Whole Life Plan: A New Approach to Strategic Planning for 2012

Ginny Victory
CPA and a Certified Coach

 

Traditional corporate strategic planning models can be rigid and hard to apply to the life of the entrepreneur. When your business and your life are intimately entwined, having a strategic plan that includes goals in both realms is vital to achieving the kind of life that makes you thrilled to leap out of bed every morning.

 

Here’s a unique three step process that my entrepreneur clients use. Instead of dry numbers and boring powerpoints, this process connects planning deeply to the entrepreneur’s passion, which provides fuel for the day-to-day journey.

 

Step 1 – Take Inventory

Before you begin your strategic planning process for 2012, start by laying a strong foundation. Track all of your progress year to date – anything and everything. And do it in a way that resonates with who you are and how you prefer to communicate – write it, draw a picture, create a Success Board, go wild!

 

Here are the rules: no critiquing, no explaining, no justifying, no confessing. Just pure recognition and celebration of every last thing that’s moved you even a millimeter forward. (Even if it’s that mistake you learned from or got “blessed” by.) Sometimes leaders get stuck here – a tip for successful tracking is to start with gratitude. For what are you grateful? Keep going until you have at least 100 things.

 

What else?

 

Be sure to count all the ‘ah-ha’ discoveries, the revelations, the breakthroughs. These are important – they represent movement, momentum and learning, all imperative for the entrepreneur.

 

Next, track the tangibles.

 

What are your revenues? Your profit? By what percent did the numbers you’re tracking increase? Or decrease? How many people did you impact? What are their results? What other numbers are relevant to your business?

 

….and quantify the intangibles. (This is an element that’s missing from most traditional strategic planning models.)

 

Did you create more enjoyment and energy for yourself in your business because you finally hired that bookkeeper? What did it free your time to focus on? How did that impact your being of service and generating revenue?

 

Create metrics to quantify the value of your renewed attitude, increase in space, clarity of mind, etc.

 

Don’t forget to add all of the personal achievements as well…go through the above again, this time for your personal for life.

 

And then, celebrate!

 

Dance, call friends, post it on Facebook….

 

Step 2 – Begin with the End in Mind

Now you’re ready to start planning your 2012. But before you can create a plan, you’ve first got to determine your long term vision. Go ahead, close your eyes. Imagine that it’s December 31, 2014.

 

Yep – go three years out. Start with the facts. How old will you be? What grade will your kids be in? What’s true about your significant other?

 

Next, open your mind. Let your intuition speak to you. In your ideal life, where will you be living? What will life be like?

 

Move through your day, starting from the moment you wake up. What’s the first thing you see, hear, sense? The next?

 

What’s going on in your business? What are the numbers – your revenue, profit? Who’s on your team? What are you doing? Who do you work with? What’s the impact? What are you known for?

 

What is the most important thing to you? Why? What does it feel like?

 

The bottom line with this exercise is to get a clear picture of what you want. And then to capture it – this is your vision. Make it as specific, detailed and emotion-filled as you possibly can.

 

Record your vision in whatever format is meaningful for you:  writing, song, poem, vision board, video, graphic design, etc. Really use your creativity and imagination. Capturing your vision in a way that speaks uniquely to you will keep you inspired and focused to make it happen.

 

Imagining your ideal life three years into the future will help you balance immediate demands with your long-term desires, so that you can make decisions that meet your needs and take you where you want to go.

 

Step 3 – 90 Day Goals that Rock

In step 2, you created a compelling three year vision for your life. Now that you know what you want for 2014, it’s time to lay out what you need to do in the next three months to get there.

 

Turn on some music, drive out to the lake, gather a few friends/colleagues, or whatever gives you joy and have some fun with these strategic planning steps!

 

Here are a few guidelines to create effective goals. Set 90 day goals that are:

• a balance of short term needs and 2014-focused
• a mix of business and personal objectives
• specific and measurable
• completely unique to you (unconventional, quirky, weird, basic, fun)
• realistic
• on the calendar
• actionable

 

Balance short term needs with 2014 vision.

 

Go ahead, make a list of anything and everything that you want to achieve in the next three months that will move you toward your 2014 vision.

 

But then go further – what is urgent or important today, this month, this year? Add those, too.

 

You may find there is tension between the two. That’s good – holding tension and getting comfortable with it is one key to success. Addressing immediate needs while taking action toward long-term goals means that you’ll find peace today and freedom tomorrow.

 

Include personal objectives in the mix.

 

Be sure to include your personal aims as well. You don’t operate a business in a vacuum, so add your life goals to the list. By including goals from all your areas of focus, you’ll reap the rewards of leverage and integration. Are you familiar with the concept of compound interest? It’s when interest is added to the principal amount, so that the interest that has been added then also earns interest. It’s a powerful way to build a nest egg.

 

Well, the principle works for goal achievement, too. When you can integrate your goals from your business and your personal life, you’ll compound the progress, by accelerating your results!

 

Be as specific and measureable as possible.

 

When you’re determining your goals, include numbers wherever you can. Numbers are a benchmark and guide. They tell your story and mirror to you where you are on the journey to achieving your vision. Quantify everything you can; be as specific and measurable as possible.

 

You can even make desirable states, like positive emotions (gratitude, peace, love) quantifiable. Here’s how: on a scale from 1 to 10, note where you are now on the scale and where you want to be in 3 months. (You’ll need to define for yourself what each demarcation on the scale means.) With this method, you CAN measure the intangible, and track the spiritual.

 

Choose the goals that make you smile (or smirk!)

 

Now go back and take a look…do the goals resonate with you? Are you inspired? Will you be having fun as you implement? Some goals or “to-do” items show up on our list because it’s what we’ve been told we “should” do or what an expert advised or what a “good girl” or “smart entrepreneur”, etc. does. Select from your pool of resources the ones that fit you. Be bold, be brave! Eliminate the “shoulds” and include the goals (and their related methods) that make you smile.

 

Do a reality check.

 

Review your goal list one more time to weed out the “wishes” and their subsequent feelings of failure and disappointment. What do you WANT to do by 3/31/12? Why? What is realistic and attainable? Fine tune your goals and put them in order of priority accordingly.

 

Get it on the calendar:

 

Turn this list of goals into a PLAN. Chunk it all down into small pieces. One-by-one, determine who will do what and by when. (Remember that it doesn’t have to be you. Continually ask yourself, “Who can help me get this done?” “What other resources or options do I have?”)

 

And….Action!

 

Full ownership, willingness to do whatever it takes and adaptability are key to achieving your goals. Your success depends upon you – take full responsibility to take action, call in resources (including God or your higher power) and be willing to do what is before you, and then make adjustments as you gather data and learn from your experiences.

 

A strategic plan is a living document, made of organic matter (you, your vision and your goals) that is sustained through doing this process again and again throughout the year (quarterly is ideal, though I recommend tracking progress – as measured by numbers – at least monthly.)

 

Now you’re ready to rock! It’s a little scary to have a clear and actionable path…but it’s exhilarating too. Especially with a strategic plan that’s customized for your business and life. 

 

 

 

Ginny Victory is a CPA and a certified coach, who works with entrepreneurs to help them navigate their vision of success to victory. Get free articles and tips at www.victorybeginswithin.com