Every person has beautiful dreams. We are happy when our dreams come true. The main thing in our life is to be happy, isn’t it? Our everyday goals can bring us to achievable dreams. Every New Year we have different goals like losing weight, quitting smoking, saving money, getting fit, learning a new language, building career path or setting up a business. Our goals are more powerful at the beginning of the year rather than after some days, weeks or months. We have less motivation and feel not able to achieve our goals later. New Year’s resolutions are difficult to keep. For this reason we need a plan. A good one. And to be successful and happy, we should keep our plan and stick to it strictly.
It should be noted, that every successful person plans his or her daily life activities. It is very important. Do you want to be a high achiever? So stay here. At the end of my speech you will find out that planning is not so boring. Here are some steps to start with:
1 step: Be prepared for planning
Before making a new plan, you should resume your previous year. For example, you can write and figure out what your status or condition is in such spheres (sectors) of your life like:
- Health — 90 %
- Work – 100 %
- Family — ….
- Finance — ……
- Emotions, impressions, communications — ……
- Self – fulfillment — ……
- Self – development, personal advancement etc. …..
It is up to you what sector of your life is more important for you. The main idea is that the summary of these sectors makes you feel happy and successful. The summary of all sectors is called the wheel of life balance.
2 step: Instruments of planning
You should find your global values. For example, now you are 25 or 30 and you have a plan to live happy for 50. Do you like your life now? What is your global idea? It is a very important question. One should figure out his or her global values or mission in life. Of course, values can change during your lifetime. It is clear.
Let’s have a look at the pyramid that is connected with our values. Examples of life values: to leave own business for children, to leave healthy genes etc.
Your values are like your compass. They show your main goal. It is your guiding star. Let’s focus on planning for a year.
3 step: Priorities. Matrix of Eisenhower
When everything in our life is important and urgent, we feel discomfort and stress. Our action should be important but not urgent. Action should move from the quadrate below to the upper one.
A is important and urgent, it is a box of necessity. Part of actions from A should move to B box. C is urgent, but not important, can be delegated. D is the box of waste of time. You can find examples below:
4 step: Everyday planning
We have understood our goals, learned the instruments and set priorities for our goals. It’s time to write down our everyday steps. I hope it is clear that we should have a copybook or special app (Ex.: evernote). We should devote our 15 or 20 min a day to write down our small plans. And there are some tips to mark our actions, for example:
V done
→ transferred (for the next day, not more than 3 times)
X cancelled
~ in process
∂ sign of delta (Ex.: you have sold 3 candies instead of 5)
Please, don’t mark your actions like this DONE, because it means that you did nothing. I used to repeat this mistake year by year.
Well, at the end of your day you can write some important things into your copybook like this:
- The most important thing of the day.
- An interesting idea of the day.
- Result of the day.
- Value of the day.
- Appreciation (for yourself and for your environment).
To sum up, always make plans in positive mood. Be thankful for every day. Don’t forget your global goal, your mission, and your program of development. Don’t limit or bound yourself. Please remember, even only one person in the world has done it, you can do it too.
Mira Abdiyeva, student (from her speech given at Di Beissen Center’s master classes)
