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Everything is against you? Bring it on track.

Posted on November 30, 2007 
Filed Under Coaching

Feel overloaded? Multitasking? Overwhelmed? That’s understandable — many things to care about, willingness to do your best and overdeliver.

You’ve done your best working on your last project but the other party changed their mind and suggest to roll back and make over? Yes, that’s annoying at least.

Most of the world seems to be against you and you think you may have lost your luck? Yes, we all have moments like that. Get a grip!

What can you do when circumstances make you drift in an unclear direction?

Here are a few tips.

1. Think of your goals. What do you want to achieve? What are your major goals? Where would you like to be in a year? In 2 years? In 5 years?

2. Write it down. You should get a list of your goals on a paper sheet. For the moment don’t worry if the list is not in a particular order or if it’s too long or too short.

3. Rank your goals. Go through the list of your goals and select the one which is of the highest priority for you. It may be the most urgent or the most important. It needs to be the one you want to achieve first. Mark this goal with number 1. Go through the rest of the list and select the highest priority item. Mark this one with 2. Now go through the rest of the list and identify the 3rd goal in your ranking. What if you have less then 3 goals on your list? No problem, it will be easier for you to stay focused. Just don’t hesitate to add to your list later when you find time to reconsider it.

4. Correlate your goals with your situation. Go though the 3 (or less if you’ve got only 1 or 2) main goals in order of priority starting from the one ranked as 1 and then do the same for the rest of the selected main goals.

• a. Imagine your current situation and see how the goal sorts with it. Listen to yourself and try to catch all the nuances.
• b. Now imagine your life in a bit bigger scope (say, the whole coming year). See how the goal relates to your current vision of this coming period of your life. Do you feel your goal attainable?
• c. Now think what events could contribute to achieving your goals. When would it ideally happen? Jot it down along with the time lines on your paper sheet next to the description of this goal.

5. Formulate a plan. Re-read what you have just written down for your main goals — what events can contribute to achieving them. Look at it from a slightly different perspective — exactly, what can you do that would contribute to achieving your goals? This is easy — just be based on the notes you’ve written on step 4.c and think what would you need to do to get each of these particular events happen. Write down your findings next to the corresponding events. Now you’ve got a plan draft! Read through it carefully and make amendments as needed to agree its items amongst each other and with anticipated events in your life (You don’t want to be working on implementing you plan during the Christmas Eve, do you?). Take a new sheet of paper and write your agreed plan down.

Now you should feel happy — you’ve got a plan. Many other people don’t have it.

Set a reminder to ask yourself and answer this question daily: Am I doing what’s on my plan?

If the answer is “no”, work on adjusting your current short-term priorities and activities. And feel internally happy. Your actions are not directed by an arbitrary chaotic fuss, you are moving towards your own goals according to your own plan.

And one more advice: be adaptive. When the situation changes, see how it affects you, your goals and your plan. Changes may make it easier to implement your plans or they may invalidate your goals or just make them unachievable. Be agile, don’t freeze. Whatever happens, face it with your eyes open and your mind clear. Be prepared to win.

Good luck and have a great time!

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