5 Keys to Develop a Plan for Success

When you look at successful people, you will almost always discover a plan behind their success.  They know what they want, they work out a strategy that will get them where they want to go, and they work that plan.  It is the foundation for success.

So what are some good ideas on developing a plan that will work well and take you to the finish line powerfully and in style?  Here are some major points to keep in mind:

  1. Develop the right plan for you.  Your plan is the one you’ll develop that is unique to you and for you.  Each of us is unique and motivated by different factors and you’ve got to develop one that is right for you and fits you.  Whatever your personality, your strengths and your weaknesses, develop the plan around them.  This is not a one-plan-fits-all proposition.
  1. Keep a journal.  Record the ideas and inspiration that will carry you from where you are to where you want to be.  Take note on the ideas that impact you most.  Brainstorm with yourself on where you are going and what you want to do.  Record your dreams and ambitions.  Your journals are a gathering place for all the valuable information that you will find.
  1. Reflect.  Create time for reflection ‒ a time to go back over, to study again the things you’ve learned and the things you’ve done each day.  Take a few minutes at the end of each day and go back over the day ‒ who’d you talk to, who’d you see, what did they say, what happened, how’d you feel, what went on?  A day is a piece of the mosaic of your life.
  1. Set goals.  Your plan is the roadmap for how you are going to get to your goals so you have to have them.  Setting goals is the greatest influence on a person’s future and the greatest force that will pull a person in the direction that they want to go.  But the future must be planned, well designed, to exert a force that pulls you towards the promise of what can be.
  1. Act on your plan.  What separates the successful from the unsuccessful so many times is that the successful simply do it.  They take action.  They aren’t necessarily smarter than others; they just work the plan.  All disciplines affect each other…. Everything affects everything.  That’s why the smallest action is important ‒ because the value and benefits that you receive from that one little action will inspire you to do the next one and the next one.  So step out and take action on your plan because if the plan is good, then the results can be miraculous.

— Jim Rohn