Strategic Planning... for yourself

My inspiration for this blog

 

Planning is part of my business. Professionally, I create marketing plans, communications plans, and strategic plans for business. I'm constantly thinking of new strategies and tactics to improve sales and engagement with our current customers, but I never thought that my own personal strategic plan and of its importance.

At this point, you are likely wondering what I mean by a personal strategic plan.

Let's take a look at the components, a template if you will, of a strategic plan. It starts with an Introduction, what's your purpose in writing this plan.

The next few components are your Vision and Mission statements. Your future intentions and goals would be noted here. What's the vision for yourself and your future? Keep them separate though, they are not the same. A vision is a big goal and a mission is your purpose and it should guide your actions. The goal is to keep this short and accurate, a paragraph or two at best.

Next is the SWOT Analysis. The acronym stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This is where you have to be completely honest with yourself, you're the only one that is going to see this plan, so let it all out. You're not doing yourself any good by holding back.

One thing to keep in mind, you can turn any weakness into a strength.

Opportunities and Threats are outside forces, they can be controlled - but only to a certain extent. We can create opportunities for ourselves. For instance, let's say that I'm in sales, an opportunity to sell is with new customers, but if I don't approach this customer - out of laziness - then the opportunity is lost. This is how we can control our opportunities.

Following the SWOT are Major Goals and Specific Objectives. This is the part when you start jotting down everything that you want to accomplish, short and long term. You must be extremely specific. Make sure your objectives are measureable and that you've set a time frame, most individuals respond well to deadlines - so give yourself a deadline.

In this section you also need to write your plan on how to achieve these goals. List the steps and actions you are going to take to get there. Make sure it's reasonable but don't sell yourself short, we can accomplish great things when our mind is focused on the end results.

Last, but certainly not least, is Measurement. In other words, Evaluation. At the end of the time frame that you have allotted yourself to achieve these goals, did you accomplish what you set out to do? If not, you must go back and re-evaluate the strategies and try again. If you are really determined, you will find a way.

The best advice I can give you, after you've written your personal strategic plan - Stay Positive!

People are going to be negative and try to discourage you, we can't control that, what we can control is how we react to those negative comments. Stay on track and follow your plan. You have no one to impress but yourself.