Ready for part two? Last post I talked about the first critical part of creating any plan, which is having a clear and well-defined goal, otherwise known as knowing where you are going.
Before we jump to part two, first here’s a quick review of all four critical parts of a great plan:
1. Clearly defined end goal, in detail, with specific end results occurring in real time (Where are you going?)
2. Clearly defined current circumstances, including financial and personal resources, skill sets, network resources, knowledge resources, etc. (Where are you now?)
3. Clearly defined gaps – identify what is missing from where you are now that you will need to develop, find or create to get you to the end goal (What’s missing that you need?)
4. A strategy for addressing the identified gaps, including specific action steps to address each specific problem or gap (What’s the best way to get there from here?)
So let’s look at that number 2 item. This is the one that can really make you squirm sometimes, the one I, personally, like to avoid. But there’s no way around it.
No matter how clear you may have gotten yourself on where you want to end up and what you want to create, trying to come up with any kind of real plan to get there when you don’t know where you are right now is just plain impossible. Think about it. When you are looking at a map and trying to figure out how to get where you are going, is there any possible way you can do that if you don’t find out where you are on the map now?
What we all need in life is one of those signs they have in parks – and in malls – with a big red star that says, “You Are Here.”
But, last time I checked, my life didn’t come with one of those, so I’ve had to figure it out myself. I wish I could tell you that I have this part down, but the fact is, I struggle with it. One of the things I do to sabotage myself is to keep things, well, just a bit vague. It doesn’t serve me, I know that, but I do it. So this “getting clear about where I am” part is the hardest part for me.
This is how that looks in my life:
First, I put it off, keep myself busy with other things, tell myself I’ll get to it.
Then, I put it off some more, but I start to feel more uncomfortable about it.
Then, I start to feel really uncomfortable about it, because I’m talking to people about what I’m up to and I keep noticing that I always run out of things to say at about the same point because I don’t have a plan. Ugh, I hate that part.
Finally, I sit down and start to get clear about where I am. Exactly what that means depends on what I’m up to, but with anything important, like a new business idea or important family goals, it usually includes taking stock of finances, where there always tend to be a few surprises, and doing some math, and making lists of the different resources and what I know and what I don’t know, that kind of thing. The odd thing is that I put it off, and then it does feel hard when I first get started, but once I get going it isn’t that hard and it actually gets exciting.
There is a real sense of power that comes from dealing with reality.
Let me say that again. There is a real sense of power that comes from dealing with reality.
If you are starting or growing your own business, or any other important endeavor in your life, and you haven’t sat yourself down and gotten clear about the facts of your current situation, then you are truly setting yourself up to not succeed. I won’t say that you will outright and completely fail, but you will surely not have the success you want.
So what do you need to get clear about?
· Finances – to make a plan in the real world, you need to know how much money is coming in reliably, how much is going out regularly, and, at least to some degree, what it’s being spent on. (I hate this part. But it gives me power, so I do it.) What kind of money, if any do you have in reserve? What if it takes longer to make a profit than you thought it would (it almost always does!) You also need to know how much money you are willing to invest in this. This is one of the biggest problems that I find people run into with a new business – I’ve done it myself. When you don’t define for yourself how much money you are willing to put in, you find yourself putting more and more in, a little at a time, until you wake up one day and find yourself at far more risk than you ever expected. It’s one of the most common results of not having a plan.
· Time – get real about the fact that your life is not currently set up and structured for the success you want. If it were, you would already have that success! So you need to take a hard look at how you are spending your time. What kind of time can you free up so that you can work on your new business or project? What needs to be delegated or deleted from your schedule, and what is it going to take to accomplish that?
· Knowledge and skills – what do you already know about your new business? What skills do you have that will be useful? Do you have a team of people working with you? If you do, what skills and knowledge do they have? Once you take a good inventory of the knowledge and skills base, it becomes pretty clear what skills and knowledge are missing – but that’s Part Three, we’ll get to that next time!
· Networking – who do you know that will be helpful or useful in your endeavor? What networks and communities do you belong to, and how can they be leveraged?
· Physical resources – do you have office space or work space, equipment, supplies, inventory, vehicles – take stock of the physical resources you have available and how they can be leveraged for you. Get creative!
· What else? Some of this will depend on the particular business or endeavor you are looking at creating, so ask yourself the questions that seem relevant to you.
When you have it all laid out in front of you in black and white, you will probably find that you have more resources than you realized, and at the same time, there will be some very clear gaps and missing pieces that you will see. Both the resources and the gaps are fabulous – they are both essential to creating a real, honest-to-goodness plan!
Once you have taken this good hard look at where you really are, even though you haven’t yet created the whole plan, you’ll find that you are having very different kinds of conversations about this whole business thing. The conversations don’t end at the same place anymore. Because you are now clear about both where you are and where you want to go, ideas about how to get there are popping up all over the place. People are suggesting strategies and resources to you, people are getting excited about what you are doing! You are getting excited – again – about what you are doing!
That’s the power that comes from dealing with the reality of where you are. Now, you are feeling ready to launch! But wait, hold back just a tiny bit – there are a couple more things to handle – we want to create the whole plan, remember? Next up – the gaps. What’s missing that you need? We’ll get into that next time, I promise.
For now, go take stock. Don’t put it off the way I always want to! Look especially hard at the stuff you don’t want to look at. It’s scarier/more confusing/harder in your head than it is in reality, so just go look at it, write it down, get it clear.
Fact is, there’s just no substitute for being clear about exactly where you are.
