Are you living your life without a plan?  Are you just floating along, hoping for the best?  Are you waiting to meet Mr. or Mrs. right?  Are you waiting to win the lottery to make it big?  Are you an artist, just waiting to be discovered?  Most of us have hopes and dreams.  Few of us will come close to achieving those dreams. 

What is it that separates those who achieve their dreams from those who have the dreams?  I believe two things.  Lack of a plan and no action.  Planning alone is not sufficient to propel you to the heights you desire, and we’ve all encountered someone who sounded like they had it going on.  Only later do we find out it’s all just a bunch of hot air.   Of course, Action without planning, while at least heading in the correct direction, may cause you more headaches than necessary, including lost time, disillusionment because it’s taking too long and more.  What we’re looking for is a balance of planning followed by sufficient action to propel us toward the plan’s goal. 

Therefore, I suggest that you plan and act, plan and act.  Too much planning can lead to “analysis paralysis”.   This is the point at which you’ve spent so much time thinking and planning that you become overwhelmed by the plan and thereby lose the ability to act on the plan.  Or perhaps you never execute due to fear, or talk yourself out of it. 

What does plan and act look like? It may vary somewhat based on your personality style but generally boils down to a few concrete steps.  First, reasonably determine where you want to be in five years.  I say reasonably because we all may want to be millionaires in five years but it’s most often an unreasonable goal.  By all means shoot high but reasonably high.  Perhaps having an income double your current income, or knowing five successful millionaires, or… you fill in the blank.  This becomes your long range plan.  Second, break that plan down into bite sized pieces. 

For example, if you want to double your income then you will need to know something that you don’t currently know which may require some formal training.  Determine exactly what steps are needed to achieve your long range plan.  All of these small plans become your short term plans that will help you get to the long range goal.  If you’re not certain what steps are needed then you will want to find someone who does what you want to do, making the money you want to make.  You may need to buy them lunch and interview them.  Ask them how they got to where they are today?  What would they do differently if they had it to do over? and more.  Pick their brain.  Your goal is to gain as much insight and knowledge from them as possible so that you can learn what you need to do in order to become like them in that specific area. 

Finally, once you’ve put together the first short term plan.  Act on it.  Do it.  Get it done.  All the while planning the next step.  Some times you will need to complete one step before starting the next one.  However, you can often begin planning the second and following steps from the beginning.  These plans should not be written in stone but need to be somewhat flexible due to changes in goals and where you’ve decided you want to go.  Remember, YOU are in charge of taking care of YOU.  Not the government.  Set some goals and get started today.  Don’t be lying in bed 50 years from now wishing you had tried something new.

Start today.  Will you?