Planning is Key to Success

Posted July 18th, 2014 by Carroll King Schuller

Planning is defined as the act or process of making or carrying out plans, specifically the establishment of goals, policies, and procedures for achieving.  Effective planning can increase efficiency, reduce risks, aid in organizing, provide direction, encourage creativity, and help in decision making.  It is a way to optimize your efforts.  A plan is like a map; when following it, you can see how far you have progressed toward your goals and how far you are from your destination.

In the past few months, I have been spending longer periods of time with clients, including foundations, couples, and business owners, in extended planning sessions.  Many individuals today tend to be in a rush and are sometimes unable to set aside time to truly hash out their goals, habits, and desires.  In these planning sessions, my office provides an environment that invites the design of solutions and encouragement for clients to gear into making plans for both their careers and home life.  While these sessions can be intense because you are in a situation that requires deep thought and decisions making, it is an extremely beneficial process.

In planning sessions, the six by eight foot wall in the office provides the space that we need for spreading the plan.  This can help facilitate your thinking out how your desires can function in your life and become a reality.  Seeing how certain outcomes are interrelated is helpful.  For example you can visualize the job you want and where you want to live to determine if you will be satisfied with your career and commute.  When we make decisions, we typically do not life to make them in the context of yes/no; however, we are not talking about doing nothing if you choose the “no” option, only determining an alternative.  For example, a business could by trying to decide if they want to continue to provide outside education for their employees at the cost of $5,000 a year.  If they decide not to continue, they are not necessarily saying that they will not help anyone or will not do anything with that “extra” money.  They may even opt to bring the trainer inside the business or corporation.  Planning sessions are about determining alternatives because you cannot make a change until you have flushed these out.

Planning with me as a career and life coach is about getting help realizing your goals and about discovering new ways of creating opportunities to accomplish something you may have thought was impossible.  It can become very important to make a choice rather than going with a default option.  An example of this could be only looking for a new job solely because you do not like your current one.

Planning sessions are also beneficial for families.  When there is a lack of planning within a home unit, there can potentially be a lot of stress.  I ask husbands, wives, etc. to write what they want on the wall posters and also what is stopping them from achieving those desires.  Then, we work together to plan how the wants can be accomplished.  For a family member who owns a business or even just has a job, planning is always about more than the business.  It is beneficial to really understand your current circumstances in life, as real-life decisions are not made in a vacuum.  Through extended collaboration with me, I can help you determine this baseline and act as a sort of personal trainer to facilitate your decision making.

For businesses, planning includes visualizing what you need to accomplish to be successful, bit it also ties in to family life and can become about communication.  first, we determine all of your wants.  This can include having the funds to get your nails done once a month or putting your kid through school.  Then, we move backwards to determine a plan for accomplishing these goals.  Along with having your wants, we also discuss what you may need to stop doing or things that are getting in the way of your success.  I like to call this determining the roadblocks.  For example, if you feel uncomfortable because you do not meet the “image” of your clients, you may need to stop wearing your old clothes and go shopping for new ones.  also a part of making this business planning successful is deciding if you need more support or focus on a different part of you business or if you should add or take away specialties.  The solution is often not what you readily think is holding you back, and that is where I come in to assist and facilitate the process.  These intensive sessions will be creative, exciting, and results oriented.  Together we explore options and devise a strategy for whole life joy and success based on strength acceleration, time management, and effective communication.

Planning sessions can range from 1.5 hours to 3 hours to a whole day, depending on the size of the business or intricacies of the issue.  This process has validity for people from all walks of life, including students, business owners, etc. and has become a pivotal point in the coaching process.

Planning really is the key to success.  Happy planning!