By Jim Noh-Kuhn, Dream Business Coach

A well thought out goal and plan resulted in this

In my last entry, I wrote about the importance of articulating business goals. After writing your goals down, you may find yourself filled with energy, and want to do something about your newly articulated goals. So, what next?

The first thing is to notice the energy you feel. You may think to yourself that you don’t want to loose that energy, and may even become fearful that you will loose it. Have no fear: you will. Inspiration is great – I highly recommend it; I find it a necessity for a balanced and successful life. But it is very rare to carry the energy of inspiration 24/7 throughout your entire life. It’s been done before, but mostly by people who have a title (two letter hint: St.)

Don’t despair, once inspiration is found, it can be found again. The key at this point is to use it while you’ve got it. That’s why many (most?) successful writers don’t rely on and wait for inspiration to do their writing. The schedule their writing like appointments and keep going.  When inspiration does strike they will recognize it, and use it to write words that inspire or to come up with ideas for the next project.

Use your inspiration as if it was a tool that will help you further on down the road, not just for the particular task at hand. You could use this new found energy to start the work, or you could develop the plan that will lay out the path towards achieving your goal.

For example, let’s say that the goal you articulated was to plant a garden in the back yard by the end of next month. After waking up full of energy you could grab tools and start the digging. There may be a semblance of a plan in your head of what will go where, but you want to “just start”, so you begin tearing out the weeds and debris. By lunch time your back hurts, your hands have blisters, your neck is sunburn, and you feel miles away from the completed garden. You may also notice that the energy of inspiration has been used up.

Or, the other thing you could have done as inspiration dawned is to sit back down with your newly articulated goal in front of you, and write out a plan – a set of objectives: the first is to clear away the debris. The second objective is to start seed germination, which you also note will require seeds, and small seedling containers. The third objective is to create a detailed map of what will be planted where. The third objective is to develop a budget for expenses. The fourth and perhaps most important objective is to develop a time line: how long will it take to clear the debris? What specific day will you be free to go to the nursery to get the seeds and containers? Tomorrow? Next Saturday? Make the time line specific, for all of the objectives, all the way to the celebration of the achieved goal. See the pathway to completion laid out in front of you.

This planning stage is about taking the inspiration and using it to help carry you through not only the next step, but many steps. From personal experience, just having a plan for business goals is inspiring, which I can then use to start working, but with realistic expectations as to how long and how much energy it will take me to clear the debris. With that, I’m now on my way towards achieving the goal.