PLANNING FOR SUCCESS

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Before you can become successful you must have a definition of what success means to you. In business, and in life, we talk about success all the time but rarely do we take the time to define it. If you don’t have your own definition, you’re not alone.

When asked if they want to be successful, most people will respond Yes. When asked to describe what success means to them, few can describe it.

Some will stammer a bit or hesitate, then talk about big houses, fancy cars, traveling the world, vacationing at expensive resorts. They talk about the external evidence of money being spent. And, while these material things are nice, they really aren’t evidence of success. They’re simply evidence of money being spent. Others will be silent because they honestly have never given it much thought.

Success is a word that is in the title of numerous books and is often said when referring to someone who has achieved great things in business. So, it makes sense that many people associate the ability to purchase material things as a symbol of success.

They’re missing out on something very important, though. They’re missing out on the deeply satisfying experiences and relationships that come from working toward achieving something great in your life.

By not defining success for themselves and by accepting someone else’s definition of success, the result is a lot of unhappy, unfulfilled people in the world. If you’re one of those, then now is the best time for you to take time to define what success, for you, really is.

Look at the people you admire in life and business. What is it about them that leads you to believe they are successful? Look closely at their relationships with other people, at the respect they have of their peers and colleagues, at their skills and talents that they’ve been putting to use in their work or business.

You should soon see that what you admire is more than the material things that symbolize the success you believe they have. Now, look at how they got to the point of being successful. This is the path they took to their success and the path that required some planning.

You will need to create a plan for your success and it begins with defining what success means to you. This is where you decide what success is and how you will know when you achieve it. You can begin with the money, if that’s what you believe will show you are successful.

Here are a few questions to consider:

How much money must you have before you think you’re successful?
Is it cash in the bank or is it tied to investments?
How will you get that money? Will you use the skills and talents you have now or will you leverage relationships you have with others?
Is the money being replenished regularly or did you somehow get it in one lump sum?

As you can see, there’s more to having money as the symbol of success than just – having money.

If you’ve decided that success means something deeper than just having money, you’ll need to look closely at the details involved. If your definition of success is to help people, consider these questions:

How will you help others?
Who will you be helping?
Why do they need or ask for your help?
What skill or talent will you use to help them?
How do you know you’ve succeeded when you’ve helped them?

Once again, you can see there’s more to helping people than just saying you want to.

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached. don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.“

Confucius

This is how you plan to succeed:

Be clear about what you want to achieve in your life, identify the activities that emotionally satisfy you now, identify what needs to be done along the way to achieve your vision.

It sounds simple because it is, though it isn’t easy. The first thing you must address is your willingness to commit to doing the work that needs to be done regularly. Growth in awareness and finances rarely comes in great leaps. It most often comes in small steps.

Think of it this way – if you were handed $1 million, right now, would you appreciate the effort it took for someone else to have earned that money? And, would you know what to do with it to ensure that it wasn’t gone in less than a year?

Planning to succeed gives you time to grow in small steps so that when your success happens you are ready for it. You are ready to accept it. You are ready to enjoy it. You are ready to be the person you must become to maintain it.

Here is what you can do to create your plan:

Take time away from your daily busy work. Away from distractions. Take a few days for yourself in a quiet place. Some ideas that might work for you include:

a weekend in a cabin in the woods or by a lake
a room at a retreat center for 2 days
a couple of days in a hotel in a city a few miles away
a weekend in a rented RV

You’ll want to bring a pen and notebook with you. You will be doing a lot of thinking and writing notes about what it is you want in life or business. And, once you have that written down, you will begin to note the action steps necessary to get where you want to be, to become the person you want to be.

The plan isn’t intended to be a step by step detailed path to your success. It can’t be. Because it’s a long-term plan there will be many obstacles and speed bumps and people that will get in the way or require that you detour for a bit. The point is that you will have a final destination clearly defined and you will know how to recognize it when you arrive.

When you know the final destination you will find that identifying milestones along the path to that destination isn’t difficult. Maybe you need to improve a skill you have by attending a course or school. List the people you need to have deeper relationships with that will support your efforts to achieve success.

Determine what other resources you will need and where you can get them. If you don’t know where or how, don’t worry. When you know your destination, the needed resources will become available as you being working toward that destination.

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