Day 20 of 31 days to Creating Your Inspiring Personal Plan for 2012
Congratulations, you are coming into the home stretch of this 31 day/step process for building a personal plan that will accelerate your success in 2012. I am delighted that you are among that small minority of the population who have the discipline to take the steps that bring success.
Your commitment to this process speaks volumes about what you should be able to achieve in 2012 with the benefit of your thoughtful plan.
Today’s task is one of the most important that you will be doing in the entire 31 day/step process. In this task, you will be choosing from among the many potential strategies you developed over the last week using a variety of techniques. I will be giving you some guidance as to ways to optimize your selection. But before I do so, I want to again remind you of the silent killer of so much potential – perfectionism. If you didn’t read it when first presented, I strongly urge you to read this excellent quik-read guest post on perfectionism by the very thoughtful Janet Vanderhoof.
Now, there is a lot riding on your selection of the right strategies. But, here is the good news. Even picking the wrong strategy is frequently better than motoring through life without any strategies. When you have no strategies, you are leaving life to chance. You deserve much, much better than that!
Winners make good choices. But, even more importantly, winners are quick to adjust course if the course they are on does not prove to be working for them. So, even if you pick a strategy that doesn’t work well for you, you can – and should – adjust as you see results that are not in keeping with your expectations.
Keep in mind that you will be selecting five or six strategies from among the robust list you have assembled over the past week. Even using a dart board to select, all of your choices aren’t likely to be bad. And, I am going to share with you an approach that is light years better than using a dart board.
So, please set aside any anxiety about making perfect picks for strategies. Make the best picks that you can based on the information you currently have. You can always tweak your selections before the process is complete. In fact, it is likely you will be making a tweak or two after getting feedback from your Board of Advisors.
The only choice that will slow your progress will be if you choose to make no choice. So, let’s have some fun selecting strategies that are likely to accelerate your personal success in 2012.
Today, we will be using a four step process to develop a hypothesis as to the five or six strategies that you will use in 2012 to accelerate your personal success. In one of the subsequent steps you will be validating the power of those you have selected and have an opportunity to tweak, then. So, just follow this process and get a hypothesis down on paper.
Please limit yourself to five, no more than six, strategies. Some might argue that this is more than a singular individual can productively implement. My experience has been that hi-performers can handle this number IF the strategies are congruent around an empowering Vision. Six diverse strategies, headed in different directions, is an invitation for a lot of stress that will keep you from operating at your best. Since your strategies emanate from your Vision in this planning process, I am comfortable that you will be able to handle five or six strategies if you select thoughtfully.
Step 1 (of four) in making a thoughtful choice from among the potential strategies you have identified over the last week is to group like strategies into clusters. Peruse your list and create a new list of the main subject area of each strategy, with the applicable strategies listed below the subject area. So, as an example, if a half dozen of your strategies have to do with marketing strategies, then group them under the topic of “marketing strategies.” Or, if say four of your strategies have to do with some aspect of your personal mental or physical health, then group those under the topic of “health strategies.”
In my experience, this group process will reduce your list of 30+ potential strategies down to a much smaller number of “super strategies.” I expect that most of you will end up with less than ten strategies when you do this grouping process. (If you have more after this first step, that is not a problem.)
Step 2 (of four) is to synthesize each one of these super strategies into a single powerful strategy. So, going back to the prior example of a person having half-dozen marketing strategies which they have listed under the super strategy of “marketing strategies,” that person would need to create a single phrase that captures the essence of the six potential strategies.
Here is an example from my own 2012 Plan (yes, I am absolutely doing this process along with you. As with my Accelerate Success program, I am a full participant in my own programs. I learn as much from fellow participants as they might learn from me). I had half-dozen areas where I need to eliminate things getting in my way from achieving even better performance in 2012. In studying the diverse nature of these things, I came up with a strategy that – in a few words – elegantly describes what I have to do in 2012: “Lighten my load to accelerate my success.” This simple phrase pulled together half-dozen areas of my life where I need to get rid of things. For me, as a runner, the imagery of this strategy is very powerful. And, the scientific rationale of the strategy has long been proven. It takes less energy to move a lighter object. So, if one lightens their load, they will accelerate if they just apply the same amount of energy.
You are writing these strategies to be meaningful for YOU. Select phrases that are empowering for YOU. (Don’t write to impress your Board with your writing; write to empower yourself!)
Get your best summary phrase for each of your clusters down in writing. You can polish later. Just get a summary phrase down for each of the super areas.
Step 3 (of four) is to then score your super strategies. I recommend that you score each of the strategies using three criteria, each on a 1-10 scale with ten being high: (1) likely impact on powering your Vision to reality (2) extent to which the strategy plays to your strengths, and (3) your gut level attraction to the strategy. Add the three numbers together to get an overall score for each of the super strategies (with 30 being the max score for any one stratgey).
Step 4 (of four) is to pick the five or six strategies that you want to pursue in 2012. You can select based on any criteria that you desire. You can use one of your own design. Or, you can use the scoring you just completed in Step 3. Or, you can select based on the following strategic algorithm: select one super strategy to leverage your strengths, three super strategies to drive your core element of your Vision, and two super strategies to drive your supporting elements of your Vision.
When you complete these four steps, you will have transformed your 30+ potential strategies into a hypothesis of your optimal set of five or six super strategies. Tomorrow, you will validate this hypothesis, and then you will use these strategies to develop a set of 2012 goals.Within the next week, you will have a draft plan ready for sending to your Board. I am confident that your Board will be blown away by the thoughtfulness of your 2012 Plan. (I expect some Board members will even be envious and decide that they then need to get on with doing a 2012 Plan.)
You are definitely coming down the homestretch of this process. You are 2/3 of the way through the process. The finish line is in sight. You are doing great to have reached this point in the process. Stay the course!
When you have completed Step 20, you can access Step 21 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+.
