ENGAGING THOUGHT
Have you ever had the thrill of putting something together when the instructions were obviously written by a foreign neanderthal who hates people? Do they do that on purpose? Don't they understand the pressures we procrastinating parents are facing when we attempt to assemble the birthday-bicycle the night before the party? Or the dollhouse with authentic doorbell sounds on Christmas Eve? My guess is the manufacturer tests every employee and the one with the worst English skills gets the job of writing the instructions.
The whole point of a written plan is to provide an objective statement of our goals, strategies, and timelines. A written plan does a few things for us: it charts our course, it keeps us on track, and it gives us a standard for measuring progress. A written plan acts like the instruction manual for your DREAM.
Business start-ups live or die based on the strength of their business-plan and how well thought-out or thorough it is. Entrepreneurs who wish to lure venture-capitalists to invest in their business know that their written business-plan is almost as important as the product or service idea itself. The difference between business owners who are running a business versus those who simply "own their job" can usually be found in the presence (or absence) of a written plan that charts their course and answers the critical question of what exactly their business does.
A well-crafted, written plan will also keep you on course at critical crossroads along the way. In Lewis Carrol's fanciful tale Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice has an interesting exchange with the Cheshire Cat which goes like this:
Another benefit of the written plan is that we can always determine where we are in reference to it as we pursue the DREAM. You can always measure your actual progress against that in your written plan to see if you are putting forth enough diligence and effort. The truth is (unsurprisingly) that we will have to modify the timeline as we go (perhaps several times) to reflect the realities of our pursuit and fulfillment, so we shouldn't get too hung-up on how perfectly our progress matches our plan - but the truth is, without an objective plan we run the risk of wandering around without knowing how our progress is actually lining up to our goal.
The whole point of a written plan is to provide an objective statement of our goals, strategies, and timelines. A written plan does a few things for us: it charts our course, it keeps us on track, and it gives us a standard for measuring progress. A written plan acts like the instruction manual for your DREAM.
Business start-ups live or die based on the strength of their business-plan and how well thought-out or thorough it is. Entrepreneurs who wish to lure venture-capitalists to invest in their business know that their written business-plan is almost as important as the product or service idea itself. The difference between business owners who are running a business versus those who simply "own their job" can usually be found in the presence (or absence) of a written plan that charts their course and answers the critical question of what exactly their business does.
A well-crafted, written plan will also keep you on course at critical crossroads along the way. In Lewis Carrol's fanciful tale Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice has an interesting exchange with the Cheshire Cat which goes like this:
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"Alice's quandary illustrates how a plan helps us navigate the myriad choices we will encounter. Without a written plan we have no way of determining whether one course of action or another might be better. [Interesting literary aside: the Cheshire Cat is the only character in Wonderland that actually listens to Alice and he repeatedly serves in the role of teaching Alice the "rules" of Wonderland.]
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where--," said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
Another benefit of the written plan is that we can always determine where we are in reference to it as we pursue the DREAM. You can always measure your actual progress against that in your written plan to see if you are putting forth enough diligence and effort. The truth is (unsurprisingly) that we will have to modify the timeline as we go (perhaps several times) to reflect the realities of our pursuit and fulfillment, so we shouldn't get too hung-up on how perfectly our progress matches our plan - but the truth is, without an objective plan we run the risk of wandering around without knowing how our progress is actually lining up to our goal.
ACTION STEP
Today's ACTION STEP is all about putting the DREAM down on paper in a cohesive and comprehensive manner.
Take your written DREAM from Day 10, your written statement of resolve from Day 16, and your combined Bite-Size Pieces and Calendar Crunching from the last two days; write all of these on the same piece of paper as if they were a business plan being presented to a banker or venture capitalist.
Your written plan should answer the key questions of what, how, and when. It might be helpful for you to write as if you were handing this to someone who has no idea what you are doing. Will they "catch" the DREAM and have a basic understanding of how you will go about pursuing and fulfilling it just by reading your written plan.
Take your written DREAM from Day 10, your written statement of resolve from Day 16, and your combined Bite-Size Pieces and Calendar Crunching from the last two days; write all of these on the same piece of paper as if they were a business plan being presented to a banker or venture capitalist.
Your written plan should answer the key questions of what, how, and when. It might be helpful for you to write as if you were handing this to someone who has no idea what you are doing. Will they "catch" the DREAM and have a basic understanding of how you will go about pursuing and fulfilling it just by reading your written plan.
Tomorrow we shove the DREAM through a few tough questions and see what comes out the other side.
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