Crave fulfillment personally and/or professionally?

Desire clarity about how to best invest your time, energy, money?

Striving to create more value for yourself and/or those you love?

Then you (and I) need a personal strategic plan. Once you have developed a personal strategic plan you might use these same tools to develop a family or work team plan (the list could go on) that flows from your personal strategy. The point is, strategy isn’t just for the Fortune 500 or sexy start-ups aiming to disrupt an industry! Shouldn’t you use the same tools that drive world-class organizations to help you achieve your purpose more fully? Yes, you (and I) should…and here’s why!

Decision Making

Life is about decision making. If you are conscious, you are making decisions.  Strategy exists to ensure that decisions are made in-line with purpose (or maybe you prefer mission)! My purpose in life is to help people grow…toward Christ likeness if you are from my faith tradition! Ideally all of my decisions would drive toward fulfillment of that purpose…at a minimum they shouldn’t contradict. Once you know your purpose and develop a strategic plan that flows from your purpose you will be able to better make decisions like: Should I make this purchase? Should I change jobs? Should I join this group? Should my company launch this new product? How should I spend my Saturday?

First worm collection of the year

In my family we were blessed with the choice of having our oldest son do another select sport that would take up the time between his soccer seasons – which is his passion – and investing in a family fortress of solitude. He would have loved to play baseball, but as a family we chose the campground. Baseball would have been great. He would have made friends, developed his work ethic and team mentality, and had fun. When we are at the campground we get a ton of immediate and extended family time, we spend time in nature, we relax, we reflect, and we refocus. We were choosing between two goods. We chose the fortress of solitude because it added unique value vs. another sport. In the grand scheme of helping each of us grow we saw the campground as the better choice. This may have been exactly the wrong decision for you and your family, but it was the right one for us based on my/our strategic goals.

The Fortress of Solitude

A well crafted strategic plan will help your decisions be grounded in intentionality, priority, advantage, and improvement.

Intentionality

Mindless decisions tend to be impulsive, add little value, and may be regrettable. Utilizing a strategic plan eliminates mindlessness. Decisions that are on purpose/strategy are by definition intentional. Next time you are faced with a decision of most any size you can ask yourself, “Will this help me achieve one of my strategic goals?” or, “Which of these will best help me achieve one of my strategic goals?” If you develop a strategic mindset you (and I) will still occasionally make poor choices, but they will only be mindless/unintentional when you make the decision not to employee your strategy…and of course that will be your choice.

Every turn of is a choice

Priority

How do you choose between two goods? Should I refine this spreadsheet to tell a better story or should I have coffee with my employee who is struggling? Both actions are good…which is better? The answer depends on your personal strategy. Which action most moves you toward fulfilling your strategic goals? In some cases this may require you to ask which goal is currently most important. In the case of our choice between another sport and investing in the camper, adding another sport would have further developed important attributes, but those were already being developed by soccer and basketball. We were progressing well toward developing our son’s work ethic and teamwork. We were not progressing well in trying to carve out time for the growth activities the campground provides.

Yes, baseball is fun but…

Advantage

Are you investing your time and energy in-line with your strengths? We all have limited time and energy. A well crafted strategic plan ensures that you will invest your time in activities where you are well equipped vs. other people or teams (as long as you are self-aware and honest with yourself). For example, I create more value for my family by focusing on my primary work and time with the family than by managing my personal financial plan. I love the intellectual activity of investing, but in terms of my life plan and strategic goals I create more value doing other things. Accordingly, I have chosen to work with professionals to help me in that area.

Strength, yes it’s a stretch but come on…

Improvement

How do you know you are improving/progressing/growing? One approach is to measure your progress toward your goals. A plan that produces measurable goals allows us to see our improvement over time. The first summer we had the camper we didn’t use it as well as we could have and we knew it. Consequently, we made it a goal to spend more quality days at the campground. The goals has two parts. More days and more quality. The next summer we said we wanted to get to the campground at least five weekends…more time. We did the same this summer. We met that goal. We also knew we didn’t really engage in all the activities that we needed to meet our goals for campground time. We didn’t have the gear we needed to get on the water and to actually catch those elusive fish. The second summer we bought a kayak and brought up the fishing gear we already had. The third summer we bought a stand-up paddle board and fishing gear that actually met our needs. All intentional purchases based on our goals for that time. The quality of our time at the campground increased. Each summer has been more fun, more relaxing, and more energizing. Obviously, this same mindset can be applied at work, church, or other activity areas.

His first solo voyage in the kayak…growth!

I have found that the more purpose driven I am, the happier and more effective I am. If this is true for you then I think you will find a personal strategic plan to be extremely helpful. Accordingly, my short-term plan for this blog and related activities is to focus on crafting strategy. My goal – that I am publicly committing to – is to help folks who are interested create their own strategic plan by creating a new one for myself and posting every step. For those who want to jump ahead please buy or check out the book Playing to Win for an outstanding model from the corporate world (you can buy it from Amazon by clicking on the link). To engage in conversation please like my Facebook page.

Wondering what this site is all about? Read “Why Minimalist Manager”

Want a different take on how to view a relationship? Give this post on mentorship a read.