When Opportunity Knocks;

If you wish to strive to be your most capable and proficient; working to maximize your time and strengths toward achieving your goals in life, strategic planning will help you get there.

Strategic planning helps you break down your goals, into manageable actions. Complex issues, big issues, issues that you haven’t been able to face, become simpler and easier, when you have an action plan in place.

When you decide to make an action plan, questions come to the fore and strategic planning, helps you focus on the issue and helps draw your mind to asking the right questions. Questions such as; what’s the first step I need to take? What would stop me from taking that step? How can I manage this, so I can take that first step? What would be the next step? If I can’t afford it, what do I need to do, to be able to afford it? If I don’t have the time right now, how can I make time? 

These questions are many and varied and will help you formulate a plan, which will take you closer to achieving your desired outcome. And you may not get it perfectly right the first time, but every time you try, you’ll get closer to your desired result. Take the time, to acquire the knowledge, so you will be ready when opportunity knocks. 

When you try to manage the issue, as a whole, it can feel overwhelming. So, observe what it is you want. Prepare a plan, that will take you where you want to go. Work the plan you’ve prepared and use the strategies you’ve come up with, to achieve the desired result.

Strategic planning, lines up your objectives with your actions. Without it you’re just shooting from the hip and hoping for the best. Shooting from the hip, is not the kind of planning that will get you where you want to be. 

Write your action plan. Writing it makes it clear and you’re less likely to get side tracked, once you have your objective in front of you. And it must be in front of you. Put your written plan, where you can view it every day and this will keep it fresh in your mind. See yourself achieving the dream, as this gives you the motivation, on difficult days, to continue to strive. 

You can wish all you like, but it’s action that gets you there! It's not wishbone, that gets you there. It's backbone, that gets you there. It’s having the right formula, the right steps, to propel you towards your goal. Being side tracked with other affairs, won’t help move toward your goal. Your time becomes more efficient, when you have a plan in place. 

You may not know what your desire is, or what goals you’d like to achieve. To you I would say; if you had unlimited time and unlimited money, what would you be doing today? (Lazing on the beach sipping pinacolato’s doesn’t count because, believe it or not, you would be bored in a couple of weeks or months.) 

Your dream, your desire, is something that should fulfil and satisfy you. Your goal now, is to create the steps, to make your dream your reality. And sometimes, you might have to put your dream on hold for a year or two, while other things are in play, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start learning more on the topic of your choice. The internet has plenty of free stuff, to get you started.

So – what are you waiting for? Take action now and turn your dreams, into your reality!