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Select the projects that will deliver your goals.

Big goals are great, but delivering on them can be very difficult – you need a strategy. The method which I find most useful is to:

  • Define clearly your long-term goals
  • Define your current priorities in terms of achieving these goals
  • Decomposing your goals into projects
  • Sequencing the projects
  • Execute your projects

Now you have a framework to properly select PROJECTS that will move you closer to your goals as you focus daily on moving closer to executing the project. Be aware that if your goals change, then you need to loop back around through this cycle. Even if your goals don’t change, as part of your monthly/quarterly review, you should loop back through this sequence.

Climbing Mount Everest is a huge goal for many mountaineers, made possible by breaking it down into smaller projects in their own right - for example, picking your team, preparing for get to base camp, getting to base camp ….

Climbing Mount Everest is a huge goal for many mountaineers, made possible by breaking it down into smaller projects in their own right – for example, picking your team, preparing to get to base camp, trekking to base camp ….

My own personal experience

Like you, I do not have enough time to do all the things that I want to do at any one time. This constraint means that I need to make choices – choices about what to do with my time and by inference, decisions about projects that I cannot pursue. These choices are difficult, but the quality of with which one makes them, dictates how well one achieves ones goals.

I have developed my method to give myself the best chance that I can to make the best choices for myself and my family.

It all starts with WHAT & WHY?

At the root of all desire, is the answer to two important questions: WHAT do I really want to achieve and/or experience, and, WHY is this so important to me. This is a very difficult set of questions to answer, and it needs an approach similar to the FIVE WHY’s problem solving technique. What do I mean by that – well, lets take a real life example from my 2014 planning. One of my key goals for the year was to remove myself from the day-to-day operations of my main business. Why you may ask, and that is the question that I asked myself in the process also. Some of the answers were a little lame like the fact that I felt I was doing too much administration and that I was not enjoying the work. But I kept asking why – why am I not enjoying the work? What work do I want to do. The answer revealed itself – I wanted to make time to allow myself to do a number of other things – first to start writing more (this blog and my first book) and secondly to work with other people to develop a business focused around products, rather than direct services. In essence, I wanted more time – this meant that I need to make choices on what I could delegate, how I could delegate it and what I would then do with my time once I freed it up.

I am happy to say that slowly I am making progress on freeing up time and with that more time, have so far:

  • Attended a conference in the US that has been on my radar for many years.
  • Drafted my first book.
  • Investigated a number of companies/ideas, with a view to investing my time and other resources towards bringing them to a commercially viable business
  • and more is yet to come …

Making good decisions.

As I gain control over my extra time, there is always more to do than time available. This leads to a situation, where I have to make choices about what I commit my time and energy towards and what I have to say NO to. How does one make these choices? For me, it is an exercise in assessing how closely aligned they are with the priorities that I have identified – priorities which as I have mentioned in earlier posts, are rooted in my health, wealth and happiness – only you can define these, but you also need to be pragmatic about where you are and how you can make decisions to move towards where you wish to be. We are never exactly where we want to be, but every choice gives us the opportunity to move towards where we desire to be – a healthier you, providing a better service to your customers, being a better father to your kids, a better custodian of your own health and so on.

At a slightly higher level, I also perform the exercise of decomposing my goals into projects that will move me in the right direction. Then, with this portfolio of projects, I access my capacity to execute them along with all the other day-to-day commitments I have. The result is a list of projects that I wish to execute. At the start of 2014 I executed this exercise, and I have conducted a quarterly and semi-annual review of this list and the associated progress since – this project list defines my priorities and aids me in all my decision-making.

Sequencing your projects

Finally, the projects cannot all run in parallel – sometimes, because they require too many resources and other times because one is an enabler for the next. Once again, one needs to consider in what order the projects need to be executed, and then focus on executing in this order. This takes a lot of discipline, because very often, we get great excitement from starting new projects, but then the hard daily and weekly grind take the place of early stage excitement. The key here is to stick with it, as daily action will deliver its own motivation as you see the results of your disciplined execution.

Have faith in the journey and follow the process

I hope you see that the sequence you address the achievement of your goals and ambitions has a huge impact your chances of successfully achieving them. The process that I outline works for me and will work for you if you commit the time to it, follow through with action and have the patience to allow time and targeted execution to deliver the results you truly desire – be they for your career, business or personal life.

Follow the process:

  • Define clearly your long term goals
  • Define your current priorities in terms of achieving these goals
  • Decomposing your goals into projects
  • Sequencing the projects
  • Execute your projects

One last thought.

Jim Rohn said:

If you really want to do something, you will find a way, If you don’t, you will find an excuse.

Find out what you want and go for it. If I can help, let me know in the comments below.

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