊.
