Life Mapping: A Vision of Success

" If you don't know where you are going, you will end up somewhere else. " - L. Peter

Success is different things to different people. We all have different criteria for what constitutes success. Whatever your criteria, they serve as goalposts for your efforts - they are the outcomes that form your Future Desired Reality.

Breaking down your Vision into bite-sized chunks is a useful way of reducing  to manageable pieces what may seem to be an enormous venture. The sub-elements that form parts of the whole become easier to focus on rather than trying to do everything at the same time, which is extremely likely to fail. 

It may also be beneficial to consider each 'chunk' separately in respect of a series of steps which finally achieve the desired outcome. With every step realised, confidence is gained, and the next step becomes perceived as more easily reachable. View the whole venture as a single large block and it seems immovable. 

Each step becomes an initiative on it's own, and it becomes possible, when one has failed to deliver on one of them, to see it as a mere delay in proceedings rather than a total failure. The objective remains in sight, and the current situation is defined as a 'hitch' rather than a 'calamity'.

For each step in the process, there are issues that need to be considered. What resources are required? Think about the budget required; the equipment and inventories you may need; skills you will have to develop,  the training necessary and the the time-frame required to complete it; and where you can get the information about any of these.

Preparation is the key to success - talent and motivation are useless unless they are accompanied by structure and discipline.

Once the plan is complete, it's important to identify potential obstacles. Every initiative that's worth anything will have to overcome challenges; it is simply the nature of reality. Only the foolish refuse to consider the downside - intelligent people have contingency plans. Contingency plans may be no more than "Plan B" in some cases; in other cases, they may involve the involvement of an external resource, or a different approach entirely.

The willingness to alter one's course at any point must always be part of the plan - too often, initiatives fail because people tend to be addicted to the original plan, even when circumstances simply do not allow for it.

Flexibility is often crucial to successful negotiation of the many changes that can occur in the course of a project, Being ready to choose a fresh path rather than a well-travelled one may take courage, but survival generally does...

D (just call me D)

justd@justd.ws

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