Design your year

Key Verse: Proverbs 21:5, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” (NIV)

No one attains a great destiny by chance without a vision and proper planning. Someone said, “Mighty men don’t occur but mighty men are prepared.” You don’t begin your year casually with no goals and plans because if you do so, you will surely have a miserable year. In designing your year, you need to take some time out to reflect and do a yearly review of the last year. Take a look at what you’ve done within the last year; the projects you’ve worked on; your achievements and reflecting on what your life has been with your long-term vision. For example, you should review in what ways you have grown personally, professionally and emotionally. You must pause to ask yourself, “If I continued my life the way it was last year, how will my life be? If your answer is negative, then you got to make changes in the new year. If you are not happy with the way your life is going, you have to change something.

To have an amazing year, you must have a vision and goals. A vision is your dream of desired future but goals are specific things to be done to achieve your vision. Goals are means to an end, while visions are the endpoints themselves. For example, if your vision is to be an international brand in the next decade, it’s important to set monthly, quarterly, or annual goals to help achieve your vision. This is because goals produce results that you can use to measure your progress, while your vision is your desired result. Goals are like setting targets for the year. For example, you can set as one of your goals to get an office space.

Candidly, failure to set goals is one of the things that limits people from maximising their potentials. This is because goal setting is one of the infallible principles of success.Make it a practice to set daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals. Endeavour to plan your day, the night before. You must set goals that are in line with your values and goals that will lead you to the life you want.

Another very important step to take in designing your year is to have a plan. Here a lot of work have to come in. A plan is set of actions to be taken to achieve your goals. The primary difference between high achievers and low achievers is “action-orientation.” Men and women who accomplish tremendous things in life are intensely action-oriented. They are moving all the time and they are always busy.One way to gain speed is taking action. In Luke Chapter 19, Zacchaeus had a goal to see Jesus but he had two limitations, which were: he was short and could not see over the crowd. God gave him wisdom to come up with a plan on how to see Jesus and he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see Jesus. You need to be strategic to be ahead of others in the new year. What are your plans in the next five years in your business?

Do not neglect the God-factor in designing your year. You need “God-factor” in any plan you set for yourself. Proverbs 16:3, “Ask the LORD to bless your plans, and you will be successful in carrying them out.” Make out time to pray over your plans for the year because it is God’s own part to make our plans to flourish. Ours is to make plans and God’s part is to make our plans succeed beyond our natural strength. Be sure to involve God and you will have an amazing year because life is spiritual.

• Today’s Nugget: Mighty Men are Prepared. Contact: 07032361509. E-mail: [email protected], Joel Ejiofor, Business Coach & Strategist