Take Charge Get Results - IMPLEMENTATION

Chapter 9

IMPLEMENTATION

“It’s your realistic view of what you face that allows you to better identify where you are and what you need to do in order to achieve great results.”

Having turned your Outline for Success into your Strategic Plan, you are now ready to get moving, to set the wheels in motion, to get your project off the ground, to shove off, to take off, to lift off, to rock and roll, to get this party started, to get busy taking action and go to work building your dream. This is the exciting part, the fun part, like the beginning of a journey when you feel the train start to move, carrying you forward as it leaves the station and you think to yourself, “I’m on my way - Destination Success!”

This leg of your journey is all about turning your ideas into action, and the beauty part is the more you do the more successful you’ll become; a principle that can be applied to every aspect of your life. If you want to be healthier, exercise more. If you want a better relationship, pay more attention to your partner. If you want to communicate better, listen more. If you want a promotion at work, meet more of your company’s needs. If you want to get better grades in school, study more. If you want to be a better musician, practice more. If you want to be a better parent, spend more time with your children. If you want to be more successful, take more action. Life is short. Get busy!

[Well, that just about sums up the action phase of your success journey, but there are a few more considerations that will help you better navigate your course.]

Keep it Real

Your enthusiasm and belief that you can accomplish anything are very important and vital to your success, but so is remembering that what you hope to accomplish is going to take some serious effort and will not come easy. The best approach to getting results is to combine your confidence with a realistic view of what you’re up against.

In the previous chapter I mentioned there is no such thing as a perfect plan. That’s because we can’t see the future. We can only control our own choices. Even though we can and should try to anticipate the outcomes of our actions, we cannot expect to be right 100% of the time. We can expect our circumstances to change, that some of our ideas will work and some will not, and that someone or something we rely on might come through for us or might fail.

When I say “be realistic”, I’m not saying “don’t expect great results”. On the contrary, it’s your realistic view of what you face that allows you to better identify where you are and what you need to do in order to achieve great results. So keep it real.

Stay Flexible

Good plans are not set in stone. As you take the drive down the road to your success, understand you will encounter speed bumps that can slow you down, pot-holes that can knock your wheels out of alignment, and road blocks that can stop you dead in your tracks. It is for these very reasons that it’s important to view your plan as a guide; an outline that provides a general direction, but is not so rigid that it can’t be changed.

Successful people encounter problems as frequently as unsuccessful people do, but the difference is that successful people have plans that are fluid, allowing them to adapt to changing circumstances and to improvise different courses of action than were originally planned. It’s this fluidity, or flexibility, that allows them to overcome obstacles more effectively and with greater success. As you move forward, understand that in order to overcome obstacles there might be times when it’s necessary to alter your plan. If what you originally planned doesn’t work, do something else. Flexibility is the key.

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

Sometimes the plans we make or the tasks we want to perform can seem enormous and overwhelming, so much so that we don’t know where to begin. Feeling overwhelmed with the enormity of a project can lead to putting off getting started, stopping shortly after we’ve started, finding other things to do instead, or never getting started at all. The project just seems too big to handle, and therefore impossible to achieve. So why bother starting something that can’t be done? This line of thinking occurs more often than we expect, and is something that most of us have or will struggle with at some point in our lives. The key to overcoming this obstacle is to make our plans workable by breaking up larger tasks into small parts that we can handle.

If you find yourself struggling with this issue, feeling overwhelmed with the size of your project, I would like you to try and imagine eating an elephant. That seems impossible, doesn’t it? Well, I believe it is possible to eat an elephant, although I would agree it’s a feat that could prove to be extremely difficult. Assuming it is possible to eat an elephant, the only question remaining is how? How do you eat an elephant? The answer is simple: One bite at a time.

In a Nutshell

There are four steps to the successful implementation of your strategic plan:

1. GET BUSY: The more you do, the more you will achieve.

2. KEEP IT REAL: Recognize what you’re up against and apply the effort required to achieve great results.

3. STAY FLEXIBLE: Be ready to adapt, improvise and make changes, when necessary, to successfully overcome obstacles.

4. EAT AN ELEPHANT ONE BITE AT A TIME:
Understand the effect that feeling overwhelmed can have on your ability to take and sustain action, and keep your plan broken down into small parts you can handle.

George J. Morse
Email: george@coachmorse.com
http://www.coachmorse.com