A dream without a plan is just a wish – Katherine Paterson
A goal without a plan is just a dream – Dave Ramsey
A goal without a plan is just a wish – Antoine de Saint-Expuery
No matter who said it or how, the gist the same: if you wish for it but don’t plan for it, you’re chances of achieving your goals hovers around 0%. So if you’re wondering if you even need a vision board, the answer is YES.
Okay, so maybe not a big colorful Vision Board per se, but experts agree that by documenting your goals, a plan and steps to achieve your goal, you are 42% more likely to achieve those goals. Not 10% – over 40. Even if putting together a Vision Board isn’t your style, that statistic impressive enough to motivate you to grab a pen and paper and start writing.
Good planning without good working is nothing – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Plan your work and work your plan – Napoleon
Plan for work today and everyday, then work your plan – Margaret Thatcher
Yep – no matter who said it or how it was said, putting a plan together is great, but you have to actually work your plan. Once you empty your brain and put your plan on paper, your initial steps might look huge! The advantage of seeing your plan on paper or on w Vision Board is knowing where you can take tiny steps to meet each goal.
Getting S.M.A.R.T
The criteria of S.M.A.R.T goals was developed by Peter Drucker, an influential management consultant. This criteria was traditionally used to support business management objectives, but can easily be adopted to suit any goal and planning initiative.
S: SPECIFIC
Setting specific goals focuses your efforts so you stay on track
M: MEASURABLE
Measurable goals help you see progress and keep you motivated
A: ACHIEVABLE
Are your goals achievable? Think hard about this one because setting goals that are not attainable will erode your confidence.
R: RELEVANT
Relevant goals pave your path in the direction that you want to go.
T: TIME BOUND
This is key. Setting goals without a time frame in which to achieve them will leave you spinning your wheels because you’d set no urgency to meet them.
Practicing S.M.A.R.T
Now that we have an idea of how we set our goals, how do you turn items on your plan or Vision Board into S.M.A.R.T action? Pulling an item off my Vision Board, here’s how:
S: SPECIFIC
I want my blogging career to pay me $40,000 a year to supplement my income in retirement
M: MEASURABLE
To do that, I have to amass a domain score of 20 or above to generate traffic that’s eligible for advertising revenue
A: ACHIEVABLE
I can accomplish this goal by regularly and continuously writing content material both in blog form and on social media generates traffic to my blog site.
R: RELEVANT
This goal matters to me because the health and fitness niche is important to me, and sharing that information with others is what my blog is about.
T: TIME BOUND
My plan is to retire in less than 4 years. Every day I will complete small consistent steps to write content and build my blog persona and social media audience.
If you want something bad enough, you will dream for it, plan for it, and work for it.
Day 8: I challenge YOU to post one Vision Board picture a day for 10 days. No explanation, no review, just the picture. Nominate someone else to do the same!
