Success planning can be daunting at first but if you see it as taking a bunch of baby steps towards reaching your larger goal – than anything and everything becomes a lot more do-able. I am a true believer that long term goals really do come to fruition with smaller, more assured steps. By setting these smaller goals I ultimately set myself up for success and inspire a sense of accomplishment deep down inside because I’ve set out a practical plan and ways within in my means to achieve it. Nothing becomes impossible, and even if I skip a day or two – its easy to fall back on track.
This is why I’ve been making an effort to plan what I want my weeks and months to look like as you may have noticed on my Instagram feed. Having this kind of organized outlook helps even daily events, tasks and problems become more manageable. Yes, things don’t always go to plan and I have as many bad days as I have good, but I have a plan to come back to and an adjustable map that is easy to shift and move around as I change, grow, and re-shape on a daily basis.
So what do I do to stay organized and plan these weeks and months you ask?
You’ve seen me talk about having a success planner many times on my Instagram feed and for those of you hearing this for the first time – I am using the Success Planner by Karlyn Percil – but any planner, or agenda will do if you’re not able to order or go out and buy one right now.
Here are my 7 suggested steps when it comes to success planning and how you can create an atmosphere that helps supports your daily growth.
1. Make the commitment
You’re not going to get anything done unless you make a promise to yourself. Setting goals, getting a planner – being consistent with both is a commitment and you have to be willing to do the work required in order to get where you want to go. If you’re not serious about it – nothing will happen.
Now, I’m not writing this sitting on a pedestal with all my dreams and desired fulfilled. I am working on it too, and doing that everyday. The minute I became serious about it, things easily fell into place.
2. Make it your own
While planners, maps, agendas, courses and other tools lay down the foundation for you to do your work, its just a starting point. You don’t need to marry yourself to every single note, idea or process – they are all meant to inspire you to get thinking and get into action.
Knowing this will give you a sense of freedom and allow you to make this process unique to you. It’s yours and yours only!
3. Express Gratitude Daily
This one is important. The planner I use has a gratitude calendar, if yours does not have one, you can find somewhere in your book to express your gratitude daily. By doing this everyday you immediately get your energies to vibrate at a higher level because you bring joy into your existence.
Expressing gratitude is knowing that you are abundant and whatever it is you’re grateful for that day, its contributing to that abundance too. So, feel it, find joy in it and always show your appreciation. Expressing your gratitude daily gets you to practice feeling and being happy. It gets you out of the lack mentality of constantly focusing on what you don’t have and brings you into a place of joy regardless of what may be happening at that time. Feeling good is thinking good and from that you will attract and manifest goodness too.
4. Meditate and write down my thoughts
I know that meditation can seem impossible for many, but if you can just close your eyes and find some stillness and put your mind and body at ease for 2 minutes – you’ve done it. I am a very energetic and hyperactive person, and after a day with 4 cups of coffee, sitting still is just unfathomable. One day I tried to meditate for 2 minutes, over a week I got better at those 2 minutes, a few weeks later I went to 8 minutes and now I am sitting comfortably at 15 minutes.
The idea here is not to master the art of meditation, even though you can do that overtime. My purpose in suggesting this is so that you start to take pauses in your day to allow yourself to just be and breathe – to be still and present in the moment, in tune with your thoughts, your heartbeat and your body. It’s hard to explain, but once you give yourself this time of stillness, its so healing. You’re relaxed, more confident and more comfortable. During these moments I always get ideas, feelings and thoughts and I make sure to write them down before I forget. They always become more clearer overtime and often inspire new ideas, actions and projects.
5. Work in sections
What I like about my planner is that its created sections for me to write down how I want to feel in the following categories: mental/emotional, self-care/fun, physical, relationships/social, spiritual and new rituals – so that I am breaking down my plans and really thinking about them in the various forms that they exist.
At first, I was overwhelmed, feeling like I needed to have a practical plan for each one of these sections each week, but whatever we desire, want and have as a goal already exists in all these areas. Its just a matter of us breaking it down and tackling each one over time. Again, its all about baby steps. You don’t need to do all of it at once – just start, and let things flow overtime.
6. Infuse with Feeling
This is probably the most important. Don’t forget to write down how you want to feel when you reach that goal, find that relationship or complete that task. Anything and everything we desire is rooted in our deep purpose and that is directly related to how we feel. Remember that joy you felt when you got an A+, or that exhilarating feeling when you got recognized for your work? It’s tapping into that feeling that allows you to manifest what you want and infuse that feeling in all the steps that it takes to get there too.
Many mistake that feeling of joy and excitement to be the end result, but really its part of your manifestation work right from Day 1. Start mapping out how you want to feel with each new goal or intention and you’ll see the magic unfold for you.
7. Rest
Like I said, I have bad days – days I don’t express gratitude in my calendar, days I don’t meditate and weeks I don’t map out my goals. Those moments are just as important because rest is key. Working on yourself and your goals does not need to be a 24/7 task – in fact, doing so can have the opposite effect. Its important that you allow time and room for your goals to take shape and your dreams to take flight and for that rest is required.
8. Reinvent
If you’re like me, you’ll feel guilty for seeing empty spaces in your agenda and planner. To give all those blanks areas and pages purpose, I use those spaces to reflect back instead on the time I took off and what came of it. I also get creative and use those blank pages like a scrapbook and insert mantras, prayers and quotes that meant something to me throughout my journey. This way, whatever I have missed in my planner ends up having new purpose – something that fuels my present with much more joy, passion and creativity.
