And I’m back. How are you?
My holiday was… interesting. More on that later this week.
Right now I want to share with you guys a fun exercise I’ve been going through in the last couple of weeks. Last month, I was thinking about what I had accomplished in 2011 and what I wanted to get out of 2012. There is quite a bit on my life agenda, and figuring out what the next step is has always come with some difficulty for me.
Then I had an epiphany: what I needed was a strategic plan.
Strategy is a big part of my day job. So when I started thinking about what my goals were for 2012, what were my important action items to get to those goals, etc., I thought, This sounds familiar. Honestly, I’m not sure why it didn’t occur to me earlier.
The exercise of actually doing strategic planning for myself has been really interesting. I’ve done everything from laying out my mission, vision and values to doing a SWOT analysis for myself. (Laying out your weaknesses is not fun. Talk about a humbling experience.)
The result has been something tangible that I can hold on to that allows me to say, I’m doing this right now or I want to do this, but it’s not for today. I’ll do that in a few months (or years). The latter I think is more important for me, because lists like this can easily make me feel like I’ve got to accomplish everything right away. It’s very freeing to be able to say no to things.
I won’t bore you with all of the details of the plan, suffice to say it focuses on the next three years, and involves five interconnected spheres of living: mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational.
Here is a quick snapshot of where I landed on those for 2012:
- Mental – Write, write, and write some more. A lot goes on in my head. Time to get some of that on paper (per se). Plus it moves me towards a few of my list items.
- Physical – Fighting in a boxing match has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, and I just started to dip my toe into this project in 2011. I want to take it up significantly this year.
- Emotional – I’ve alluded to the fact that I don’t have a relationship with my biological father. The task I’ve given myself this year is to start making inroads into finding out more about him. (More on that soon.)
- Spiritual – Last September I started getting up really early in the morning in order to get stuff done. This has been amazingly successful for productivity, but this year I also want to use this time for centering, stillness, and talking to God.
- Relational – This really has two pieces: family and friends. I’ve realized that it’s really easily for me to exist in isolation, physically and mentally, from everyone else in my life. In 2012, I want to be intentional about being with the other people in my life.
Now you’ve seen under my hood a little bit. What are your goals for 2012?
Image credit: Menage a Moi
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I really like this concept. Wish I knew more about how exactly to do it. I probably know more than I realize, given my background running a start-up, but I sometimes try to forget that stuff and leave it to my CEO.
Yeah, you definitely do. I mean, in reality anyone could do this kind of self-reflection. I just happen to be using this kind of model because it’s what I’m familiar with. There are probably more appropriate ones.
Great post, Caleb! I’ve been doing lots of life strategizing in the past few weeks as well. Our core strategic buckets and the tactics that fit in the strategy are super aligned! Good luck, looking forward to reading/hearing how it goes! Can I get some KPIs outlined? Kidding (sorta) but this is my struggle, I don’t want to aim to high or set the bar too low….
You think I would make a strategic plan and not include KPIs?