BLOG postings: (link to Achieving Success BLOG for all posts and PDF downloads)
Planning for Success:
The First Ingredient
“It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
continuation from BLOG post: part IV.c
We are now ready to move to Level (II) of the planning model. Level (II) takes each goal identified in goal planning process, and using the Justwyn Model for benchmark planning (appendix.pdf), it places the goal in the pinnacle section of the second model as shown. The Justwyn Model for benchmark planning works exactly like the Justwyn Model for goal planning. You will identify, prioritize, and arrange in hierarchical layers the benchmarks (or sub-goals) that will achieve the respective goal.
For example, one of Dave Mansfield’s goals identified in the last exercise is building name recognition. How does one build a popular name that millions across the country will recognize? For starters, Dave could write and publish a book. Though not an easy feat by any means, yet publishing a book is a valuable benchmark that can help him achieve other important benchmarks such as speaking circuits, publishing, and starting grass-root campaigns. Dave certainly won’t become a household name with this plan. But given his limitations (meaning that he is not pursuing a movie-screen career), the benchmarks identified and prioritized in the model above will begin to build the name recognition he needs.
You could probably identify other benchmarks that will best achieve the goal name recognition. By all means, use these benchmarks in your plan. That is the strategic objective of the planning methodology: forcing you to strategically think, identify, and prioritize the benchmarks that will achieve a particular goal. You are designing a methodology that will guide you to success.
Try to limit your selection of benchmarks to nine. You will prioritize and layer the benchmarks the same way you prioritize and layer the goals previously discussed. Let’s take Dave’s goal plan and complete a Justwyn Model for goal planning for the five goals on the first layer of his plan: 1) undergraduate degree; 2) community involvement; 3) analytical skills; 4) writing skills; and 5) communication skills.
Note: you may want to limit your benchmark planning to those goals that you will be currently working on. There is no need to plan for benchmarks that will be worked on later — especially for those goals further up the model. We will discuss in more detail timing and execution of your goal plan later on.
After you identify and prioritize the benchmarks for a goal(s), you next move to Model Level (III) and identify the major tasks that will achieve the respective benchmark. The tasks become the plan of action, or the nitty-gritty “to do’s” that achieve individual benchmarks. The number of tasks needed to complete the benchmark may vary by the complexity of the benchmark. This planning process will be explained further when we discuss the execution ingredient for success. You will use the Justwyn Model for task planning (appendix.pdf) to complete this exercise.
You may be asking how to accomplish all of these goal-benchmarks-tasks in a limited 24-hour day? The answer can be found using the execution ingredient that will be discussed later. The execution ingredient plans the number of goals, benchmarks, and tasks that need to be achieved within a specified time span.
Your mission at this stage of the planning process is to develop a plan that you can begin working with. A trip of a thousand miles begins with one step. Your trip to success likewise begins with the first task, benchmark, and goal. Remember that the tasks achieve the benchmark — benchmarks achieve the goal — goals achieve the objective — and the objective achieves success. You now have a planning methodology that gives you an advantage over others who fail to plan properly.
Next time: we will turn our discussion to Level III: Recognition of Accomplished Goals
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