Day 13 of 31 days to Creating Your Inspiring Personal Plan for 2012
Today is step 13 of the 31 step process for crafting a personal plan for 2012 that will inspire you and accelerate your success in 2012. Although not quite half way complete with the steps, you are over the hump. As described in the last step (Step 12), drafting your Vision statement is the “hump” in the process. And, if you have completed each of the previous steps, you are over the hump. Congratulations!
Today, ease back some and reflect on the awesome progress you have made in less than two weeks. You now have written:
- Six elements of your Desired Legacy (Step 7)
- Life Purpose Statement (Step 8)
- Draft Vision Statement (Step 12)
- First pass at list of Opportunities for 2012 (Step 6)
- First pass at your Planning Assumptions for 2012 (Step 5)
You also hopefully have a better perspective on all that you accomplished in 2011 (Step 3) and the strengths with which you are blessed (Step 4). And, you have identified role models for key elements of your Vision Statement. (Step 11). Awesome!
Tomorrow, in Step 14, we begin the process of crafting Success Strategies for 2012. These will then be translated to 2012 Goals. The 2012 Goals will then be tied to metrics that will enable you to track your success in 2012. And, worry not, if you keep doing a step each day, you will have a well crafted plan in less than three weeks from today.
Today is a great day to polish your Vision Statement. Here are some polishing tips:
1) Your Vision statement should be aspirational (for you). It should include the essence of what you aspire to live your life like. As an example, “to be a spiritual leader” is an OK core to one’s Vision Statement. But, if one truly believed in the importance of what one is doing, one would want to maximize the reach of one’s message. Thus, a more aspiring core would be “to be a pre-eminent spiritual leader” or, perhaps, “a spiritual leader with widespread visibility.” Make sure that your draft Vision Statement has the richness that modifiers and quantifiers add to the key elements of your Vision Statement.
2) Your Vision Statement should have a logic and rhythm that you can easily memorize. The point is not that you need to memorize your Vision Statement. The point is that when you get the logic tight and the rhythm right, you will just naturally and easily memorize it. Take time to polish your logic and rhythm by reading your statement out loud. And, do so multiple times.
3) Look for ways to group your non-core elements if you have more than a couple. For example, in the case of my own Vision Statement, I group a number of important, supporting elements under the short umbrella phrase “while Living in the Zone.” Living in the Zone is an important construct that I use often in my work with high performers such that it has rich, inclusive meaning for me. What supporting elements can you group into a phrase that has clear meaning for YOU?
4) Test your Vision Statement against the elements of your Desired Legacy (Step 7). If you lived your live compatible with your Vision, would it likely produce your Desire Legacy?
5) Test your Vision Statement against your Life Purpose Statement (Step 8). If you live your life compatible with your Vision would you be living a “Life on Purpose?” A small percentage of the adult population can articulate their life purpose. Far fewer would be able to say they truthfully live their “life on purpose.”
6) Test your Vision Statement for its power for YOU. Is this a Vision that excites you? Inspires you? Empowers you?
Don’t rush through these six steps. Savor each one, for every bit as important as getting the right Vision Statement is coming to appreciate the consistency between your Vision and your Desired Legacy and uour Life Purpose.
When your Desired Legacy, Life Purpose and Vision are aligned,
you will be operating with a wonderful sense of empowering, personal peace.
When you are feeling good with the status of your Vision Statement, it is time to test it out with your planning buddy, or your coach, or a mentor, or a spouse or significant other. Be open to their feedback, but remember this is your Vision Statement. The Vision Statement is a summary of how you will be living your life, not something you are going to frame like a corporate mission statement that hangs on the walls in companies (but is so often largely ignored).
As a last step in polishing your Vision Statement, I hope that you will share your Vision Statement with me. If you do so, I will share mine with you so that you can see if there are points in mine that help you to further polish yours. FYI, because of the huge number of people participating in this process, I will not be able to comment on each Vision Statement that is sent to me. But, I know from experience that just your polishing to send to me will advance the polishing of your Vision Statement. And, just maybe, the polish of my own Vision Statement will give you an idea, or two, on how you could further polish yours. Instructions on how to send me your Vision Statement will be included in the next step (Step 14).
I expect that you will be polishing your Vision Statement for years to come. But, if you complete the polishing described above, your existing Vision Statement will do just fine for moving you through the next steps, i.e., creating Success Strategies for 2012.
Congratulations. You have come a long way in less than two weeks. I trust that you are already feeling empowered, both by the process and the results.
When you have completed Step 13, you can access Step 14 here. If you want an anouncement every time a new step is posted, you can sign-up – to the right – to receive new steps by either RSS feed or email.
Please note: If you have arrived at this step first, it is not too late for you to join other high performers who are collaborating to follow the bite size steps that are unveiled here every day. Get started here.
This blog post was written by Dave Carpenter. Dave is a prolific author, inspiring speaker, and well-known consultant to professional service firms. Besides writing regularly for this blog, Dave’s writing can be seen in leading business and personal development publications. Dave is also the leader of the Accelerate Success mentoring program where he mentors high performers in a unique program designed to do great things for the favorite charity of each participant. If you are (1) a high performer who believes you still have untapped potential, and (2) passionate about a favorite charity, you may want to learn more about this powerful program. You can also follow Dave on Twitter, on Facebook, and/or on Google+.
