I’ve been working on my family budget. Tax time is a great opportunity to revisit your strategies and make sure you’re on track.
On track with what? With your plan. Your strategy. You know, the one you wrote down clearly and carefully. The one that has all the good ideas and good destinations written in it. The one that defines success in such a way so that you can periodically check your progress against it, and course correct.
Without a plan, aimlessness sets in. And what exactly is aimlessness? No aim. The state of not aiming. This does not sound like a very successful strategy, does it? Imagine the results of an archer with no aim.
Develop clear targets. Clear and simple definitions of success. Targets are definable and measurable. Visions are not- they are dreamy and vague. Write down your targets beside your visions. Your visions should motivate you to hit your targets. Your visions inform and dictate what you targets should be.
This is where the strategy comes in. You could call it “How to hit my targets which grew out of my vision.” A strategy is a ”HOW” and a target is more of a “WHAT/WHERE/WHEN.” You could think of it like this: “How are we going to get there by then?”
I would encourage you to make a simple illustration of your strategies. It could be bullet points and sentences, but I think it’s more helpful to make a map. Like a simple treasure map. Put a big X in the middle of the page and call it “we succeeded”, and then define the X. Next devise how to hit the X.
Mix this with a little accountability and skill and hard work, and you will be hitting dead center every time.
