It’s been a while since I posted here on the blog. No reason, really. I have so many things I think “I could write about that” that I end up not writing about any of them. “Stop analysing and just do something” is great advice I got/get from a friend who knows me well.
The starting point for a lot of what I do with clients is getting them to define the business they want. If you can’t define it how will you know how to get it or when you get there. Most people have difficulty planning for one huge reason. They might get the assumptions wrong. Well, have I got news for you! Would you like a cast iron guarantee about business planning? You are going to be wrong! Get used to it!
I believe the purpose of planning is not to have a rigid outline of what you are going to do and how you are going to do it. For me, it is the process of planning that is more important than the actual plan. It is an opportunity to think the unthinkable, the illogical, the radical. It is a great chance to think about things without actually burning any cash or resources, other than a little time. If you can use some of the time when waiting or driving to do the thinking around your plan, your are not even “wasting” time.
Part of this is making time to think about what you want your life to be like. How do you want to be spending your spare time? What “nice” things do you want around you? If you can get an idea about this you can start to work out how much money you might need to have this life.
Only then can you build this into your business plan to see how to make this feasible. When you have a draft of a plan it is only then that you need to make a decision about how realistic it is or what dificulties need to be overcome to turn this into reality.
Make some time to think about what life needs to be like and this will help drive you through the difficulties of making the business successful. as you want it to be. It might take a little longer or be more difficult then you expected but it doesn’t mean to say you won’t get there.
