be specific
Congratulations! You have created your blueprint for your ideal future. You have a great overall goal. You already know what this structure will look like, at least from the outside, in a very specific way. But a plane is more than a shell. Provide exact specifications for each room. In the same way, your overall goal is made up of a series of smaller goals.
Let’s get some rooms on that floor plan! Just as you don’t jump from an empty shell to a completely finished house, you don’t jump from wherever you are today to a fully realized global goal. Just as your house will have clearly defined rooms, your goal plan will have clearly defined sub-goals.
This is the business objective of Part 1: Within the next 24 months, I want to build an advisory and consulting business working with high-potential, high-achieving, wealthy women who want to spend the time and energy to create their ideal lives and/or or business and want to have a steady income of $1 million from direct services and $1 million from passive income while working no more than 20 hours per week, no more than 30 weeks per year.
Create sub-goals
Secondary goals may include: 1. Identify ways to get in front of my ideal clients. 2. Develop persuasive reasons for these women to select my services. 3. Create materials for live and self-paced coaching programs. 4. Create an effective enrollment and distribution system.
Create a logical flow
Each of these represents a room in the plan. The next step is to see how these rooms will fit together best. What is the optimal flux through space? What size will each room be? How does each relate to the others? This is achieved by organizing and developing the secondary objectives. When you enter a house, does it make sense to enter a bedroom? Probably not. But could the kitchen or an office make up as much space as the living room? Could be. The rooms on your floor plan should be arranged in a way that makes sense to you. So too, your secondary goals should flow in a way that is logical to you.
The above objectives might work just fine in the order they were initially presented. But there are other settings that work fine.
1. Develop persuasive reasons for these women to select my services.
2. Identify ways to get in front of my ideal clients.
3. Create an effective registration and distribution system
4. Create materials for live and self-paced coaching programs.
It might make more sense to have systems in place before taking action.
Rearrange your sub-goals until you have a flow that works for you. Next, define the purpose of each room. Be very explicit. Develop and clarify each goal using the SMART model.
find obstacles
A good architect understands that every project can have what appear to be limitations. A good plan helps uncover those potential limitations or obstacles so the architect and client can figure out how to address these real or perceived obstacles. So doesn’t it make sense that you want to analyze the possible obstacles to reaching your goals? If you can identify potential obstacles, you can develop a plan to overcome them.
This is Secondary Objective #4: Create materials for live, self-paced training programs.
Rewritten as a SMART goal, it would look like this:
Over the next six months, reuse, recombine, and expand on the current articles, exercises, and workshop materials to create a cohesive two-day workshop, a two-hour promotional workshop, a six-part teleclass, and two four-part e-courses. What are some obstacles to achieving this goal? What plan of action is necessary to overcome the obstacle?
Removing obstacles through planning
Barrier 1: There may be time constraints. Action plan?
Review the schedule and create a series of short periods of time to devote to writing.
-PRAYED-
Outsource rewrites.
Obstacle 2: There may not be enough material. Action plan?
Have guest authors contribute. -OR- Research additional material.
-PRAYED-
Hire an investigator.
-PRAYED-
Pilot the material and add contributions from subsequent discussions.
-PRAYED-
Use questionnaires or focus groups to generate content.
Using your model
Get the idea? When you look at your plan from the widest perspective, hone in to understand the overall interior, then focus closely on the exact content of each room, you will have the building of your dreams. Your goal plan gives you an overview and the specifics you’ll want to create the life of your dreams.
Keep your plan handy. Remember that sometimes when a room is completed (secondary objective), you may want to change other rooms. Okay, this is a work in progress, after all, this is your glorious ideal life. Make all the upgrades you want! You can be the do-it-yourselfer from first vision to finished project; if so, that’s great. You may want advice from friends or a great Architect of Life to give you advice along the way. Get underway! It’s never too early to start working on the life of your dreams.