Plan Your Success: Reach for your goals in 2015

The Chinese tradition states the Year of the Goat is to focus on building personal energy, developing harmonious relationships and working towards collaboration.  So 2015 is a perfect year for focusing on your personal energy, resilience and greater connectivity.

My company, Ignition, gives our clients support throughout the year by providing them with practical tips from our 4 key dimensions of building and replenishing personal energy:

• Goal Orientation;
• Positive Mindset;
• Healthy Relationships; and
• Physical Vitality.

This month we will continue to explore on Goal Orientation and supporting you with your plans for 2015.  In January we shared tips on setting your goals for the year and aligning these with your personal values. It’s useful to take a break and reflect on this.  How are your plans coming along?  Are you making the progress you expected?

It’s no secret that most of us spend too much time thinking before we move into action. Below are what we think are 3 simple rules to support your planning process:

3 Rules of Planning

1. Your plan must not be fixed

An inflexible plan is blind to feedback. It can be like driving at the speed limit and not being aware of the upcoming traffic, a potential recipe for disaster. Keep your plan as flexible as possible, in case circumstances change or life just gets in the way.

2.  Your plan is about the outcome rather than the means of achieving it:   

Again, this is a statement of flexibility. If you’re focused on one route only, it can blind you with other options, sometimes there are much easier ways of reaching your destination.

3.  Your plan must embrace the possibility of changes on your journey: 

Sometimes things just don’t work out the way we planned them. If your plan is outcome-based and principle-based, it’s easy to redesign into a working plan as you go along. Then you don’t need to stop for downtime and analysis and this avoids the discouragement that often comes with stopping.

In summary, the key is flexibility and being able to adapt to a changing environment, as long as your goals are achievable and ultimately what you really want. The principle to keep in mind is to maintain a plan that allows change, take continuous action and is motivating,  which will help you succeed and fulfill your goals for the year.

We would like you to wish you all a wonderful CNY Holiday and may the year ahead be of full of happiness, success and high personal energy.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

恭喜發財!