Strategic planning is key in seeing success in both your personal life and your work life. Whether you are an entrepreneur looking to drive your business to success or you are working for a company and looking to advance your career, or you just want to achieve more goals in your personal life, having the right strategic plan helps you see a higher return on your investment of time, money, and energy.
When you are ready to put together a strategic plan, there are eight questions that you need to answer in order to create a winning plan.
Here are the questions to ask yourself or your team to get started:
1. What are the values?
Ask what values, qualities, virtues and traits that are the most valuable to you when it comes to your business or your career.
2. What is the vision?
Decide what it means to you for your career or business to be perfect. What will you be doing? What will you be creating? Where will you be?
3. What is the mission?
Get specific about how you will accomplish your vision and how those values play a part in getting there.
4. What is the purpose?
Figure out what the ultimate reason is for your business/career/life. Is it to serve others? To create something amazing? To make a momentous change? To have an impact on the world around you?
5. What are the goals?
Determine what steps need to be taken in order to fulfill your vision for the future. What
are the most important tasks?
6. What knowledge and skills are needed?
To achieve your goals, you may need to learn something new, develop new skills in order to make it happen. Do you need to take some courses? Connect with a business coach? Know what areas you need to improve on so that you can take action.
7. What habits need to be developed?
Habits go a long way to helping you achieve goals. Developing the right habits in the things you do and how you think will help you overcome obstacles and continue forward to fulfill your plan.
8. What needs to be done daily?
Certain tasks need to be done from one day to the next to move forward and complete goals. Determine what activities to do each day in order to meet your goals in life, career, and business.