Making personal plans in the new year

A hanging in a restaurant I recently visited said something like “life is not about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself”. This inspired me to do some significant things this year. To recreate myself.
A new year is an opportunity for self-creation for many. Time to make new plans and resolutions. It is an opportunity for strategic personal growth. A personal plan is vital in all this. Motivational speaker John Maxwell recently wrote on his website: “personal growth doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not an automatic process. If you want to guarantee growth, then you need a plan- something strategic, specific, and scheduled.”

Plans help you to lay down the vision for your life. People who have a plan become trail blazers.
Most dictionaries define vision simply as “the ability to see”. We call successful people “visionaries” because they saw into the future, planned for it and when time came they simply acted out a script.

Everyone can be a visionary. First see yourself as unique. You can do anything you set yourself to do. Most people are limited by barriers of past experience, culture, finances or society in general. A plan tells you it’s possible to make it.
Plans also enable you to know yourself and strengthen the belief in yourself. “You don’t become what you want, you become what you believe”, it has been said.
I once attended a workshop where we were told to write a mission statement, a vision statement and long term and short term plans for our lives. Who are you? Where are you going? How are you going to get there and so on and so forth. It was a very helpful exercise which I would recommend to anybody. It was very self-revelatory.
It all starts with knowing who you are and what you want to achieve.

The next step after you know who you are is to see yourself where you want to be. Clearly articulate the level of success you want to achieve. A new house, car, business, what is it that you want to bring out of you this year. This brings you to the next step.
You have to figure out how you will get there: How to raise capital if you need capital for business or funding for further education, or whatever it is. This pushes you into action.

Finally, there is also power in writing down all these goals for every facet of your life. Write it all down. Write down goals for your business, education, family, marriage, entertainment, wardrobe, everything. If it is all thought through and put down in writing, it will all be better executed. A written vision is reinforced in your psyche and it is also recorded so that you and revisit it or adjust it as you go along.
Writing a vision down eliminates time wasting.

Seven questions to ask yourself
1.What are the things I’m most passionate about? What do you love? What “work” do you do that doesn’t feel like work?
2. What are my greatest accomplishments in life so far? Think about your past experiences and the things in your life you’re most proud of.
3. If my life had absolutely no limits, what would I choose to have and what would I choose to do? Here’s a cool exercise: think about what you would do if you had no limits.
4. What are my goals in life? Goals are a necessary component to set you up for a happy future.
5. Whom do I admire most in the world? Following the path of successful people can set you up for success.
6. What do I not like to do? An important part of figuring out what you want to do with your life is honestly assessing what you don’t want to do.
7. How hard am I willing to work to get what I want? Great accomplishments never come easy.