Yogi Berra once said, “You’ve got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.” I think this is absolutely key to keep in mind as entrepreneurial women who are setting big goals for our futures. If we don’t make a plan to reach our goals, then all we have are really just hopes and dreams that someday we’ll end up where we want to be.
Here’s a simple question: What if you operated at 100 percent of your capacity?
Imagine what you could do.
You’d be extraordinarily committed, fearless, and able to meet any challenge head-on. In short, you would be amazing. When I work with my clients, I take them through a detailed planning process that helps them figure out exactly what they need to succeed.
Creating a viable plan to achieve your goals includes two main components: a vision plan and an action plan. Both of these elements are necessary whether you’re creating a life plan or a business plan. In this article, I’m going to give you the tools you need to create a successful vision plan to reach your long-term business goals.
What is a vision plan?
When most people think about creating a plan to achieve their goals, they tend to focus only on creating a to-do list of action steps. However, before you can begin plotting out a course to get from Point A to Point Z, you need to get clear on where Point Z actually is. This is where the vision components of your plan come into play.
Here are the four things you need to create to have a successful vision plan:
- A power sentence: A statement about yourself that fuels your vision.
- A 10-year vision: A picture of where you want to be in 10 years.
- A Belief Plan: Direction from the Future You to get where you want to go.
- Your three-year target: A map for the major strategies over the next three years that will move you closer to the 10-year vision.
Create your power sentence
It’s time to craft your one magical sentence. To do that, we’re going to step into the future for a moment and have a word with someone you need to know: Future You.
She is 10 years ahead of Present You, and during those 10 years, she was Thinking Big and accomplished all that she set out to do. She knows a lot about where you’re going because she’s been there. We’re going to ask her to tell us who you really are under all those doubts, fears, and limiting beliefs.
Call her into your mind and ask her, “Who am I, really? What am I capable of?”
Now, write down her answer. What does she know about you that you don’t? You’re going to use that information to create your power sentence. Whatever she tells you, write down — even if you can’t believe it. You don’t get to judge. You just need to write.
Write down your 10-year vision
Now it’s time to pan out and look at the Big Picture in 10 years. We’re going to study that through the lens of a question that will require you to Think Big.
What is your vision for 10 years from now if you were using 100 percent of your capacity?
Where would you be a decade from now? What would your business look like? Where do you want to be? What is your dream?
These answers give you a 10-year vision.
When I ask women to think about their big vision and their audacious long-term goals, they often say, “I have a dream, but I don’t even want to say it because I feel like it’s impossible!”
But here’s the truth: your best future cannot come into being if you won’t even take the crucial step of allowing it to form in your imagination.
Want more tips? Download the FREE resources available in the Think Big Toolkit!
Form your Belief Plan
I first learned about Belief Plans from Stacy Boehman. A Belief Plan is a set of beliefs that will inspire you to take action in order to create the results you seek. These beliefs are based on the identity of a person who has already achieved the outcome. The idea is to step into that identity and become it in your belief so you can be it in practice.
Sounds a lot like the work you’ve already done with your power sentence and 10-year plan, am I right?
Here’s how to create your own Belief Plan:
- Write down your answers to these two questions on a piece of paper:
- What thoughts can you hold right now that will fuel your inspiration, excitement, motivation, and certainty?
- What will increase your confidence in moving toward your goal?
- Post the paper in a place where you can look at it every day.
- Decide on a measurable result to prove you believe those thoughts.
Set your 3-year target
By now, you know who you are, what you are, and where you’re going. Now it’s time to sharpen your pencil and get a little more specific in designing a strategic plan. Three years is a great time block because it takes you toward your vision, but at the end of the three years, you can reexamine your vision and create a new strategic plan for your current situation.
A three-year target is simple but powerful. It includes measurables and a fleshed-out scenario.
You’re still painting the picture of your long-term goals and the details are starting to come into focus, but at this point, you shouldn’t be trying to capture and pan for every obstacle or task that needs to be resolved along the way.
Here are the steps you need to take to create your 3-year target:
- Determine your revenue, profit, and measurables (what are you going to track?) for the business three years from now.
- Make a bulleted list of what the business will look like in three years, using descriptive language.
- Make a bulleted list of what YOU will look like — mentally, physically, emotionally — in three years, using descriptive language.
- Read through your three-year target every morning as part of your daily routine.
- Review the business-side objectives with your team at least once a quarter.
- Review all your objectives with a coach or an accountability partner at least once a quarter.
It’s time to embrace your big vision
Anything can move from feeling impossible or out of reach to feeling inevitable and your reality. It’s a matter of changing your thinking and shifting from the “no way” constricting/restricting to the “of course” curious/freeing approach in life.
This transformation is exactly what I teach you how to achieve in my book, She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and into the Extraordinary.
Invest in the Future You and start embodying a Big Thinking mindset so you can implement a whole-life approach to growing your business while finding more peace in your personal life!
For MUST-HAVE planning tools that work seamlessly with the book to help you stop overthinking and make confident, quick decisions to get what you want — every single time, download my Think Big Toolkit. (I couldn’t fit everything in the book!)
