What Golden Gear do you need to turn your plan into a success?

Until now, I’ve concentrated on where you are, what you want and why you want it. These aspects relate to yourself or the individuals who make up a team, department or business. They form a solid foundation for what comes next, because up to this point, I haven’t even mentioned how on earth you’re going to move forward on your journey and achieve your GOLD. It has been blue sky thinking with little mention of what obstacles you might actually face on your journey. This is because in my experience, just the thought of obstacles allows people to use them as excuses to not even start on the expedition.

As you face the mountain in front of you, you need to consider what gear will help you to conquer it step by step. This is what I call your “golden gear”. Now comes the time to start planning what you need to do as well as what you need to have, both physically and mentally to enable you to succeed. Now is the time to step back from the job at hand, roll up your sleeves and ask yourself, “Right, how on earth do I tackle this?”. I find that a good way of working out what I need to do at the start, is by remembering what outcome I’m looking for at the end, and working backwards to find the steps needed to get there. In my engineering days, we would use the term, “reverse engineering”, which had been explained to me when I was at college in Doncaster, studying for my Higher National Certificate in Mechanical Engineering. I knew what I wanted, I just had to work out how I was going to get there. To do this, I repeatedly asked myself the question, “what more can I do?”.

See my top tips below on how to turn your plan into a success:

1. Benchmark – where are you now?
2. Write the stuff down that you need to do, get it out of your head
3. Make a plan
4. Make a “things to do” list for the day, week, month, year
5. Prioritise the important stuff…trust your gut
6. Dedicate time in your life to work on your GOLD
7. Get an accountability partner (someone from your golden gang)
8. Document your plan, progress and outcomes
9. Remind yourself of how far you’ve come
10. Push to complete, rest will come later