Perfect time to make a Master Plan
Sitting on the verge of what we Canucks call “American Thanksgiving” (I imagine Americans just call it plain old Thanksgiving) I can’t help but think how fast this past year has gone.
I am thinking that later this week I better get my ‘top 10 gifts for the hockey player on your list’ blog post written and then get to work on my ‘top 10 trends in hockey training for 2013’ article.
But today I am going to skip ahead…right to New Year’s. I know that is traditionally the time when you look at all you have achieved over the past 365 days and create your goals for the year to come (or at least I hope you do).
I also know that it is a hectic time with parties, tournaments, family commitments and before you know it you are back at work and it is March already. You have floated through more than two months of the year without a plan.
You know how I love to read business and motivational books and right now I have just started one called “The Pledge: Your Master Plan For An Abundant Life” (I know kind of a goofy title) by Michael Masterson. I am only a couple chapters into it, but I like it so far. I wanted to share some data from the book with you.
The Data…
1. A study Michael refers to from Psychology Today and performed by researchers from Virginia Polytechnical Institute found that when a group of 56 females were asked to do as many sit ups as they could in 90-seconds each day for four consecutive days.
The group that was simply told to ‘do their best’ had an average score of 43 sit ups on the fourth day.
However the second group that was told to do more sit ups on each consecutive day finished with an average of 56 sit-ups on the final day.
2. The good people at Daytimer surveyed American workers and found that those with the highest incomes and most successful careers were the ones who had written goals, but also worked off daily task lists with steps to help them achieve those goals.
Off the 70 percent who did not write out their goals, only 9% of them achieved what they had wanted to do each day.
3. The final study comes from the Harvard Business School – on its very own grads. You would think if you had a degree from the Harvard Business School that you would be pretty set wouldn’t you? Well not so fast, here’s what they found…
Up to 27% needed financial assistance, 60% lived ‘paycheck-to-paycheck’, 10% lived comfortably and only 3% were financially independent.
You guessed it, the 3% of Harvard Business School grads who were financially independent 10-years after graduation had written goals with the actions steps to accomplish them.
Surprising data eh?
Now, the entire book is about creating a “Master Plan” and he says it will take about 6-weeks to put it together, which should have me putting the final touches on it right around New Year’s – perfect timing.
Right now our task is to turn dreams into goals (this is something we have talked about here before) and his steps are to write down:
- Your wildest, longest held dream
- Now make it specific – i.e. ‘I want to have 17 shut outs’ vs. ‘I want more shut outs’
- How can you make it actionable? – i.e. what will you do to achieve that? Hire a goalie coach? Start working out? Start stretching 5-days per week?
- Put a time limit on it.
- Is it a realistic goal? Is there a way you can make it realistic?
I will keep you posted as I progress through, but just some food for thought today. Have a great one!
Cheers,
M