Now that you have written down your list of 50 things you would like to have or change – you DID write them down didn’t you? If you haven’t written them down then stop right now – don’t go any further until you have that written list. It may seem like a trivial formality right now. You may be thinking ‘hey, I know what I want – I don;t need to write it down’. But believe me, writing these things down is one of the most important parts of the process. You’ve probably ‘known’ what you want for most of your life, but just thinking about it didn’t get you very far. If you’re still unsure about writing it down, just humour me on this, okay?
Okay, so you have that list. The next step is to figure out how soon you want each of those things and how long you think it might take to get them. All you need to do in this part of the process is be realistic. If it’s a $500k house that you want then that’s probably going to take a little time. On the other hand, if your first goal is to develop a better relationship or learn to play a musical instrument, or to increase your income by $2000 per month then these are things that have a much shorter time frame.
Give each thing on your list a time frame of 6 months, 2 years, 5 years and 10 years. It may seem like a lot to do, but if we look at the longest time frame – 10 years – and then break that list down it’s an average of 5 things per year. It’s not so daunting when you look at it like that! Also, you may find that some of your shorter term goals actually contribute to the achievement of your longer term goals.
At this point I would rewrite my list into 4 separate lists – just to neaten things up a bit. The first list we’ll be working on is the 6 month list so you might want to just rewrite that one as the first ‘action list’.
You probably won’t be surprised to know that a lot of people get to this point – writing their list – and never get any further. That’s because simply writing a list of what you want or where you want to go or what you’d like to learn simply isn’t enough. The next step is the really important one in this process – a plan of action.
Your 6 month list may only have 4 or 5 items on it… or it may have twenty. We all have different needs and desires so a personal action plan is essential. Take a look at your 6 month list and see if there are any items on there that may relate to each other. For example, if I wanted to increase my income by $5000 per month and I also wanted a new car within 6 months then those two goals are going to work really well together. I know that in order to increase my income I need to be more productive or start a part time business or perhaps start an online business that I can work at during the evenings. What do I need to do to get that car though? Is the increase in income going to do it? Well, yes and no! The increase will help but if I really want that car then I need to save the extra income I earn. Seems obvious doesn’t it? It is, but you need to make that decision and even note it next to that goal – otherwise you may end up spending that extra money on things you don’t really need.
In the next installment we will look at those goals in a bit more detail and talk about WHY you want all of those things.
