Having a plan and sticking to that plan are always two different things. But do you want to know what I have noticed? Having a bad plan is the same thing as having no plan at all.

I always love talking to those people who say that they don’t live by any plan; they just wing it and take each day as it comes along. The one thing I have noticed about those people is that approximately eight out of 10 of them are miserable and woefully unprepared for the challenges they have to face. My philosophy is that everyone needs a plan and I am going to show you how to put together a plan to accomplish the things you want to accomplish in your life.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of writing down your plan and referring to it often. If you do not have your plan in writing, then how do you know what you are doing? People who are serious about their plans write those plans down and then follow those written plans to their conclusion. I have found that this is the only real way to get anything done that makes a difference in my professional life. I also find that it helps in many aspects of my personal life as well.

Developing a big plan is easy because it is just a matter of piecing a whole lot of little plans together. So the best way to start developing your plan is to think of something you want to accomplish and then write it down. It helps to keep your goals realistic if you want to achieve them. Vowing to become the King of England or a millionaire by next month is just not happening, so do yourself a favor and don’t get caught up in craziness.

After you have written down your goal, the next thing to do is give yourself a realistic deadline. Remember that the only person holding you to your plan is you, so if you violate your own deadline then you are the only person who suffers. Then again, when it comes to accomplishing your goals, no one matters more than you do.

Now you have your goal and you have your realistic deadline. The next step is to write down the ways you can accomplish that goal and put them in order of importance. So if you say you want to sell life insurance within the next six months, then you would write down things such as studying for your insurance and Series 7 exams, practicing for your tests, scheduling your tests, and taking them, and then you would arrange these items in order of their importance.

The next step is to develop what are called milestone dates. These are little checkpoint dates along the way to your goal deadline by which you want to have certain tasks completed. You would create a milestone date for every item on your priority list, and then assign a date to each item. Now you have a plan to reach your goal.

What if getting your insurance license was just one step towards a bigger goal of opening your own insurance agency? You would then need to list out all of the things you would need to do to open your agency, create priority lists and milestone dates for each item, and then put that all together into your master plan.

It sounds complicated, but it is actually easier to accomplish something when you have a plan and defined goals to go after. Now you can look at your plan and decide how to spend your time when it comes to reaching your goals. Instead of thinking that you have to do everything at once, you just follow your plan and you will reach your goals.

Along the way, you will probably need to figure out how to get the resources you need to make your plan work. Opening an insurance business requires money, so that makes one of your goals getting the money you need to open your business. How do you do that? You develop a business plan and follow it.

When you break things down into their component parts, they become easier to envision and accomplish. Too many people let their dreams get away from them because they believe that those dreams are unattainable. In most cases, the simple truth is that all you need to do to achieve your goals is to put a plan on paper and follow that plan. Try it and see how it works for you. I guarantee you that you will get results you never expected, but will want to repeat over and over again.

+George N Root III is a Lockport resident and a planning kind of guy. Follow him on Twitter @georgenroot3 or send him a message at georgenroot3@gmail.com. Keep planning and you will start to see your life take a turn for the better.

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