This is a series of blog posts called 21 Days of Focus. This post is Step 1 in the series called Develop a Plan for Dreams and Goals.
If you contracted with a builder to build a house, you would expect to see an architectural plan. They wouldn’t just show up one day and start building! Your dreams, goals or projects need a plan too.
Share Your Dreams and Goals with God
One of my favorite verses is Psalm 37:4: Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Do you even know what desires you have in your heart?
Block out time and make a list of what you want to accomplish. This is an exercise to get the dream, goal or project out of your head and on to paper. Dreams and goals become a reality by writing them down. This sets the dream or goal in motion as you start taking action.
Find a quiet place, ideally early in the morning before the demands of the day start, or late at night when the hustle and bustle of the day is done.
Everyone has a magical time when the heart opens and a creative flow happens. For some people that time is morning (that is the time for me). For others it may be late at night. Get a notebook or journal (I keep volumes of journals) and write down your dream, goal or project and what kind of a plan you would need to accomplish it.
An Example of a Goal
My heart’s desire was to offer something of value to help others focus. Selfishly, I wanted to focus myself! I was so busy being overwhelmed by life’s demands and helping my clients with their goals and dreams, that I didn’t spend any time focusing on my own dreams and what tasks needed to be done.
Days, weeks, months, years(!) would slip away from me. I had good intentions, but I didn’t have a plan to stick to. So, to accomplish my goal to create this series, I needed a plan. The plan consisted of the following steps:
- Writing out each step
- Creating a form for people to request it
- Setting up a series of 21 emails to deliver it
- Creating a thank you page
- Choosing and sizing the pictures that I wanted to use
- Creating a video
- Putting it on my blog for people to access it
Since this post was written, I no longer have a specific email sequence but, instead, just send people here to access the series.
There were many hours involved to bring this series to fruition. Each one of these pieces had various steps to complete. That’s where Step 2 happens in the 21 Days of Focus: Take Action on Your Plan in Small Steps.
So, Step 1 – You Have to Have a Plan
Until next time…. Stay focused!
Renee Barry
September 20, 2012 5:00 amJackie,
I just wanted to encourage you! You are doing a great thing — keep up the good work. I really believe that people have good intentions but never follow through. There are people out there that need to hear this and when the time is right they will have something to walk them in the right direction. I believe in the power of encouragement and I believe that in this “INFORMATION AGE” we are bombarded with so much information. People tend to see but not really SEE, read but not really READ. I have always been told by the Lord to do my part. That’s all we can do — put the information out there and it’s up to others to take the bait. You new webpage looks awesome — God bless you on your journey as well!
Jackie Trottmann
September 20, 2012 8:43 amHi Renee,
Thank you so much for your encouragement. Yes, there is a LOT of information out there. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and be like a deer in headlights doing nothing! (I talk about dealing with overwhelm later.) Sadly, the good intentions fall by the wayside many times because of a lack of belief in a dream. Persistence is the key and is not for the weak hearted! It truly takes focus and putting one foot in front of the other each day. It means to keep on keeping on. Thanks for being such a great cheerleader. The best way to keep getting the message out is to tell others about the information. I will need to “focus” on getting my social media ducks in a row. That is on the to-do list! But at the end of each post are share buttons. And there’s the old fashioned way of just telling other people too. 🙂 My goal is to help inspire and encourage others to go for their dreams.
God bless you too on your journey.
Jackie