5 Small Steps to Create and Use A Personal Strategic Plan

Anyone who knows me, knows I love planning. While, I do a lot of business and marketing planning for others, my true passion for planning stemmed from personal development planning. It all sparked from a meeting with Sheila Palmer, Assistant to Donna Karen of DKNY, she shared with me a book called the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens after a brief conversation on the beach of Coney Island. When I read that book, the life of discipline, value, and achievement opened up to me for the first time.

From that year (2004) and on, I began a tradition of sitting down every year and creating a personal strategy for the next. This personal strategy helped me get three degrees, start 2 businesses, and accomplish many other complicated goals over my lifetime. Now as I grow into an adult millennial, this tool is helping me manage the many balls in my life with my chill and confident attitude towards getting things done.

First a few notes

  • A personal strategy is your strategy. Only you can define the desires that swell within you.
  • Your strategy will get better with each pass. You have to stick with it.
  • Your strategy can, will, and should change. Although, your values, goals, and beliefs will be closer to a constant, how you reach these ends will need to be adjusted as the year unfolds.
  • Your higher-order mission, vision, and values should remain constant, but be refined over time.

No strategy should be set in stone; it should only serve you for as long as it helps you reach your goals.

So, here are 5 small ways to create and use a personal strategy for 2016 today

  1. Start with your wildest vision for your life then scale it back to achieve for the year. Be a firm believer that whatever goal you set can be accomplished, then do yourself a favor and give yourself a generous timeline to get there. No city is built in a day, but it is built eventually. 2_zkbkpa
  2. Write 3-5 goals to achieve over the year. Try to build off the work you’ve done last year. If you are starting from scratch, make one goal something you can achieve right away to boost your efficacy in achieving annual goals.
  3. Schedule a time to review your goals for at least 5 minutes a day. I know an hour once a week may seem like more, but the odds of missing one week, then the next, then the next, are too high of a risk for your best you in 2016. Instead, find some way to incorporate your visions and goals in a high-frequency place throughout your day. Build it into your passwords, set up a vision board, or make it a part of your alarm clock. There are tons of ways to make your goals presence known.
  4. Pick one goal per day. Yes, you are a leader and have so much more to offer the world, but if you are having trouble genuinely sticking with the goals most important to you then you have to stick with tactics that work. Focusing on one goal per day will not overwhelm your schedule. 5778ca76b341bfa7e1fcaaca85770d4c
  5. Share what you are doing with an accountability partner. Find someone in your life that you admire for achieving their goals. Meet with them and share your goals and work towards meeting with them regularly. Do a SWOT assessment, share tips and tricks, and other successes with them. Sharing your goals makes you more accountable to yourself and others, which will build your persistence.

Simple steps, but a great start to mapping out your best 2016. Let’s get rid of resolutions and map out the business plan for your careers!

What’s wildest dream are you working on? 

Relish Every Achievement. Celebrate Your Success As an Entrepreneur or In Your Career Path To Victory. Be authentic by remembering the small parts.

Relish Every Achievement in 5 Easy Moves

One of my clients is a visionary. Her passion for setting bold goals and creating constant possibilities to current situations is thrilling.When we meet, I find sometimes she feels discouraged by all her organization has not achieved, and quickly overlooking all the small victories she did accomplish. She isn’t the first person I’ve known to do this, and at times, I’ve been guilty of getting discouraged about where I am not instead of remembering and celebrating how far I’ve made it. 

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So for our next move forward, we’re going to take a look back on how far we’ve made it.

Here are five ways you can relish your achievements today.

  1. Think of 3 ways you have grown in the past five years. Remember yourself from five years ago. You probably made mistakes, struggled to achieve something, or achieved something that made you proud. Consider this growth. If five years is not enough then think over the ten past ten years. You graduated, got that job, started a blog or business. Take a historical scan of your past and thank yourself for taking those successful steps.
  2. Check off parts of your vision board that you have lived. I had on my vision board to be bold and hang with the best. This year I’ve met more CEOs, executive directors, and other business leaders than ever. What is on your vision board that you find is a quality you are currently exhibiting? The point of a vision board is to help us define our desired reality. When you begin to live those desires you have acted in successful alignment with your vision, so take the time to celebrate. Don’t have a vision board? Make one.62953990
  3. Go through your social media and celebrate your successes. Visit your Facebook page, LinkedIn account, or other social media channel and look for a time where you posted something you were happy about or found to be a particular achievement. Tell yourself good job again and remember that you have been successful in the past and are on the right track. Can’t find anything? Then think of a moment where you shared good advice that someone liked. There, you made an impact, which is a successful action.
  4. Remember something small you did successfully and do it again. If you are having a hard time remembering an significant successes then think every smaller and consider the daily achievements we make. Did you remember to take the garbage out on time? Or call your mother after you set the goal 3-weeks ago? These little acts are acts of success and worthy content to from when your memory banks feel fuzzy.
  5. Share your goal/purpose/mission. Celebrate. Taking ownership of our success means being able to be held accountable. When you share what you want to do with another you have taken a victorious step towards being more accountable, while improving your path to your long-term achievement. It’s a win-win move that you can use anytime.

Celebrating our successes over time is just as important as learning and growing from our failures. Both success and failure keep us humble and motivated on our personal or entrepreneurial success path.

How do you find time to celebrate your success? Comment below or Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn 

 

 

One More Move @ZingaHart take command of your life like this mountain peak using the computer hack described in the article at zingahart.com

One More Move: Use your favorite command everyday

@zingahart

Happy Monday! It’s been a wonderful week, almost like a sense of renewed outlook on living, yet the same one of seeking authentic leadership in an ultra-produced world. What is different today from most? I realized my most subtle, yet productive, method for active habit building. I changed my password. What better way is there to affirm and command ourselves on a daily basis then to set our passwords to exactly what we most need from ourselves?

When I homeschooled myself in high school, I could have easily sunk into the endless world of the early semi-anonymous Internet and Sims, but I didn’t because then my password was some form of I need a to-do list for everyday. With that in mind, my mind went to work. I to-do listed my way through finishing my self-taught HS diploma in three years, my college degree in four (even after dropping out a semester), and my master’s degree in two (while working full-time and diving into a bunch of entrepreneurial ventures). Now while this is a list of accomplishments, it’s not the point. What kept me steady through these lively years was my to-do list and repeatedly reminding myself I needed one. So for your one more move towards a path to success with a little less stress, find time to do this: Set your password to the command you most need. 

For example: Let’s say you need to call your mother more often.

First make it an affirmation by placing yourself right next to the action.

I [yourself] will call [the action] my mother on Sunday. Another example is, I call my mother every Sunday.

Then take the first letter or first few letters of the command into letters and change some obvious letters into numbers. In this case our first example will change from:

I will call my mother on Sunday to

1Wcmm0nSunday  – I like to spell out the last word for added length. This not only creates a strong password that is unique to you, it also affirms and reminds you of what is truly important. Some motivating commands I’ve used in the past have been:

I need a to-do list for everyday –> 1natdl4evryday

I will do it.

I write for 15 minutes everyday.

etc. My current one, I won’t share, but let’s just say it was a needed change in my life and I am pleased.

Do you have any useful motivational hacks? Share with me on Twitter @ZingaHart or comment below. 

One More Move - Sounds out the word omm which is a common chant in yoga

5 Free Videos to Ease into Post-Pregnancy Workouts

Being a mom while being a leader is a precious balancing act between energy, sanity, and life in-between. One thing that really helped me manage my multiple roles, after having an emergency c-section and being at the front lines of bringing life into this mortal realm, was exercise. In fact, exercise, and body wellness, is core to success. It contributes to some great aspects of what keeps us motivated, focused, and persistent.

So when I was recovering, I turned to these 5 easy videos to keep me moving slowly. If you’re thinking about starting your routines, talk to your doctor and always read the disclaimers, but otherwise keep moving 🙂

CoreMama Postnatal Exercises For Diastasis Recti All Levels (Full Video)

I don’t think I actually had the ab condition, but these workout exercises are gentle enough to keep you moving without exhausting you. Their entire series is actually quite beneficial.
This one is definitely more of a workout than a movement exercise. Yet, still fairly gentle for those easing into workouts.


Postnatal Workout or Post Abdominal Surgery Workout

20 Minute Post Natal Yoga Class

Sweet yoga. Pop this on if you need to unwind.


Post-Pregnancy Pelvic-Floor Workout
Short but worth it. Your pelvic floor needs a lot of care and attention during this transition phase.

Kundalini Yoga : Kundalini Yoga Breathing Exercises
Momhood means taking a lot of deep breaths. No workout needed to build focus and energy with this video.

What workouts do you use to build and maintain energy?