Nearly every business or enterprise sets a strategy and writes a business plan for what it wants to achieve over both the short and medium term.  But have you ever thought about employing the same approach to your life and your career?  It’s a really great way to think about what’s important to you and what it is you’d like to experience and achieve over the next 3-5 years and then to set some goals, objectives and milestones for how you’ll take yourself one step closer to those achievements over the next 12 months.  This episode will take you through how to do that using the framework of a Personal Strategy Document. If you’ve listened to any of my previous podcasts you’ll know the emphasis I place on taking time out to think strategically and also to writing things down and there’s no better time to do this than at the beginning of a new year. As part of the process we’ll also look at deeper issues such as identifying your values, needs and strengths as well as areas of potential weakness that you might like to work on.  I also discuss visualisation techniques, progress tracking, and accountability mechanisms to help ensure your progress towards success.

00:42 The Importance of Taking Time Out

05:03 Starting with Your Baseline

11:31 Understanding Your Needs 

17:53 Reflecting on Achievements and Gratitude

22:54 Analysing Your Current Life

24:39 Identifying Weaknesses and Developmental Areas

27:32 Understanding and Applying Ikigai

35:39 Setting SMART Goals and Using the GROW Model

42:18 Maintaining Motivation and Accountability

 Personal Strategy Document

 Values, Needs, Strengths Spreadsheet

 Goal Setting Template

For your goals you might also like to have a go with this Chat GBT link from Mind Valley

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-675f2f2cd4e88191af9c72bdeb1092a1-goal-analysis-gpt-by-mindvalley

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• YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@Womens-Room-Legal-Division

• Website https://www.ericahandling.com/the-womens-room-legal-division/

I’d love to hear from you directly using the CONTACT link below about

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• any coaching questions you have or challenges that you’re facing
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Hi there, and thank you for tuning in today. So today I wanted to talk about the idea of forming a personal strategy for yourself. So a little bit like businesses create strategies of usually between like three and five years. And then maybe have a business plan or a budget for the year of what they're actually going to be doing and what their milestones of achievement are for the year to implement that strategy.

You can apply this same approach to your career and to your life. And so that's really what I wanted to talk through today. And really, I think the most important, well, probably two things I think are really. in terms of doing this. The first thing is as I would say is the same for coaching. It's really taking some time out of your busy day job, of your busy life to think about how are things going?

Where are you now? And where would you like to get to? And that's exactly what businesses do when they start putting together their strategy. So that's the most important thing is like really taking that time. And I would say at least twice or three times a year, if you can try and find a half a day, so a long period of time.

to just sit down and think a little bit more strategically and hopefully what I'm going to talk through today, this document will, will give you some structure to think through this process a bit more strategically. And then the second thing is to write it down. It's just so useful to write it down again and again.

I've done this process not using any sort of fancy format just starting with a word document but writing it down is amazing for a few reasons I guess firstly because it's written down and it's there for good you can go back to it You can have a look at it and it's amazing how I write things down and go back to them and i've completely forgotten That there was something that I'd written that I thought I should do, or something that I really wanted to do.

So just keeping a record is the first benefit you're going to get about writing it down. And then the second benefit is something that's referred to as encoding. And this is around the biological process. By which the things that we perceive travel to our brain, to our brains, and particularly the part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is associated with memory.

And what happens there is what we perceived goes to a hippocampus, is then analyzed, and from there we make decisions about what gets stored in our long term memory and what gets discarded. So, If you're writing down a strategy, it's going to, you're going to be effectively inserting it or placing it into your long term memory.

And I like to think that also your subconscious becomes aware of what is it you're trying to achieve. And therefore might look for opportunities or help you take actions that are going to take you towards the goals that you've written down. Even in a less conscious manner and then the other, the other thing that's really useful about writing it down is there's something that neuropsychologists have identified, which they refer to as the generation effect.

And this basically says that. Individuals remember things much better that they've generated for themselves. So that's the generation. They've created whatever it is themselves. And so they're much more likely to remember it than something that has been handed to them. And if you think, if you're writing out your goals, then effectively you get this generation effect twice, because first, when you think through the goal, So you think through, what do I want to achieve?

What do I want to write down as part of my strategy? You create a picture in your mind, probably of what it's going to be, and then you actually write it down. So you're effectively reprocessing or regenerating that image. And they did some studies with this generation effect to to see what was the impact of like taking notes.

So they looked at people who were interviewing candidates and apparently the people who. took notes compared to people who took no notes. The people who took the notes were able to remember about 23 percent more pieces of information about the specific candidate. So that's quite a lot. And I guess even more interestingly, when they looked at students taking notes in lectures what tended to happen was that the people who didn't take notes could remember a lot.

Probably as much as the people who did take notes. But what they tended to remember, and this wasn't when, when they're testing this, they're not getting the people to go back and look at their notes, they're literally asking them questions. So the people who didn't take notes tended to remember everything, whether it was important or not.

So they distinguish between what was important and what wasn't important a lot less than the people who did take the notes, who would distinguish between importance and unimportant facts. So writing things down, not just for the fact that you get a record, but also for the, the process that the brain is going to go through can be really useful.

So where should we start? And as I said, I'm going to put a document that is just a word document. I'll put it in the notes to the podcast along with a couple of other things that might be helpful, but it's really, it's literally just starting with a blank sheet of paper and you know, you can do it in words, you can do it in manuscript, however you want to do it.

And don't feel at all constrained by the format that I put in the notes to the podcast. But the one thing that is really useful to do is to really start with your baseline. So really to think through where am I now? And some of that can be quite sort of practical and objective. And some of it will go a bit deeper into how are you feeling and what's important to you.

So first thing. Is really where are you now? So what's your job? Well, you know, maybe you've got more than one job what are your obligations or things that you do at home? What are the things that you do? In daily life both by choice and through obligations, so you might go to the gym You might have hobbies.

You might go to classes. You might do volunteering. You might be looking after children just write down everything that you do as a baseline. So for me, I guess, because I'm at a stage where I do lots of different things, I'd put coaching, I'd have the boards, the charity boards I sit on, I'd have the commercial boards I sit on, I'd probably put going to the gym in there as an important thing, I might put going to ballet class as an important thing.

So, you know, Maybe some some bits for travel. So I just try and write down like, what is it I'm really spending my time doing currently? Then we move on to something a bit deeper, which is really trying to look much more at what's important for you. And this is an exercise I often do with my coachees often actually quite early on in our coaching relationship, just as a, to try and get a sense of who they are, and also for them to to do, to do this exercise as a form of self reflection.

So you might find this really interesting because the first thing I'm going to get you to try and think about is What are your values? Like, what's really important to you in your life? And our values tend to be pretty long term and core to us. They don't tend to change much. Well certainly not very quickly.

And they're pretty foundational to who we are, our identity, what we believe in, the way we want to live, the way we want to be treated, and in particular the way we'd want to see the rest of the world operate. So often we get very triggered if our values are breached in, in some way. And if your values are met, If you're in what you're doing from a day to day basis, you're probably going to feel really good.

If they're not being met then it's definitely worth thinking about, is there anything you can do to move a little step closer to some of that value being satisfied? In some way and so how can you, how can you work out what your values are? So, first of all, I'm going to give you a spreadsheet, so an Excel spreadsheet, so that you've got a whole list of words that you can think about how important are they to you as potential values, and you can put a little X in the box next to them.

There's also a section to say which are the most important things, and I'll make sure there are instructions in the Excel spreadsheet that I'll put in the notes so that you can filter. The document. So it just shows the ones that you've put X's against. But before you do that, before you look at the list, I would just sort of close your eyes and think about some of these questions.

So maybe think about times in your life when you felt really, really happy, fulfilled or proud. You know, what was it about those moments that made them really, really meaningful. And then on the other side, maybe think about like what experiences in your life have been frustrating or upsetting and what values might have been being offended during that period.

So, and you can also think about like, What's important to you? So what would you be willing to prioritize in your daily life? What qualities do you admire in others? What do you feel really passionate about and what would you stand up for even if it's You know, it's uncomfortable for you to take a stand And then as I've said what upsets you most is a really good that you know upsets and triggers definitely a good, often a good sign that your values are being offended in some way.

And you can even, an exercise I do with some coaches is to take them to the end of their life. So maybe their memorial service, or they're, they're sitting with a grandchild describing their lovely, amazing life that they've had. full of rich experiences. But what is it about that life? What are the values and the core qualities that run through that life that has been so fantastic?

And that will give you a good sense of your, of your values. You know, and they'll often, there are things like kindness or gratitude. Sometimes there are things like power but altruism is often there. Excellence is often there. Discipline. So, you know, what's, what are the standards that are really important to you?

The ones that I challenge or one is particularly personal, but the ones that I tend to just, I'd still put them down, but I challenge them a little bit. Achievement. Achievement for me is a little bit of a it's, I don't know if it's a need. It's definitely a need I challenge. Is it a value? It's definitely something that sometimes I feel drives me a bit too hard in my life.

I like to achieve. I like to be doing something. I like to see some tangible outcomes. So it is a, it is a really important value for me. I know that, but it's also something that I maybe need to work on. So for, for values, and we'll talk about needs in a minute, try and identify them, but then do challenge yourself on.

Are you, you know, are you sometimes putting too much store? By your values do sometimes you just need to soften them a bit. And the other one that comes up a lot is fairness. And again, you have to think about quite hard about fairness and what does it mean as a value? What does it really mean in practice?

Because we do know that life isn't fair. So if you have it as a core value, And then you're going to get upset every time life isn't fair, then clearly, it's not a great, it's not a great place to set your expectations. But if you have it as a value as to how you're going to behave towards other people, and then think about what does that really mean in practice, then obviously it is a great value.

So, so just worth thinking through. And then the next section, we've done our values, now we're going to do our needs. So what are the things that we need on a day to day basis to make us feel comfortable, and if not met, will make us really feel miserable and unhappy, And that, that's really the difference between values and needs is that needs, if they're not met, we're really not going to be happy values if they're not met.

So if there's something about where we're working, that really doesn't sit well with our values, we'll probably put up with it to for a reasonable amount of time. We can probably live with it, but if our needs aren't being met, then we'd definitely be really, really unhappy. If our values are met. will be really happy.

So getting your needs and your values met is really important. And again, with needs, always think about, is there anything I can do that would mean that this need that I have can be satisfied a little bit more? And again, I have a great long list that you can put some crosses in the box against the things that you think might be your needs.

But again, think about when you felt. most satisfied, you know, what was it about those situations that made you feel so fulfilled? You know, it could be things like support autonomy, sometimes being, having independence, recognition is a big one, love and then think about like times of discomfort.

So when you've really not been feeling And you've been feeling anxious. So what was missing that was calling it causing that discomfort or stress? And often that can be things like security, stability respect, connection. And what we're dealing here with mainly as we're looking really at emotional and psychological needs.

So obviously we definitely have physical needs and sleep. How they exercise. Safety maybe is a physical need, but also psychological need. But what I'm really trying to get at here is more emotional and psychological psychological needs. So maybe, you know, identify, I guess, what drains you and what energizes you.

Things that energize you might well be connected to needs. And as I said, security is a big thing. Independence, autonomy, creativity is something that comes up a lot, particularly for lawyers. Sometimes that side of their, their personality, that need for creativity isn't being satisfied as much as it, as it might be.

And again, you, what you can then do is think, okay, if I'm not getting this from my job, is there somewhere else that I can go and get some creativity from? Growth, community, Fun is a really important one. So are you getting enough fun? Have you got enough play in your life? And again, a couple that I would, again, just have a think about are things like recognition and in particular external validation, because we, a lot of us need that, a lot of us need a lot of it.

Sometimes we need a bit too much. So maybe think about challenging that external validation. Are you too reliant on it? Have you got enough internal validation going on? But equally, sometimes you can go and ask for a bit of external validation. If you know it's a need, then you can go and say to someone, Hey I just wanted to know how I'm doing.

Do you, you know, can you tell me I'm doing a great job? I just need you to tell me. It might be friends. It might be your partner. It might be someone at work. So sometimes it's completely fine to recognize it as a need and then go out and and ask for it, you know, and there are some tiny little things because of my drive for achievement.

I find. tidying up a drawer or a cupboard. It sounds ridiculous, but just that sort of somehow makes me feel much more in control. It's a tiny, tiny thing. I feel like I've done something good. Done something useful. It's probably been hanging over me for a long time. You know, it means I satisfy a need.

And then the, the last, I think this is the last thing that I have a big spreadsheet on. Maybe, maybe not, maybe there's one more thing, but, is strengths. And what I want you to do now, and this is probably one of the most important things to do, is to just have a think about your strengths. And again, before you look at the list, Maybe have a go at doing it without looking at the list and see how many strengths you can come up with.

And my experience of coaching people is they're not generally very good at coming up with strengths. And what will happen is they'll maybe come up with, you know, Two to three, if I leave enough space and enough silence and then lo and behold, by number three, they start telling me why, what, what, what their weaknesses are.

So they'll say, I'm a really good communicator. Oh, but sometimes I upset people because of, so we immediately start going into weaknesses. And actually that was what drove the creation of this spreadsheet that I have, because I wanted people to, I wanted to make it easy for people to think about their strengths.

So, have a think now, free, freehand, without the list, like, what are your real strengths? And then go and have a look at the list, and hopefully you'll tick a lot more and and, but choose, like, three to five key strengths as well. So identify what the most important ones are. And then I just want you to spend a bit of time taking them in because you have ticked all of those strengths.

You've got all of those strengths. You just often don't acknowledge it because you're spending so much time thinking about what else do you need to do or what do you need to improve on? Certainly lawyers in particular tend to give themselves a really hard time and are always trying to get better and improve and progress.

So just spend a bit of time really taking those strengths in. And what's interesting is sometimes people are embarrassed about how many they take. So absolutely don't be embarrassed. But also think about the fact that if I try and take one of them away from you, You'll probably actually have quite a good go at arguing with me why you should retain it.

So you tick them for a reason, you know, if one of them was loyal and I start saying, Oh, aren't you loyal though? Are you really loyal? Maybe, I don't know, maybe we shouldn't take that one. You'll actually argue with me that you should retain it. So, I'm not sure. So take them in and having those strengths and looking at those strengths is going to put you in a great positive frame of mind, a sort of resourceful frame of mind to go into the planning exercise that we're going to get to shortly.

But before we do another another couple of sort of positive things I want you to think about are. What are your achievements? So write down your achievements and you can keep adding to this list. That's the great thing about it. So these are completely freehand. There's another tab in the Excel spreadsheet.

What are your achievements in life? And this isn't just great big things like getting a degree, getting a job, getting promoted. They're also little things that you are So for one of my things is I'm proud that I can do a headstand in the middle of the room. And I learned to do that a while back and I can still do it and I want to carry on doing it.

I guess one of my goals might be that I want to be able to do side splits, but I'm not sure my body's ever going to let me do that. So that's getting into goals. But little tiny things that you're proud of, put those in. And then there is a tab for what are you grateful for and gratitude and just thinking about what you're grateful for and having a grateful frame of mind is such a brilliant place to put yourself in, in terms of everything, really reducing stress, but also enjoying life and being calmer and more relaxed.

So have a think about what you're grateful for. And again, this can be big from your family, from your friends, and when you do say family and friends, I don't want you to just put family and friends and write those down. I want you to think individually, like who are the individual members of your family?

Who are the individual friends that you're really grateful for? And think about why it just makes the whole experience much richer. You know, it can be things like I'm very grateful for the fact that to a large degree my body is still working. And the other day I felt very grateful that I live on the Victoria Line because it just it comes, it's like literally only for a minute the train takes to come.

It is boiling hot though and it's apparently getting hotter and hotter and there's, I'm not quite sure what they're going to do eventually, but I'm still very grateful that I live on the Victoria Line and not the Piccadilly Line. So think of, think of little things. Now we're going to start getting into looking ahead.

So we've looked back, we've sort of established where you are. So I want you to now have a think about, I'm going to give you a magic wand and I want you to think about what is, what are the things that you might like to experience in your life? And you've got this magic wand. So I don't, I don't know if you're going to be able to be a famous screen actor, film actor, but you know, you might want to act in a play.

You might want to be in a small Don't even say small movie, but anything you want to experience. I want to be a partner. I want to be promoted to the top title in my organization. I want to be CEO. I want to be an MP. I want to write a book. I want to learn a language. I want to travel all over the world or to these specific places.

I want to be, achieve something physically. So have a, have a think about anything that you think you've got an inkling that you might like to experience. And it doesn't mean you're going to be held to this. This document is just for you. No one else is going to look at it. It just means your subconscious, again, is aware of what things might excite you in life.

And again, it might take you towards opportunities that are going to mean You get one step closer to either experiencing those things or deciding that you don't want to. So it's a bit like a bucket list, but it's a bit more expansive than a bucket list. And then I've got a load of optional things that you can think about adding in.

You don't have to this would be stuff again that I would cover in coaching over a much longer period of time. So this is all quite quick to be talking to you about. So you don't feel you have to do this in order to get to the Actual strategy and business plan stage of of this podcast and this document.

So you could think about what would your ideal life look like maybe in the next three to five years? Like what would your daily routine look like? You know, what hours would you be working? What time would you be devoting to other things like hobbies or fun or your family? So have a think about your ideal life.

And I think the other things then I've got in here are maybe think about what you'd like your brand to be. So three words that you'd love people to use to describe you. I would do both at work and at home. And, and then I, I quite like to get people to write down any mantras that they think. They already have, that are, that are helpful or that they think they should have.

And ones that I think are always really useful are things like Life Isn't Fair, like I said before, Not Everyone Will Like Me my favourite of all time is Let It Go accompanied by the soundtrack from Frozen. So often it's really useful for me to just tell myself to let it go. I think my other ones are, you know, life is short, make the most of it choose to be happy.

And then something around like, what am I grateful for? So they're my, they're sort of my mantras. So you might want to have a, have a think about that. And then we get into, Actually, in terms of the, let's stay on the, let's stay on the analyzing your current life at the moment. And then we'll, we'll, we'll look at, we'll look at some weaknesses and some developmental areas.

But one of the other tools you can use when you're, when you're trying to analyze your baseline is something called a wheel of life that a lot of you might have come across. And again, in the document, there'll be a, a wheel of life that you can fill in at the back. It's basically just a pie chart that has.

Probably, you know, eight segments, so eight pieces of pie, and then it's got little circles running around it with, you know, up to ten. So there are ten sections of each pie slice. And what you want to do is label these. So, I've given you some suggestions of around, like, work, family, friends. You could put contribution to society, health, hobbies, financial, personal development.

You can choose your, your eight. And then what you want to do is score yourself out of ten to see how big a piece of pie that area that you've chosen is. And what I really remember when, when I first did this with a coach is that my everything probably not financial, but everything around like family, social relationships, having fun, hobbies were really tiny little segments in the center.

And then work actually went right off the charts. And it was really interesting because of course I knew I was working too hard and that's what was really dominating my life. And I probably needed to get it a bit more under control. Yeah. But seeing the visual depiction of that had a much greater impact than talking about it.

And, and that sometimes happens, accessing a different bit of our brain can often have a big effect on us. So, so think about maybe maybe having a go at the wheel of life. The other thing, actually before I get to a SWOT analysis, let's, let's just talk about weaknesses because, and developmental areas, because in this spreadsheet, I think I still do have a great long list of weaknesses.

And I keep taking it out and putting it in because I don't really want to give you any help when it comes to identifying weaknesses. But it is, it is useful sometimes for you to know what you perceive as your weaknesses. So, so have a think about those, write them down. And again and write down what the areas are that you think you would like to develop in.

And it is useful because as I said, I had a look back at my personal strategy document, which I haven't looked at probably at least since last year, which is not what you should do. But and actually I had a much longer list of weaknesses than I realized probably. They're probably still reasonably similar, but always achieving is on there.

Taking on too much, too much stress. I'm probably better at that now. Watching too much bad TV. I'm probably still not great at that. So yeah, have a think about what are your weaknesses and then what are your developmental areas? So again, I had things like take time to have fun, meditate. That's quite a sort of, It's almost like a goal rather than a developmental area, but you know, learn something, not be as reactive, not be as stressed.

So think about what your developmental areas might be. And then you can also do a SWOT analysis, which some of you will have been used to seeing again, usually in organizations. So it's just literally a a chart with four quadrants and you have strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, SWOT. So you can do a SWOT analysis on you.

So what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? We've already done that. What are the opportunities we, you have that you might be able to take advantage of? And again, looking at that example, of your bucket list of your magic wand list might help you there. You know, what are, what are current opportunities that might come up in the next three to five years and what are any threats that might hold you back?

From achieving them, including things like lack of confidence. So I would put, you know, actually substantive threats in there. Like things like not having enough time to to psychological threats. And there's another section, there are another couple of sections here around like maybe thinking about, again, just analyzing in a different way what you've already done to say, where am I today?

What's good? What would I like to be different? What do I want to achieve in the next three years? And what's the gap analysis? You know, what's my ideal life to, to where I am now? So it is like taking all of this, the information that you've just pulled together and just phrasing it in a different way that can sometimes be helpful.

And then the last thing I think. I'll talk about before we get into the actual three to five year sort of progression plan is a concept called Ikigai. Ikigai. So it's a, there's a little bit of controversy when you look on the internet about what is Ikigai, where's it come from, but it is actually, I think someone even says it's not a Japanese thing.

There is definitely a Japanese concept. There's a bit of debate about where it came from. So what it translates as in Japanese and how they view it is a, some motivating force that's, that gives you a sense of purpose. So basically a reason for living or a reason for getting up in the morning. And currently the government are really promoting it.

And what I read originally about it is that it came from this village where there were a hundred elderly residents who were still incredibly Healthy living to a ripe old age. And they, and they wanted to analyze why. And it's because when they were interviewed, it's because each of them had a zest for life or something that was worth living for.

And these weren't great big things about saving the world or changing the world. They were things like gardening or art or looking after their grandchildren, but every day they would get up and they'd know what they were doing. And they'd go and see their friends. They would be busily engaged. Strong.

Social links definitely came into it. And there was something around that that gave them confidence, the confidence to really continue to lead. active lives. And there's a, again, in the, in the document that I will put up on in the notes, you'll see that Ikigai has these overlapping circles, like in the Venn diagram, but four of them.

And in the center, they all cross over. And the, the, the four circles you're meant to fill in or think about what you love, what you're good at, what you can be paid for, and then what the world needs. And what happens is when you, when you start, when you, if you fill in these headings, and there's a really good online tool that you can use from Positive Psychology that you can send off and get delivered into your mailbox to take you through.

So you're writing down all of these, the answers to what you love, what are you good at, what can you be paid for, what the world needs, and then looking at where are the overlaps in these areas. So when you've got an overlap between what you love and what you're good at, that's your passion. What you're good at and what you can be paid for, that's your profession.

What you can be paid for and what the world needs, that's a vocation. And then what the world needs and what you love, that's your mission. And then in the center, there might be something that is your Ikigai, which is all of them coming together. So you love it. You're good at it. You can be paid for it and the world needs it.

But you know, you don't have to be paid. a lot for it, or you might decide you don't need to be paid for it. It might be something that really is a passion. But again, it's just another useful exercise in self reflection and understanding a little bit more about what drives you. So then what we move on to is, is much more prosaic, which is looking at a progression plan.

And I've done it in a table in a Word document. You can just write, you can write an essay, but really what you're trying to do is, what's your strategy? for the next three to five years. So I've given you some headings that might be useful to think about. I start with your overall vision. So where are you today?

So my work's interesting, but it dominates too much of my life and I can't see how I'll progress. That might be where you are today. And then your aim for three to five years time might be a fulfilling career where I'm respected as an expert in my field. well recompensed and working hard, but I have time to pursue hobbies, stay fit, and spend time with my family.

So wouldn't that be lovely? So that's sort of like, that's your aim. That's, that's where you want to get to. Your strategy is to end up in this end place in three to five years time. And then I've given you a whole list of Headings, you, you might not want to fill them all in but which are the areas where you want to progress from where you are now or make a change to where you want to be in say three years time.

And they might be your role. It might actually be your job. Your title might come into it, your pay, any sort of business that you're involved in or helping to run your internal and external reputation. So what do people think about you internally? How are you regarded in the market? What's your network like, maybe something around qualifications, and then moving into the more personal side of things.

There's definitely stuff around personal development and skills that you might want to build on, possibly in your personal life, your intimate relationships, your family, friends. Hobbies, health, fitness, resilience and self care. So those are the areas that you might want to think about and you might not want to cover them all and you may come up with other things.

So in the next three years, what are the areas that you really want to focus on? To progress in or to make a change in. So that's your longer term strategy. But now what we want to do is to really hone it down and make it more specific for the next year. So we, we, we basically we, we break it down into much smaller chunks of individual specific to do's about what you can do.

So. This is really your business plan. And again, it's using the same headings. I've put the same headings in a slightly different order. I've put a lead in to say, let's just have a think about a couple of things here. So with, we're thinking about your career in particular here. So maybe just have a think about what does your firm value?

Have a think about who your stakeholders are. And again, doing a stakeholder mapping exercise is something a lot of businesses do when they're doing their strategy and can be really useful for you. So who are your key stakeholders? So it might be your immediate line manager or immediate boss, but there'll be other people.

There'll be clients, there'll be peers, there'll be people who work for you. It's like all of the people who interact with you. who have something to say about how you're operating and how you're performing. And then think about what do they value and how do you make them, you know, is what you're going to come up with as your plan going to satisfy them and make them value you?

And as we're getting quite specific here, you might want to think about things around, can you do anything to make your life a bit more efficient? You know, if you've got a PA or some sort of thing, Secretarial support. Could it be made more efficient? Could be you be using AI to help you more?

Could you be sorting out all your filing or your online filing to make it more accessible? Yeah. Have a think about efficiency. Is your life as efficient as possible? You might want to look into something called the COVID quadrant which is again, this quadrant of looking at. What is it that's taking up your time?

And there are four parts of it, and it basically says, urgent, not urgent, important, not important. And where most people spend their time is on things that are are urgent but not important. So that's like email saying you have to respond to them at once. And we, and we tend to be reactive and it tends to be where we spend our time, where we really need to make sure we are spending time is in the not urgent, but important.

And that really is another word for strategic. And that's exactly what you're doing here by spending this time looking at your strategy and business plan. Because you're being strategic. You're not responding urgently to something. You're sitting back and thinking, okay, what do I want for the course of this year?

And for the longer term out of my career and out of my life. So efficiency, you might want to talk, think about your team. You know, do you need to change your team? If you've got one working with you do you need to be delegating more? And again, all of the other things that I've talked about in terms of networks and compensation and role, work life balance, personal development, and then when it comes to setting out these goals again, I'll have a spreadsheet that I will put into the notes of the podcast that you can use, but you can do it in whatever way you want to.

But let's talk about a couple of things about goals and how to frame them. So when we become coaches, probably the first model that we learn is something called GROW, great, great model. And what it says is this, there's an acronym. So the, the G stands for goals. So have a goal and make it as specific as possible.

So, very specific. I'll come into how you can break goals down. The first thing is identify what you want. Identify what you want and then make it specific. Then look at your baseline. So that's the R, that's reality. And that's what we've been doing in the lead in to the planning we're doing now. Then have a think about what your options like, what are the different options that you might have in order to achieve your goal?

And then W stands for will, which is how are you going to achieve it? Like, where's your will? How are you going to motivate yourself? How are you going to set milestones? So you've got deadlines that you can reach and celebrate along the way. So grow. So think about using that grow model. And then with the goals, I think most people will have heard about making goals SMART.

And how are you, what are you going to use as the measure For the steps along the way, make sure they're attainable. So not just a dream. What will you be able to take the steps to get there given the resources that you currently have and the ones you might be able to gather around you and do you have the skills required?

Are they relevant? So this is sort of around the why. Why am I doing this? Does it make sense to me? Is this really what I want? Is now the right time? And then time bound. So this is all about when you're going to start, when you're going to complete. And then the measurable, how are you going to know you've succeeded?

So, think about making your goals smart. Just test that each one to some degree, particularly around the specific measurable and time bound, that they satisfy those three. And then what you've got to do is really break them down and work out what are the steps. And I would ideally put in milestones. So time milestones as to, okay, by this day I will have done this and I will know I've done it because this will have happened.

And there are then three W's you can think about. So you can see there's a lot of work being done by management consultants around goals, hence all these acronyms and three W's and things, but. What so what is it? So when you're thinking about your goal, I want you to get really specific and then really think about what's it going to feel like and maybe spend some time visualizing it.

So imagining what's it going to feel like when I satisfy that goal, you know, use all of your senses. So, What are you going to feel like? What are you going to hear? What's it going to look like? Maybe close your eyes and visualize it. And there's been quite a lot of research done around, you know, the fact that if you, if you can get, if you can make this goal seem really vivid in your imagination, then you're much more likely to achieve it.

It is one of the things that's used a lot in hypnotherapy and you probably want to visualize it. So, not just the end goal, because that's sort of what a vision board is. And I do think, I'll come to vision boards in a moment, because I think they do have their place. But the problem with a vision board is we tend to, if we, if we use it a bit like a to do list, we tend to have the end goal on the vision board.

So, for me, it'd be me doing site splits. Or doing might be you doing a headstand or something or traveling to an amazing place. So it's the end goal, but what are the steps we're gonna take to get there? So what I want you to do is not just visualize the end goal. I do want you to do that, but then I want you to visualize yourself taking the steps to get there.

So you're going to run a marathon and there's this amazing picture in your head or on your vision board of you breaking through the finish line with amazing time. So now visualize the steps to get there. And that might be putting on your trainers on a dark morning when it's cold and going outside in the cold and running and feeling good about that and giving yourself credit.

So that's the visualization. And then The why, so this why, because it will really help with motivation, getting very clear on why am I doing this? Why is it important? Keep going deeper, keep saying why, why, why? Every time you come up with an answer, say, but why is that important? Why is that important to me?

And again, I would write this down if you possibly can. And then the how is that, so that's not a W at all. Maybe there's a W at the end of the H. But think about how, what resources do you need? Can you go and get help from someone? Can you train to up your skills? So you're going to have the resources to achieve this.

And as I said, the, the vision board can actually be really useful. Because it's when you do something a bit more creative, like pulling and you can do a vision board in a, in a lot of ways, it's a nice thing to do between Christmas and New Year. So, you can just get a load of magazines. and pull out pictures that appeal to you.

So that's really sort of a subconscious vision board. So just pictures that somehow speak to you, and you think, oh, this is a sense of what I want my year to feel like. But it's not like a to do list. Now being me, mine ends up being like a to do list and I cheat and I print things off the internet and things, but you know, it's still helpful.

I have my vision board up. Now I don't change it every year because I haven't achieved my to, my to do list, but, but it is, it's accessing a different bit of your brain. So, so you're going into the more creative area of your brain by, Doing this vision board and you can do things. You can even do things like maybe draw a picture of what you want your year to look and feel like.

And you might feel a bit like unsure about doing that to begin with. Once you start, if you get some pens out, you do it when no one's looking, just start drawing and you'd be amazed how you'll get quite into it and you will end up with something that means something. So that's just a way of, you know, again, accessing a different bit of your brain to help you in your planning.

And I will then do a podcast before too long, as I said, about sort of behavioral change and how to make yourself. take the steps towards your goals that you need to, because we know that it's not always easy, particularly when it involves behavioral change. And, and just a few things I would say a few hints now.

So, you've got your goals, you've been really specific, so make sure you diarize some time to come back to this document to refine it, but also to have a look about what you said you'd do and to check in to see, Are you doing it? Take small steps. So break everything down. So they're small steps steps and then celebrate those small steps along the way because that's going to make you feel good.

It'll give you a sense of agency that you're actually in charge and you're achieving things. So make sure you celebrate. Just celebrate and acknowledge those small victories along the way. Maybe have a think about what might stop you, that can often be useful, because again, you're sort of setting expectations about, I might not, I really might not want to get up because it's cold or it's raining a lot.

Just if I'm running the marathon, just try and anticipate what are the things that might stop you, because then you might be able to come up with a strategy as to how you're going to deal with it. with those obstacles, both in your head and external obstacles. Don't give up. So don't worry if you don't go to the gym every week when that's what you said you're going to do, or you're going to, you know, make sure you don't work late on a Thursday, but you know, end up working late on three Thursdays.

Don't give up because, because you feel like you have to be perfect. Just come back to it and have another go. And then, as I said, track your process. We really, as human beings, we really like it when we can see that we've made some progress and look back at it. And then anything you can do to to find a way of holding yourself accountable can be really useful.

So, So, I would, I would put reminders up, I would put post its up for specific things that you want to achieve. And then tell someone, say, this is what I'm planning. Or, you know, tell, tell your, a lot of people tell their children who are very keen to hold them to account. Maybe have some sort of reward, or even some sort of stick if you don't do it.

Tell your friends get them to help you tell, tell your friends. You can tell other people at work. There is even a website called STIKK, S T I K K. I think it's a U. S. thing, so I haven't tried using it myself, but I first heard about it because I think there is a way of using it so that if you fail to do something, They will donate your money.

So you have to, you have to lodge money with them. They'll donate it to a cause that you disagree with, that you don't like. So there's a really, really big incentive to keep doing the thing that you have committed to, because otherwise they're going to give money to something that you're not happy about.

So that is your, so have a look at this. personal strategy document. Take whatever it's useful for you from it. Don't feel you have to do the whole thing, but if nothing else sit and have a think about what is it you want out of the next three years and what you're going to do over the next year and maybe have some fun cutting things out from magazines and sticking them on a vision board.

Thank you very much.