Each of us must assume full responsibility for our own success. This places the burden of attaining your success on you, not on your co-workers, your business, your clients, your family, or your friends. The person you can change most easily is you, and you are the one who will benefit most from your success. It is often that we fall into the trap of blaming someone else for our problems and thus relinquishing control of them to someone or something else. Our success depends on our willingness to accept responsibility for our own behavior and, consequently, our own future. Whether you become the beneficiary of change or a victim of it depends on how you choose to act.
Whether our businesses are large or small, we all have aspirations for them. We may desire to expand into a new niche, to incorporate a new technology, to sell more real estate, or to diversify the business. Whatever the reason for our desired change, the task of implementation is often a daunting one.
The best way to focus on the future of our businesses is to create a vision of what our preferred future looks like. Once we have created that vision it is necessary to translate it into concrete reality by restating it clearly and concisely in terms that are time-bounded and measurable.
I have adapted the following template for use in developing an action plan to reach your aspirations from The Adult Learner’s Guide to College Success. This template will assist you in identifying the important action steps toward attaining your aspirations.
Step 1 Develop your change scenario: A change scenario is a short essay about your business. Write about what’s happening in your business that is creating a need to change. What are your opportunities for change?
Step 2 Describe your vision for change – your preferred future: What will happen to your business as a result of the change you envision? Write in the present tense. Describe how things look, how they differ from the way they used to be.
Step 3 Translate your vision into goal statements: List your goals and indicate whether they are for the short term (1 to 2 years), the intermediate term (3 to 4 years), or the long term (5 or more years). Then restate each goal and indicate how they will look when you’ve reached them.
Step 4 List all positive forces that you can think of that will help you achieve each goal you have listed: Forces can be within yourself (I want more money) or within your family (my children are growing up and I need to provide for them) or within your business environment (I want to be able to expand my business).
Step 5 List all negative forces that you can think of that will impede your progress toward each goal you have listed: Some examples: “I’m scared of expanding my business.” “I do not know how to enter that niche.” “I am not educated about that area of business.”
Step 6 Review Steps 4 and 5 and mark with an asterisk (*) the positive and negative forces you can do something about immediately: Focus on these forces first. It’s best to start with what can be changed now.
Step 7 Mobilize for change: Review the forces you marked with an asterisk (*) in steps 4 and 5. For each positive force, list all the ideas, means and resources you can use to make these forces work more strongly for you. For each negative force, list all the ideas, means and resources you can use to remove or cope with these forces.
Step 8 Determine your major change tactics: Review the information in step 7 and decide which ones are critical for achieving your goals. Write each idea, means or resource down.
Step 9 Create a comprehensive action plan: Number each idea, means or resource and indicate in which order these steps should be taken.
Step 10 Describe what early progress will look like for each step in your comprehensive action plan: State each step in clear and concise terms that are orientated toward your end results.
Step 11 Keep things moving forward: Identify what needs to be done to keep progressing towards your goals.
Step 12 Review and revise your plan each week or as appropriate: This is a critical step. As you proceed and face the challenges that lie ahead, circumstances will change. There will be new goals and new forces that will help and hinder you, but you will be equipped with a powerful way to analyze the situation and develop successful strategies to achieve your goals. (Smith & Walter, 1995)
With the preceding information, we are able to take our created vision and translate it into concrete reality by restating it clearly and concisely in terms that are time-bounded and measurable. We all are able to be successful – we must assume full responsibility for our own success.