Great companies do it every year.  Top executives consider its maintenance among their top 20 activities.  Top-performing departments do it in addition to whatever the company comes up with overall.  Successful individuals do it almost without thinking about it.  What is it?  Strategic planning.

Corporations practice strategic planning to provide a greater return on equity.  They want to make sure all departments and employees are utilizing their time and activities in a way that will return the greatest amount of profit.

Personal strategic planning then is a method used to ensure that you are utilizing your time and activities in a way that will return the greatest amount of energy, or life experience.  After reading this article, you’ll know how to pick up from where you are right now, and create the life you want.  Ready?  Let’s get started.

Imagine for a moment that your life is a business.  Your goal should be to get the highest return possible on the investment of yourself in everything you do.  In other words, your time and your energy - mental, emotional, and physical energy - are investments.  Your time and energy are your personal equity.  A business wants to maximize how it invests its equity, because in business, everyone knows and understands that equity is limited.  We have only so much.  Isn’t the same true of our personal time and energy?  So it makes sense then, that we need to strategically plan how our investments are being made, so that we can maximize them to get what we want.  Does that make sense?  Great.  So how do we do that?  Let’s continue.

First, you must know and have defined your values.  What are your core beliefs?  What matters most to you?  If you have not settled on these yet, read Determining Your Values.

Second, you must have a personal mission statement.  You need to know your ultimate final destination.  For more direction on creating your personal mission statement, read How to Write Your Personal Mission Statement.

Third, you must have clearly defined goals.  For me, this is a constant work-in-progress.  Why?  Because I’m a woman and constantly changing my mind!  For example, I’ve been wanting a new car for a long time now – over a year.  My current car is adequate; it’s a ‘99 Altima.  I bought it new and have taken good care of it, so it’s in good condition.  But I’m ready for something more upscale.  My brother-in-law works for a Toyota dealership and could get me a good deal on a new Avalon, but there’s a part of me that would really like a new BMW 5-series; black, with white leather interior, and fully loaded.  The Avalon is more practical for me right now because I’m using our small, old, one-car garage as a gardening shed.  It just wouldn’t feel right to not park a BMW in a garage.  On the other hand, it would look really nice sitting in the place of my current car, but so would the Avalon.  AARRGGHH!  In the meantime, no new car.  If I had the cash right now to buy either one, I’d still be torn.  Therefore, no cash is materializing for this purpose.

I know what all of you are thinking right now.  My male readers are thinking, “Good grief, Debra.  Go for the BMW and move on already!”  My female readers are thinking, “Oh, I know what you mean, I do that all the time.  Gosh, which one should she go with, what a tough decision.”  However, the reason I took you through all of that is to say this:  Don’t try to strategically plan a goal that you’re not perfectly clear on.  It’s not ready.  You’re not ready.  Strategic planning is for all your goals that you know in your gut are what you want.  The other ones will happen in their own divine timing.  You’ll eventually make up your mind, and you can strategically plan it then.

Once you have defined your values, written your personal mission statement, and clearly defined your goals, you’re ready to begin strategic planning.  First, you must set the scene.

A lot of companies will take their executive team to a nice retreat center to do their annual strategic planning.  I suggest you take a clue from them and do that, as much as possible, for yourself.  If you can’t go away for the weekend, plan to do your personal strategic planning on a day where you can really pamper yourself.  This is not a day for massages and pedicures, but a few hours that you can set aside with maybe no one home, you can light some candles or open all the blinds to let in as much sunlight as possible, just create what to you is a positive environment that will allow you to relax and focus.  Play some nice music, maybe some nature sounds, or, if the weather is nice, go outside.  I have an Adirondack chair, ottoman, and side table in my back yard that has facilitated many strategic planning sessions. It sits under a very large, old, Elm tree and overlooks my garden.  All you really need is a pen and some paper, but I have taken my laptop out before and that works, too.

Companies that don’t take their executives off site will bring in food for the meeting.  They know they will be “in session” for a long time and want as few distractions as possible.  Do the same for yourself.  Have plenty of food and drinks on hand that don’t require much preparation.  I prepare a quart of tea and make sure I have plenty of snack cheeses and potato chips.

Begin by reviewing your values, mission statement, and goals.  Just read over them, and visualize in your mind that you’ve already obtained them. Do this for a couple of minutes, then ask, “Why?”  Why do you want this goal?  What benefit would it bring to you?  What good would it bring to others?  As you continue to visualize you’ve already achieved the life you want, what has changed for the better?  Who has been affected and in what ways?  It is okay to be selfish here, this is your life experience.  If you want a new car because it would make you feel important by impressing others, that’s okay, but you must admit that. The greatest gift you have to give is your happiness.  Make sure that every goal you are trying to achieve would truly make you happy.  Do not set a goal because someone else wants it for you.  Not only will the goal likely not materialize, but it also draws your focus and attention away from what you really want.

After you’ve spent a few minutes visualizing the outcome and the why, become as still as you can, and ask “How?”  How can I accomplish this?  What can I do to achieve this; how do I accomplish that?  You really don’t have to concentrate very hard on this part; you almost don’t even have to ask.  Thoughts will just come into your consciousness that you’ve never had before, or in a slightly different perspective, once you start to focus on what you want and why you want it.  Here’s the most important thing to remember to do:  Whatever pops into your head, write it down.  Whatever the thought is, write it down.  It doesn’t matter if it relates to what you’re thinking about or not, write it down.  If it’s a stray thought, you need to let it go, and the quickest way to do that is to write it down.

Be easy with this process and don’t try to come up with your own answers.  You’ve put your intention out into the universe and you are waiting for the universe to give you ideas.  The more you try to force the answers, the less success you’ll have.  If you’re feeling pushed or strained in any way, practice One Hour of Solitude.   You need to clear your brain and make sure you bring no preconceived notions of how you’re going to achieve your goals.  If you do have predetermined plans, write them down.  Again, mostly to get them out of your head so that your intuitive mind is freed to receive real instructions.  If an idea is truly inspired, it will work out.  You will learn more about this as you do it.  You’ll know when your plans are inspired, and when they are not.  Inspired plans work out while uninspired plans are a struggle.  You’ll eventually get it, and that’s part of the process.

Eventually, the ideas coming to you will slow down or stop.  At this point, go back and review everything you’ve written.  As you do, you will automatically start eliminating the uninspired thoughts.  With the inspired ideas, you’ll start to see a natural progression.  You’ll know that you need to do this before that and you can work on this project while working on another, etc.  Start putting things in order.  This will also be intuitive.  Sometimes, you’ll notice there’s a step missing, but you don’t know what it is.  That’s okay; just leave some space.  I actually put my plans in Excel so that I can add rows as needed.  Those extra steps might come to you one day while you’re in the shower or taking a walk, but they will come to you if you listen for them.

Start with one small goal, and work your way up from there.  You will, obviously, want to apply this strategic planning process to your #1 ultimate goal for your life, but when you’re just starting out, you need to see success, and you need to see it rather quickly.  So start with something that’s already broken down a bit, something that you know will lead to that ultimate goal, something you feel confident you can accomplish within a month, six months, or one year.

How much time will be required to do this?  That will vary from person to person, obviously, but successful people say they feel like they spend a lot of time strategically planning.  Personally, I’ve found that the more time I spend strategically planning, the more productive action I end up taking the rest of the day, week, or month.  Strategic planning in and of itself is motivating, plus you’re getting the best ideas so none of your actions are wasted efforts.  You stop wasting both time and money because you’ve taken the time to think things through, and get the creative process involved.  You do fewer things wrong and more things right, the first time.

When I decided to Wake Up, I spent what felt like several months strategically planning.  I’d come back from a seminar and take a couple of days to strategically plan based on the new information I’d received.  For a while, I spent every Monday on strategic planning, but now I spend just a few hours every Sunday, plus one full day per month.  I recommend that you review your strategic plan daily at first, then weekly once you become completely familiar with it.  Get quiet, relax, and let your intuitive mind speak to you.  When you get an inspired thought, act on it immediately.  You might be changing your strategic plan, or just adding another step to it.  Once you become comfortable with the process, you’ll know how frequently you need to do it.

The overall purpose, and how this will help you most, is to get you started on your true path for this life experience.  You won’t necessarily know all the steps you’re going to take.  When a Fortune 500 company executive team meets for strategic planning do they say, “Okay, folks.  We’re not leaving here today until we know exactly what we’re going to do starting tomorrow through the end of this company’s life.”  No, of course not.  They plan as if the company will go on forever, because it may very well outlive all of them – and that should be what they’re hoping for – to continue the company’s mission beyond their lifetime. They plan for the next year, five years, and maybe 20 years, and they come out of that session knowing what they’re going to do on a daily basis to make each day as productive as possible.

Personal strategic planning ensures that your days are full of purpose.  I believe that’s what James Dean was trying to communicate when he said, “Dream as if you’ll live forever.  Live as if you’ll die today.”  Strategically planning your dreams either makes them come true, or helps you enjoy the ride.

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