How to plan for success and secure your future

"This is your year!”  

“2016 is the year of your greatness!”  

“Make this the year to live your best life!”  

Picture me waving a placard with images of your ideal life printed on it in one hand while nearly throttling the microphone that I am literally yelling my lungs into on the other hand.  Wow.

Would you like to transform your life?  If you are even remotely responding to that in the affirmative, your first thought should be on the buzzword; transformation.  What does that even begin to mean? Transform what aspect of your life into what exactly? 

Forget what the dictionary definition is.  When used, the word is intended to imply some miraculous movement into your various desired life, career and business situations upon reading a bestselling self-help book, attending a famed seminar or workshop by a world re-known self-proclaimed guru on personal development.  The subtle promise is magical outcomes.

Kindly.  Please.  I beg of you to resist the very attractive  temptation that the majority is conditioned to fall for...  that this hour, this day, this week, month is a special one because another set of twelve months on the gregorian calendar have passed and we have celebrated this auspicious occasion with trips to the village, Mombasa and beyond, food and lots of merriment in whatever form means the most to us.  At the risk of bursting a lot of bubbles, this baseless over-excitement punctuated by resolutions we really do not intend to stick to is a ritual I would highly recommend that you pass up on.

The truth is that this whole hullabaloo is only exhilarating at the brain level.  It is logical that we find it exciting because our thinking is trained to be accepting of our current undesirable situations as “life” and be more interested in the promises of better futures.  This is called hope.  Hope is almost a tangible commodity that sells like hot cake.  That is not necessarily a bad notion depending on how we synthesise it.  Hope can either be a drug we keep feeding our souls on until we literally become dependent on it or it can be a blank cheque on which we exercise our creative licence to write whatever we want on.

The thing is that change; real lasting transformational change only happens for us at the intersection between our burning desire and the price we must be willing to pay for the change to manifest.  That intersection is called “action”.   Action, unlike many branded products is normally packaged without any frivolities.  The packaging is rough and sometimes dirty, complex and frustrating.  Inside this unattractive action box, you will find the exact contents the packing promises; hard work, long hours, sacrifice, and all things as far from sugar and spice as can be.  Yet we must not only act but do so right now for that promising future to eventually become a present reality at fruition. 

Now this is the point at which you pick up your pen or point your fingers to your keyboard and start writing.  Write down a written plan of what you want to achieve this year. This plan is your roadmap.  It will show the right path to take and keep you on it’s course should the winds of pedestrian thinking threaten to push you off.   Plans are viewed by the average as amateurish, juvenile and even as silly time-wasting activities that only dreamers can care for.   Maybe so, depending on who you allow to repeat this lie to you until it begins to ring true for you.  The truth is that plans are to achievement exactly what powerful earth-moving equipment are to the construction industry.  The most productive people the world over have seemingly magically used plan-writing to build solid bridges to their goals. 

How much time do you have?  How much of it do you spend on activities aligned to your goals?  At your current use of your time and current effort that you exert, how far from your goals are you?  

Where will you be in one, two or twelve months?  These preliminary questions will get you started on your plan.  Tweak it and tweak it over until it gleams.  If you can fix tangible timelines that show the burn of your desire for change, you will have made good strides towards a quantum leap to the transformation that keeps you awake at night.  You have my very best wishes in 2016 and beyond. 

Be good to yourself; act.  Now.