Would you run a start-up without a business plan? Do you review your business or your job regularly to ensure it is growing and/or meeting your needs? What can we learn from business planning when we apply this approach the business of living a full and productive life?
Creating a business plan is usually the very first step we take towards planning a business and, whether it is written up on a serviette, two pages or 100, it forms the blueprint for further actions and success. Typically, a business plan examines market trends, your ideal clients, financial planning, competitive analysis, exit strategies, marketing and promotional options. Any business plan informs a series of smaller project or action plans which provide focus around different aspects of your business.
Whether we operate our own business, work for a small business, a multi-national or in the public sector, there will be a plan of some sort that owners, leaders, managers, directors are driving towards and focusing actions on every single day. This plan is regularly evaluated, reviewed, revamped and rejigged to reflect changes in the market and new opportunities. The business, company or organisation then adjusts to this new direction by employing new strategies or new staff or developing new products. Nimble, flexible, adaptable and responsive. Building towards success.
Imagine for one minute, that your life was a business. The Business of the Life of …….(insert your name). We live with ourselves for the duration of our lives and it goes without saying that if we do not like ourselves it is harder for us to like and love others and if we do not allow ourselves to dream and set goals and aspirations, we may be less than we can actually be and if we do not take risks and challenge ourselves we may never reach our fullest potential. Just like it would be in a business………….
Imagine for another minute that you wrote, actioned and regularly evaluated a Business Plan for Your Life. To write the plan you will have considered what your goals and aspirations are against key areas of your life such as family, health and fitness, intimate relationships, friends, wealth, career, travel, hobbies, entertainment, spirituality, education and personal development. You will be writing the blueprint for your success. Let’s get started then!
TEN STEPS TO GET YOUR LIFE BUSINESS PLAN STARTED:
- List the key areas of your life you want to plan into using the list above as a guide
- Give each area a score – Zero for could not be any worse through to ten for could not be any better
- Review the scores remembering to be brutally honest with yourself
- Imagine what each area of your life would look like, feel like, enable you to do if it was a ten
- For each area, working from your imagined score of ten, write some goals – remember specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely – giving yourself 12 months to achieve them
- Chunk each goal down to 6 months, 3 months and the next month so that you can write specific actions – these are the things that you can do right now that will move you closer to your goal and will be reviewed weekly as you hold yourself accountable for your achievements
- Start working through these actions in a very deliberate and conscious way
- Celebrate each and every action you have achieved
- Evaluate and review your actions each week to ensure that you remain flexible and committed to success
- If required, rewrite and re-align your list of actions so that they reflect the focus you have on your goals
Most importantly of all – be prepared to start again, to re-invent yourself and to let go of one plan, reviewing and rewriting your Life Business Plan regularly to ensure that you are deliberate about being all that you can be.
While I have no doubt that you can get this process started yourself, as your coach I will assist you to set 12 month goals, chunking them down to 3 month targets and developing daily, weekly and monthly measurable actions. I will also keep you accountable on your journey to realising your potential, celebrating with you every step of the way.
Contact me now for a complimentary 30 minute coaching session to see if we fit.
Beth Berghan is an international coach who works with entrepreneurs, business owners, executives and anyone in transition to develop and implement communication and time management strategies designed to maintain work/life harmony. She has a well developed Business of Life Plan to take over the world one country at a time including the action of determining whether or not she needs a bike licence to do this.