It has become a ritual between Christmas and New Year’s for my wife and I to review what we have accomplished over the previous year and make a written plan of what we want to accomplish in the coming year. Linda and I view a written plan much like a road map. It shows us the way, heads us in the right direction and keeps us on course.

Written plans are viewed by many of the most productive people I know as the power tool for achievement, the magic bridge to your goal. Alan Lakein, the author of books on time control said, “Planning is bringing the future into the present so you can do something about it now.”

If you want to make a written plan, some of the questions you might begin with are:

Where do I want to be three months from now; six months from now; or a year from now? How am I going to get there? What do I have to do to get myself from where I am to where I want to be? What’s the first, small step I can take to get moving?

Stephen Brennan said, “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a written plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

You will be surprised how often the circumstances which will confront you, will fit in with plans you have laid out in advance.

Bernard Baruch, an advisor to many US Presidents, said, “Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought.”

Bob Proctor