“Good order is the foundation of all things” Edmund Burke. Most adults spend more than half of their waking hours at work or doing work-related activities. Unfortunately, many of these people do not have or know how to create careers that bring wealth or happiness, let alone both. Often, we have a vision in our minds of what success looks like, but we leave it at that and do nothing about it. We daydream about what our lives could be like and how the other half lives.
Why do we so often accept the lives and surroundings we are born into? We have been taught from our early years to think about careers as a ladder, where you start at the bottom and work your way up, until you hit retirement. We have an education system that prepares us for employment but does not do a great job of showing us how to create our own employment. For many of us, we believe we need to find one right career or industry to dedicate ourselves to, and if we do not, then we believe we have failed.
So, what is success? Success means something different to everyone. Some of us define success in personal or spiritual terms, but most of us define it in professional terms. Regardless of how we see success, many of us spend the majority of our lives talking about “what if.”
The process of achieving both your personal and professional goals is comparable to a car journey: it is not always about knowing the exact steps you need to take, but it is crucial that you are clear on where you currently are and, more importantly, where you want to be. When you start a journey in your car, you enter your final destination into your satellite navigation system. It then gives you a series of instructions, and when you follow them, you will get to where you want to be. One thing is certain: if you do not get in the car and start the engine, you are going to stay exactly where you are.
The journey to achieving your goals and being successful is the same. By taking appropriate action with the right mindset, you can move in the right direction from where you are to where you want to be. So, why is it that 1%of the world’s population holds 45% of global wealth? What stops people from pursuing what they believe deep down would truly make them happy? For some, the fear of failure is too much to imagine. The thought of humiliation, rejection or inadequacy is enough to stop a lot of people from even trying (Forbes 2020).
Brain Tracy in addition discusses strategic planning as the key to bringing your goals to fruition. He underscores that your ability to think, plan, decide and take action determines the entire course of your life. The better you become in each area, the better will be each part of your life and the faster you will achieve your goals. Personal strategic planning is the tool you use to get from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. The difference between someone who uses personal strategic planning as a central part of his or her life is the difference between a person who rides a bicycle and a person who drives a car. Both will get you from point A to B, but the car, and personal strategic planning, will get you there much faster and easier.
Fortunately, personal strategic planning is a systematic way of thinking and acting. It is therefore learnable, like learning to type with a typewriter or drive a car. There are many different elements of this key skill, but with practise, you can get into the rhythm of thinking and acting strategically for the rest of your life. When you do, your life and career will take off like a rocket. Your success will be assured.
The reason that strategic planning and thinking is so helpful is that it saves you an enormous amount of time and money. By thinking through the key questions and concepts of strategy, you very quickly find yourself doing more of the most important tasks that can move you toward your key goals. At the same time, you do fewer and fewer of those things that are not particularly helpful. You do more things right and fewer things wrong. You establish specific targets for the company and for everyone in it. You greatly improve your ability to measure and track results. You move onto the fast track in your work and in your life in general.
The purpose of corporate strategic planning and goal setting is to reorganise and restructure the activities of the corporation so as to achieve a higher quality and quantity of outputs relative to inputs. It is to improve and increase financial results. It is to achieve superior profitability.
Overall, the goal of strategic planning is to enable the company to utilise its people and resources more effectively. The company or institution will then function better than before. It will be in a superior position relative to its competition. This improvement can be measured in terms of higher sales, greater market share, better profitability, higher returns on invested assets and better positioning for the future-briantracy.com.
Vision turning into a reality is the deepest desire of every human being and yet it is only those who remain focused and willfully pay the price that eventually experience that fulfillment. In my career journey, I have come across all kinds of hurdles and obstacles that I had to overcome. I have had failures that I did not let discourage me but learnt from those failures to become better, and use them to help others as well in my coaching. I have hit the lowest bottom but rose up, encouraged myself and breathed life into my vision again. You are the only one who knows what you see, so communicate in a way that others can begin to see how you see. That is the key to them working with you to achieve that vision. No matter where you are in the workspace – junior class, middle class, senior class or the CEO, you can share and work with the organisation’s vision to the benefit of everyone. From a man who achieved so much in business Jack Welsh shares: “Good business leaders create a vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”
So how can you turn your vision into a reality? Forbes shares four steps to making your vision a reality:
- ESTABLISH WHERE YOU WANT TO BE
If you do not know where it is that you want to be, then it is impossible to know the necessary steps you need to take to get there. Take time to consciously write down your goals-whether they are financial, physical or personal. Be specific. Do not, for example say “I want to be rich.” Dig deeper. What does rich mean to you? Put a figure on it.
- WORK OUT WHO YOUR IDEAL CLIENT IS
So many people take the big step to start a business, but then they find that they reach a ceiling that they do not feel they can break through. Revenue feels stuck at a certain level, and no matter what they do, they cannot seem to grow. Identifying your ideal client is critical for your success. Some may feel that it narrows your audience and target market, but in fact, it can increase your chances of making sales. By knowing exactly who it is you want to work with and the problems they have, you can bridge the gap. You can create content that is magnetic as opposed to generic. When you reach out to people who truly can benefit from what you offer, then the sale becomes easy.
- ESTABLISH A COMMUNITY
By building a community of people, whether online or offline, who have an interest in what you do, you are creating an audience who comes to know, like and trust you. People often think that information is power and that it should be withheld, but in actual fact, by offering information to your audience for free, you then become an expert figure. In time, should they require something you offer, you will likely be the first person they think of.
- BE CONSISTENT
Rome was not built in a day. So many people give in and fall short of success. Balance and consistency are key. Make a plan, and stick to it. Do not burn yourself out in the first couple of days and then give up when clients do not just fall into your lap. Make a commitment to show up, put out great content and build connections and relationships with people who are your ideal client. Taking action is the thing that often separates those who succeed from those who do not. Without action, nothing happens.
As you continue to nurture your business, contribute as team player, engage clients or supervise as the boss, remember that what you focus on grows. Your attention is a powerful tool and should be charted towards currents of success and growth. Be authentic, and focus on improving your venture, brand and product.
Are you ready for TRANSFORMATION?
Dzigbordi K. Dosoo: The H.E.L.P. Coach
Dzigbordi K. Dosoo is a Soft Skills Expert, Personal Impact, Professional Growth and Influence Expert specializing in Humanness, Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Power – H.E.L.P.
A career spanning over two decades, she has established herself as a Certified High Performance Coach, Speaker, Author, Wellness Expert and award-winning Entrepreneur with a clientele ranging from C-Suite Executives, Senior Management, Practitioners and Sales Leaders spanning 3 continents.
She is the Soft Skills Expert and Founder of Dzigbordi K. Dosoo (DKD) Holdings; a premier lifestyle business group with brand subsidiaries that include Dzigbordi Consulting Group& Allure Africa.
Dzigbordi has been featured on CNN for her entrepreneurial expertise. She is one of the most decorated female entrepreneurs in Ghana having being named “CIMG Marketing Woman of the Year” in 2009; “Top 10 most respected CEOs in Ghana, 2012; Global Heart of Leadership Award and, Women Rising “100 Most Influential Ghanaian Women”, 2017.
She can be reached on [email protected] and @dzigbordikwaku across all social media platforms.
