7. Planning

Planning is an essential stepping stone to success. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail! Although in today’s fast moving world, change is the order of the day, this simple pearl of wisdom has stood the test of time. Planning is the process of putting together a blueprint to achieve your goals. Trying to achieve a goal without a plan, is like driving a car without a steering wheel, trying to get somewhere with no control of your direction. Planning is an ongoing process. A plan is like a map. When you follow a plan, you can always see how much you have progressed towards your project goal and how far you are from your destination. Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve some specific goal. If you do it effectively, you can reduce much the necessary time and effort of achieve the goal. To be effective, planning needs to take at several levels;

l     Strategic level - here you have to set the overall direction to achieve success by mapping out the medium to long term future of your success.

l     Operational level - planning at this level aims to ensure that the day-to-day activities you have identified as being essential to the successful operation are carried out effectively.

8. Take baby steps

To successfully start your plan, divide your goals into smaller workable steps. Make the first step the easiest to accomplish. This will build your confidence and give you an incentive to keep going.

9. Time management

Time is one of the most important resources for everyone, and sometimes most valuable. A sense of time can motivate, focus efforts, and get more done per hour. Successful time manage-ment is important for achieving success in time.