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Any vision needs a strategy and plan

• Success, and remember this is any degree of success, can only be achieved by planning. Successful people make plans for success. True success comes from Vision, but it needs a Strategy. Phyllis Reardon
• Sometimes Vision can be seen as dreaming or drifting; Strategy is planning and action. Phyllis Reardon
• Tremendous productivity can be generated, once a vision has been set, by reverse- engineering it back to short- term goals and objectives, for which you can then create projects that themselves trigger next actions. David Allen
• Dreaming is essential, but it’s only part of the equation. You’ve got to put a strategy into play. Passion is the wind in your sails, and practicality is the rudder. You need both to get where you’re going. Danielle LaPorte
• It’s not enought to visualise a positive result; it’s much better to plan how you’re going to get there. Shane Murphy
• Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined.  David Allen
• When a goal as visionary as “end world hunger” begins with practical next steps like “Call Johann about the soup kitchen proposal” and “Surf the Web for seminars on food distribution research,” it can be quite energizing. David Allen
• Plans make dreams reality. Susan Pace-Koch
• Planning,  Vision,  Clarity,  Strategy,  Goal setting

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A plan is what you say you will do.  A strategy is how: actions, timelines, resources

• A plan is what you say you will do. A strategy is how: actions, timelines, resources.  Goals and steps need to be written down on paper or entered into a computer, to get them out of your mind.  If they stay in your head they can become fuzzy, unclear and not real and dissipate over time.  Phyllis Reardon
• Planning helps clarify the steps needed to reach our future self, that Vision you have created of your future. When planning consists of goal setting, actions and timelines, it goes beyond day-to-day planning to become strategic planning.  Phyllis Reardon
• Planning,  Strategy

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A plan is like a map that tells you how to reach your goal …

• Having a goal with no plan of action is like wanting to travel to a new destination without having a map. Steve Maraboli
• The wise man bridges the gap by laying out the path by means of which he can get from where he is to where he wants to go. John Pierpont Morgan
• Goal setting

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… including the sequence of actions you need to take

• Developing the plan is actually laying out the sequence of events that have to occur for you to achieve your goal. George L. Morrisey
• For each goal, decide on the steps to reach these goals. List them.  Next, prioritise the action steps.  Phyllis Reardon
• Each goal must be reduced to specific, concrete action steps. Brian Tracy
• Action steps

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An effective plan spells out what will be done, where and how

• Just like goals, not all plans are created equal. An effective plan is one that spells out exactly what will be done, and where, and how. Heidi Grant Halvorson
• Think of something you need to do, something you want to learn, or a problem you have to confront. What is it? Now make a concrete plan. When will you follow through on your plan? Where will you do it? How will you do it? Think about it in vivid detail. These concrete plans—plans you can visualize—about when, where, and how you are going to do something lead to really high levels of follow- through, which, of course, ups the chances of success. So, the idea is not only to make a growth- minded plan, but also to visualize, in a concrete way, how you’re going to carry it out. Carol S. Dweck

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A plan is as essential as the goal itself …

• A goal without an action plan is a daydream. Nathaniel Brandon
• Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan. Tom Landry
• Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success. Stephen A. Brennan
• Crystallize your goals. Make a plan for achieving them and set yourself a deadline. Then, with supreme confidence, determination and disregard for obstacles and other people’s criticisms, carry out your plan. Paul Meyer
• Although goals are important, having a plan of action is vital to the success of those goals. Having a goal with no plan of action is like wanting to travel to a new destination without having a map. Steve Maraboli
• Planning

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… for it will greatly determine your success or failure in reaching it

• You can achieve anything you want in life if you have the courage to dream it, the intelligence to make a realistic plan, and the will to see that plan through to the end. Sydney A. Friedman
• The best way to succeed is to have a specific Intent, a clear Vision, a plan of Action, and the ability to maintain Clarity. Those are the Four Pillars of Success. It never fails!  Steve Maraboli
• To me, the definition of focus is knowing exactly where you want to be today, next week, next month, next year, then never deviating from your plan. Once you can see, touch and feel your objective, all you have to do is pull back and put all your strength behind it, and you’ll hit your target every time.  Bruce Jenner
• Purposes unrelated to a plan of action do not get realized. They exist as frustrated yearnings. Nathaniel Branden
• Success,  Failure

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Plans save time in execution

• Every minute you spend in planning will save you as many as ten minutes in execution. Brian Tracy
• The primary idea was this: One hour of planning saves three hours of execution. Steve Chandler
• The payoff from good planning is enormous. It is estimated that each minute spent in planning saves ten minutes in execution. To put it another way, your investment in planning pays you a 1,000 percent return on the time and energy you invest. Brian Tracy
• Time management

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Fail to plan and you plan to fail

• Action without planning is the reason for every failure. Peter Drucker
• Failures don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan. Harvey MacKay
• Since they fail to plan, they are planning to fail by default. Denis Waitley

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For each goal you have, ask “What? Why? How? When?”

• What? Specificy what your goal is precisely.
• Why? Try to articulate why a particular goal will serve what you believe in. Why do you wish to see this goal fulfilled? Asking yourself “why” brings clarity to your goals.
• How? When you have tackled what and why, the next step is “how.” How will you know when you have arrived? How will you get there? How will you mark the way to seeing your goal realized? How are you going to get it done? How will you empower yourself to achieve your goal? Taking the time to visualize and feel the “how” helps you see some of the necessary steps to take in order to achieve your goal.
• When? Why can’t your dreams have deadlines? What if you took your goals as seriously as, let’s say, a project at work or a job for a client? Aren’t your aspirations just as important, if not more important?
• Source: Seven Habits of Successful People Workbook (by Stephen Covey)

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Always put your plan in writing

• Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire. Napoleon Hill
• Here is a great rule for success: Think on paper. Brian Tracy
• A plan is what you say you will do. A strategy is how: actions, timelines, resources.  Goals and steps need to be written down on paper or entered into a computer, to get them out of your mind.  If they stay in your head they can become fuzzy, unclear and not real and dissipate over time.  Phyllis Reardon
• It is proven that writing down our thoughts, intentions, desires, plans and goals helps clarify our thinking. Tehmina Zama
• Writing

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Brainstorm all the action steps required to get to your goal and the order they need to come in

• Are there many steps involved with this goal, or does it require a few major milestones? Start brainstorming all the steps involved. What is it going to take to get you from here to there?  Stephen Covey
• Take a look at the steps in your list and prioritize them to the best of your ability. Which things must come before others? Which ones can wait until farther down the road? Stephen Covey
• Goal setting

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Break up your larger goals into smaller goals

• Don’t be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to ultimate goal become a mini goal in itself. Denis Waitley
• Do not be discouraged by the difficulty to accomplish a large goal; break it into smaller goals and tasks and create a timeline for finishing them. Jerry Bruckner
• When you’re feeling overwhelmed by a large project or goal that you need to tackle, make your action steps smaller and easier. One clue that will let you know that you need to break your goal down into smaller chunks is that you find yourself procrastinating. Procrastination is often caused by the feeling of being overwhelmed.  Marelisa Fabrega
• Instead of thinking about things in terms of one-off accomplishments, start to think about how you can break your goals down into small, consistent daily habits, and then start making those habits a part of your daily routine and just forget about them. Stever Robbins
• The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Break your goals into smaller goals and steps, and then into bite size tasks. Jerry Bruckner

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Break actions into the smallest steps possible …

• When defining steps, break them into the smallest pieces or actions. Take a defined action and then see if you can make smaller actions out of this one action step.  This will help in successful completion.  Phyllis Reardon
• The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting with the first one. Mark Twain
• Great acts are made up of small deeds. Lao Tzu
• Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps. Helmut Schmidt
• Break complex projects into smaller, well-defined tasks. Focus on completing just one of those tasks. Leo Babauta
• Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. Henry Ford
• Start with just one small task from the project, instead of trying to tackle everything at once. Leo Babauta
• Break things down into small tasks that can be accomplished in an hour or less – even better would be twenty to thirty minutes, or even ten to fifteen minutes. The smaller, the better, because then we’re more likely to actually get them done. Leo Babauta
• Small tasks are always better than large ones. Leo Babauta

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… knowing that even the greatest goal can be achieved one small step at a time

• All changes, even positive ones, are scary. Attempts to reach goals through radical or revolutionary means often fail because they heighten fear. But the small steps of kaizen disarm the brain’s fear response, stimulating rational thought and creative play.   Robert Maurer
• Set a goal, and in small, consistent steps, work to reach it. Get support from your peers when you start flagging. Repeat. You will change. Seth Godin
• I accomplished all of this in small steps, one thing at a time. I focused on only one goal at a time, and put all of my energy into it. Leo Babauta
• Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps. Helmut Schmidt
• I accomplish my big goals one simple step at a time. John F. Demartini
• Action in the present changes the future. What is one stall step I could take toward reaching my goal? When can I start again? Now what needs to be done? David Reynolds
• Even a snail will eventually reach its destination. Gail Tsukiyama
• None of us knew the road ahead, so we just concentrated on the step before us. Robin Sharma
• The power of small steps

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Set deadlines …

• Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Parkinson’s Law
• Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. Timothy Ferriss
• Shorten schedules and deadlines to necessitate focused action instead of deliberation and procrastination. Timothy Ferriss
• Timelines and completion dates must be set for each of your actions steps. Phyllis Reardon
• We usually underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete tasks or actions and this can lead to lessened motivation. Be realistic. Phyllis Reardon
• A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most kick-ass form. It’s a potent force that, when wielded with respect, will level any obstacle in its path. This is especially true when it comes to creative pursuits. Chris Baty

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… and be realistic about it

• We usually underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete tasks or actions and this can lead to lessened motivation. Be realistic. Phyllis Reardon

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Now work the plan

• Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. Peter Drucker
• Give yourself a deadline to stop planning and to start taking action. Andy Gilbert
• Planning

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Always know what the very next action is to move your goal forward

• When a goal as visionary as “end world hunger” begins with practical next steps like “Call Johann about the soup kitchen proposal” and “Surf the Web for seminars on food distribution research,” it can be quite energizing. David Allen
• Tremendous productivity can be generated, once a vision has been set, by reverse- engineering it back to short- term goals and objectives, for which you can then create projects that themselves trigger next actions. David Allen
• For each goal, always ask yourself what your very next action step needs to be. David Allen

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Keep your plans high level without getting too bogged down in detail

• Let go of having to know all the steps you need to take to make your dreams come true. You know your direction, that’s more than enough. Amanda Ibey
• It is easy to get caught up in the details of How you’re going to accomplish your goal, before you begin acting on the idea or project. When you get too caught up in How, you are likely welcomed with a long list of what may seem like impossible tasks. This is very discouraging and will slow down momentum. Yes, it is important to have plans towards accomplishing a goal, but create plans with high-level views without being too boggled down on the How.  Tina Su
• Time is much better spent on creating a clear, concrete and measurable target. Know exactly what it is that you want, create a rough plan and then dive in with massive action. Focus on what you can do now, right now! Tina Su
• We are more in need of a destination and less in need of a roadmap.  Stephen Covey

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Keep your plans fluid and flexible …

• Write your goals in concrete and your plans in sand. Ingrid Klimke
• Map out your future, but do it in pencil. Jon Bon Jovi
• Be clear about your goal but be flexible about the process of achieving it. Brian Tracy
• Life is all about how you handle Plan B.
• The most successful people are those who are good at plan B. James Yorke
• Don’t fall in love with your plan; it’s only a tool to get you to your destination. Sean Phillips
• It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.  Publilius Syrus
• If Plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters. Keep calm.
• I know a lot of people have very strong and definite plans they they’ve worked out on all kinds of things, but we’re subject to a tremendous number of outside influences and the vast majority of them cannot be predicted. So my idea is to stay flexible. Henry Singleton
• In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might. Winston Churchill
• Flexibility,  Adaptability

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… for life will not always go as you expect …

• Life is under no obligation to give us what we expect. Margaret Mitchell
• Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. John Lennon
• We can plan a road trip or a workday down to the last detail but the unexpected will always arise. If we are not malleable, we will get left behind.  John Wooden
• How to make God laugh: Tell him your future plans. Woody Allen
• In the book of life every page has two sides: we human beings fill the upper side with our plans, hopes and wishes, but Providence writes on the other side and what it contains is seldom our goal. Nisami
• Expectation,  Letting go of attachment to result

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… and very often for the best

• Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable. Mary Oliver
• Get organised. Know where you are headed. But if something wonderful and unexpected comes along, be flexible enough to follow it.   Jackson Brown, Jr.
• Just because things hadn’t gone the way I had planned didn’t necessarily mean they had gone wrong. Ann Patchett
• You can devise all the plans in the world, but if you don’t welcome spontaneity; you will just disappoint yourself. Abigail Biddinger

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Measure your progress

• Measure your progress towards achieving your goals. Jerry Bruckner
• For a successful life, or successful business, measure what you want to improve. Jerry Bruckner
• The lessons from business and sports apply to your life; you can’t succeed unless you measure the right things and do something about what you learn from the measurement to bring you closer to achieving your goal. Jerry Bruckner
• Once you know your goals you should measure your progress to achieve them. Seeing your favourable progress will serve as positive reinforcement to continue your hard work and seeing negative progress will alert you to something you should change to get you back on track. Jerry Bruckner
• You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Dr. W. Edwards Deming
• When performance is measured, performance improves. Thomas S. Monson
• If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing. W. Edwards Deming
• Each week, you should stop and ask: What goals did I achieve? What challenges were encountered?  What decisions did I make? What successes and failures did I have?  How much time was actually spent on important activities? What keeps getting in the way of achieving my goals?  What have I learned from this week that will help me?  Stephen Covey
• Progress

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Celebrate Progress

• Celebrate any progress. Don’t wait to get perfect.  Ann McGee Cooper
• Celebration

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Persist.  Be prepared to adapt or replace your plan if need be.

• If the first plan which you adopt does not work successfully, replace it with a new plan; if this new plan fails to work, replace it in turn with still another, and so on, until you find a plan which does work. Right here is the point at which the majority of men meet with failure, because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail. Napoleon Hill
• It is a bad plan that admits of no modification. Publilius Syrus
• Adaptability

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More thoughts on planning

• You can have it all. Just not all at once. Oprah Winfrey
• A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. Proverb
• All time management begins with planning. Tom Greening
• Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action. Napoleon Hill
• First comes thought; then organization of that thought into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination. Napoleon Hill
• Four steps to achievement: Plan purposefully. Prepare prayerfully. Proceed positively. Pursue persistently. William A. Ward
• I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change. Jim Rohn
• If you want success in anything, you need to PLAN: Prepare for your journey. Launch out in action. Adjust as you go. Network with those who know. Tom Morris
• In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. Dwight D. Eisenhower
• It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all. Henri Poincare
• It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan. Eleanor Roosevelt
• Man’s best friend is a really good plan! Barry Gallagher
• Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now. Alan Lakein
• Planning is essential. Plans are useless. Winston Churchill
• The future belongs to those who prepare for it. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• We are more in need of a destination and less in need of a roadmap. Stephen Covey
• You have to have a plan and it’s important to stick to it, but it should be flexible too. Barbara Saunders

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• Plan: To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.   Ambrose Bierce
• Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow. Steven Wright
• Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up. A. A. Milne
• How to make God laugh: Tell him your future plans. Woody Allen

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