Step 2 — Make a Plan
You know what to wish for. You have committed yourself to pay the price. You have made your wish presentable. Now you need to create a plan to put your wish in motion.
To create an effective plan, you will construct a simple plan of action in which you break your wish into persuasive steps so small that you can’t wait to get started on the first one, then the next, and then the one after that, until before you know it you have made your wish come true.
In essence, your plan is a bridge from thinking to doing. It translates your wish from an idea into the actions necessary to turn that idea into reality.
A good plan motivates you to complete even the most minor details because it drapes each one in the larger purpose. When you work any step of the plan, you feel like you’re working the whole plan so every step is worth your best effort.
But the magic of your plan is not in the details, it’s in the freedom those details give you. Freedom from the distraction of worrying about what to do next. Freedom to focus all your energy and attention on the single step at hand, knowing that every step you complete takes you that much closer to where you want to go. Freedom to try, because you know you’ll succeed. A good plan sets your mind at ease and your body in motion. It removes confusion, uncertainty, and doubt so you can concentrate on getting the job done.
Brainstorming a plan
When I create a plan, I start with my objective in mind and then brainstorm how to get there from here. At the top of a piece of paper, I write this question: What steps do I need to take to ________? Then I simply fill in the blank, ask myself the question, and write my answers.
Let’s make up an example. Suppose your wish is to become Director of Operations for XYZ Emporium. At the top of a piece of paper you write this question: What steps do I need to take to become director of operations at XYZ Emporium? Ask yourself this question and write the answers. They might look like this.
1. Call my friends to see if any of them have contacts at XYZ Emporium.
2. Identify the specific person I should contact at XYZ Emporium.
3. Line up the references most likely to get me this job.
4. Update my resume.
5. Research XYZ Emporium.
Once you have listed as many steps as you can think of, arrange them in the order in which it makes the most sense to execute them:
1. Research XYZ Emporium.
2. Call my friends to see if any of them have contacts at XYZ Emporium.
3. Identify the specific person I should contact at XYZ Emporium.
4. Update my resume.
5. Line up the references most likely to get me this job.
Then you break the larger steps into smaller steps. For example, Step 4 might look like this:
Step 4: Update my resume.
1. Read a book about writing resumes.
2. Attend a seminar about writing resumes.
3. Ask a friend for advice.
4. Write the first draft.
5. Have some friends proofread the first draft.
6. Complete my resume.
7. Make as many copies as I need.
Some of these steps could even be broken into smaller steps, and those into smaller steps still. The idea is to keep breaking down major steps until you create steps so small that they appear inviting to you. You want to feel confident that you can go from one step to the next without undue hardship. No step should be so intimidating that you can’t fact it—or else when you do reach it the whole process will come to a screeching halt.
After you’ve broken down one major step this way, repeat the process for each of the others, until each large step is reduced to a series of manageable tasks. You will then have a list of all the steps necessary to take you from where you are to where you want to go. Once you look at this list and realize how easily you can handle everything on it, you will begin to understand how simple it is to make your wish come true.
Deadlines
You don’t have a plan until you have a deadline. The purpose of a deadline is to make you feel a sense of urgency. It lets you know how serious you are about making your wish come true. It switches the light at the end of the tunnel, so you quicken your pace to reach it.
Set reasonable deadlines. If you want to get a new job, give yourself at least six months, not six weeks. If you want to achieve financial independence and you’re starting from scratch, give yourself a decade, not a year. A deadline is designed to make you focus, not to make you panic.
The advantage of setting a deadline is that you fix your wish in time, not just in your mind. You begin to plan your life around it, the same way you plan around any other important event. Your wish becomes real, like an appointment, or a holiday, or a business trip you’ve scheduled for next month. The more real your wish becomes; the more convinced you become that you can make your wish come true.
Milestones
Milestones are intermediate targets designed to keep you on track toward your main deadline. They help you make continual progress over time, so you don’t have to accomplish everything at the last moment.
For example, suppose in November you decide to lose thirty pounds by the time you leave for vacation the following July. To help you meet your deadline, you might set a milestone of losing a pound every week. If you meet each weekly milestone, they by July you will have lost all thirty pounds. If you miss a milestone or two, you still have time to take corrective action—before it’s too late.
Scheduling
Once you’ve listed the steps you need to take to make your wish come true, and you’ve also set milestones to keep you on track toward your deadline, you need to transfer both the steps and the milestones to your daily schedule. Scheduling bridges the gap between planning and doing. It’s the difference between a good intention and an appointment. Instead of saying to an old friend, “Let’s have lunch sometime,” scheduling lets you say, “Let’s have lunch next Tuesday at 1:00 p.m.”
If you’ve ever used a planner or pocket scheduler, you already know how to schedule the steps and the milestones of your plan. Simply enter each step in your scheduler the same way you would enter a meeting, or a lunch date, or an appointment with your doctor. You don’t have to schedule the entire plan all at once, just the next week or two. Then if a step takes longer than you expected, or your schedule is disrupted in some other way, you won’t have as much to reschedule.
When you schedule a step on your calendar, you are making an appointment with yourself. Keep it. Treat it like an appointment with the most important person in the world—because it is!
Take yourself seriously. If you don’t, who will? Take yourself as seriously as you want the rest of the world to take you. After all, why should anyone else treat you better than you treat yourself? If you want other people to keep their appointments with you, keep your appointments with yourself. If you want other people to be there when you need them, be there for yourself.
The Limiting Factor
The limiting factor is the bottleneck that can affect how rapidly you make your wish come true. For your plan to be successful, it must be designed to get past this limiting factor.
Consider these examples: Gus is a middle-aged lawyer whose wish is to get back into shape by exercising at six each morning before he heads to the office. But Gus hates to drag himself out of bed that early, so every morning he invents a new excuse to sleep late, and every morning he skips his workout. Sleeping late is the limiting factor in his plan. If he’s ever going to shape up, he first has to get up.
Mary is a salesperson who plans to double her sales in the next year, but she is terrified of cold calling for prospects. Fear is her limiting factor. She will have to deal with this fear before she can increase her cold calling enough to double her sales.
The distinguishing characteristic of a limiting factor is that once you overcome it, everything else falls into place. If Gus develops the habit of bouncing out of bed at six each morning, he will soon be able to work himself into shape. If Mary learns to enjoy cold calling instead of fearing it, her sales will skyrocket off the charts.
Now consider your wish. What is it that most limits your progress? What factor, once changed, will make everything else fall into place? It might be a habit you need to change as it was with Gus; or it might be your way of looking at the world, as it was with Mary. Once you have pinpointed the limiting factor in your wish, design your plan to overcome it.
Schedule Progress Reports
Once you’ve listed the steps of your plan and scheduled them on your calendar or daily planner, you need to schedule regular progress reports to see how you’re coming along.
A progress report is like looking out the window while you’re riding a train. By observing what you’re passing, you can tell whether or not the train is going in the right direction. But if you aren’t paying attention, you can come to the end of the line and find yourself in the wrong city.
To schedule progress reports, estimate how long it will take you to complete your wish and divide that time into regular intervals. If your wish will take a year, make a progress report every month. If your wish will take a month, make a progress report every week. Include these reports in your plan and schedule them into your calendar, the same way you schedule the other steps of your plan.
When the time comes to make a progress report, write your answers to these questions:
1. Have I met the milestones I planned to meet since my last progress report?
2. Do I need to change my plan to reach my milestones?
3. Do I need to change my milestones?
Circumstances change constantly. Your plan may need to change with them. If you find that you need to make changes, make them. If you need to revise your plan, revise it. That’s what a progress report is all about.
