Why It Takes a Personal Plan to Be Outstandingly Successful

Filed Under Business Life, Inside-Out Thinking, Successful Blog | 14 Comments

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

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The road to success — We’ve all heard of that one. Do the things everyone does and you’ll probably get to something that’s . . . well, . . . not broken. But if you want to be successful and outstanding. Doing what everyone does won’t get you there . . . because to be outstanding, by necessity, you have to be individual.

To do stand and shine as uniquely valuable, a business or an individual needs a road that leads in a singular direction.

Note that I used the word leads.

A Plan to Be Irresistibly, Outstandingly Successful

Any effective, efficient project, business, or life has structure and direction. It starts with a destination — literal or figurative — and then a route to get there. Without a plan, we leave ourselves open to winds that push us toward distractions or detours. A plan, well thought and well provided for is the only way to get where we want to that shining end point.

Have a plan and work the plan is sage advice.

Why It Takes a Personal Plan to Be Outstandingly Successful

Last week we talked about making decisions. Here are the reasons that outstanding success demands a plan.

  1. If we don’t have a plan, we’re just wishing.
  2. If we don’t have a plan, we’re always here and success is always out there.
  3. Without a plan, we have no direction. Any road will take us anywhere, but we won’t end up there.
  4. Without a plan, every decision is likely to have as much power as a whim.
  5. A plan is the only way to benchmark our progress and to build on what we’ve accomplished.
  6. A plan is keeps us focused when other ideas tempt us away from our dreams.

Decide. Plan. Get determined. The plan makes a dream into an outstandingly success. It’s the plan — the decisions and determination — that fuels the reality. Distractions are easier to disregard when we can hold them up to a plan we know we can achieve.

Without a plan, we’re always getting ready to succeed. Christine Kane says it eloquently.

“How will you go the long, long journey,
if you’re always about to begin?” — Christine Kane, Falling in Love with the Wind

If you want to be outstandingly successful, plan for it. Outstanding is a stake in the ground that we keep our eyes on. It’s a path that we plot for the life that we want. It’s as easy as a decision.

Have you planned outstanding success into your life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Need help deciding? Work with Liz!!
SOBCon08 is May 2,3,4 in Chicago. Register now!

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How to Know If You’ve Lost Track of Your Vision

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 14 Comments

Where Do You Want to Be?

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It’s well-thought business wisdom that we need vision for a business or a career. Knowing where we’re going makes our daily decisions easier, quicker, and more lasting, because we’re building a road to a specific destination. Having a vision for our work is the same as having goal we’re saving our money to enjoy — a vacation or a great retirement.

I’ve not met anyone who disagrees with the wisdom of doing that. Yet, when I ask folks about their vision, most people have to stop, find some long ago thought, and dust it off. Holding that vision in the sunlight, they see how long it’s been set aside. Real-time issues and day-to-day decisions have taken all of their attention.

Many folks have lost track of their vision and don’t realize.

How to Know If You’ve Lost Track of Your Vision

If we don’t keep our business vision in our sights, we lose direction. A business vision is the energy that fuels our decisions, especially when situations get trying, and we’re learning new things under new conditions. With no clear focus to guide us, we start to compromise. Here’s how to know if you’ve lost track of your vision.

  • If you wake up in the morning thinking the day is going to be boring, you’ve probably lost track of where you’re going.
  • If you look at your life in the future and what you see is more of what’s right here, you’re not heading anywhere certain.
  • If you’re watching other folks get places and your response is that could have been mine, you’ve set your dream aside.
  • If you think that having a vision for your business is too [put your word here] for a serious person like you, you’ve given up trying.
  • If you cite the roadblocks and barriers to making your vision a reality and consistently stop there, your vision is just a story.

The road to making a most amazing vision happen is paved with our thoughts, our passion, and our decisions. No outside barrier can stop a person who’s willing to stay fully invested in getting where they want to go. Winners keep their vision in front of them, adjusting and tweaking it to fit reality and their changing skill set. They do the work and stay the course, holding onto the future they see, even when other choices come along.

That’s the purpose of having a vision — to guide us to where we want to go.

Is time to take out your vision and dust it off again or are you on the road to making it happen? Do you know where you’re going?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you need to refocus where you’re going, let’s talk.

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