You Don’t Need a Crystal Ball to Predict how to Have the Life of Your Dreams

According to Wikipedia, one benefit of half-time in a field game is to allow teams to swap their positions on the field so that the effects of the natural conditions such as sunlight and wind direction are experienced fairly by both sides.

When it comes to business, halftime is as crucial as the halftime at sporting events. And sometimes depending on the type of business you run, it’s important to give yourself a chance to review, reflect, recharge and get back on the field to play the game right.

1. Strategize Yearly: Setting a goal isn't enough. Instead, strategize your plan of action for the entire year.

2. Plan Quarterly: We need to change our mindsets and SHIFT from thinking annually to quarterly. Doing so facilitates significant and more useful life planning. How many bad weeks or bad months must you experience before being forced into the realization that it's imperative to evaluate your plans every three months? Convince yourself there are only ninety days allocated to perform and complete specific goals. Your inclination towards procrastination will diminish when restricted to just three months for getting something done. Alternatively, waiting 365 days for most things to occur is just too long. And we all know, it's human nature to procrastinate. Allocating a single quarter to finalize projects, complete tasks or embark upon a new endeavor, produces a powerful sense of urgency for both you and members of your organization.

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. Examine Monthly: Reviewing your scorecard daily, weekly, and more importantly monthly, is a must-do for all businesses. Creating and utilizing scorecards increases personal accountability and similar to a GPS, provides direction and navigation.

4. Reflect Weekly: Reserve time for intentional thinking and contemplative reflection. This simple act creates a necessary impetus for learning from failures, positive experiences and transforming knowledge into powerful insight. As it has been said, "Experience by itself has no value. But, the evaluated expertise is everything".

5. Act Daily: We all know talk is cheap. We also know how easy it is to offer up empty promises and useless placating lip service. Taking massive action will produce significant and sustainable results in both your professional and personal spheres of influence. The most significant gap in the world is the gulf between knowing something and knowing to take action.

6. Live Intentionally: Live by design, not by default. I believe life doesn't happen to me, but rather life happens for me. Only I can create my future. And only you can shape your future. What's preventing you from adopting this mentality? Our attitude is the one aspect we can always control, manage, and influence 24/7/365. Random chaos never precedes growth and success. They occur by living an intentional and deliberate life. Medals aren't earned for playing the game with good intentions. Similarly, reporting to work knowing you have good intentions will never yield the promotion or salary increase you desire. Good intentions are most effective when accompanied by massive action! Intentionally live your life and raise the bar for achieving what you've continuously made excuses and procrastinated against doing.

7. Celebrate the duration of the journey: We often forget and routinely neglect to celebrate the small wins achieved in life. Someone asked if my cup was half-full or half-empty. My response was, "I'm simply happy having a cup in which I can do whatever I chose with." It's easy to forget and hard to remember not to overlook life's abundant beauty. Condition and recalibrate your perspective towards appreciating the greatness in both your personal and professional life. Stand firm against succumbing to the whirlwind of a demanding life, or you'll find yourself resenting and disliking your unique journey. There's no time like the present to celebrate the impact you're making in the lives of those around you!

January 2019 is fast approaching. Today, determine where you'll be when the clock strikes twelve on New Year’s Eve. Don't wait, don't procrastinate taking massive action towards changing your life. You don't need to watch the crystal ball drop on December 31st in Times Square to know it's time to improve your life. Therefore, here are a few questions to help facilitate powerful and sustainable changes in your life right here and right now:

1. What's worked well for you the past calendar year?
2. What hasn't worked well for you the previous calendar year?
3. What are you willing to change to make 2019 a better year?
4. What types of massive action will you take over the next quarter?
5. How much income are you committed to earning in 2019?

Here is my bonus for you to start planning your future: We are living in an era of constant evolution and development. It is a time of rapid transformations, inventions, and breakthroughs. If we desire to stay current then our goals and goal setting skills need to be revamped and become applicable to our time. The growth and transformation of technology are breaking through any past criterion or frontiers. The goals we set at this time need to be as boundless and seamless.

When Steve Jobs set his goal to recreate the cell phone, as we knew it, his goal was not S.M.A.R.T. His imagination fueled his goal. He dreamed bigger, better, and bolder. He did not restrain himself to a specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound goal. He had a vision and set it as his goal. Thanks to his courageous endeavor, we now have the iPhone. Therefore, now is the time to shift the paradigm. There needs to be a new platform with a new purpose for effective and modern goal setting that will expand potential, accomplish things beyond imagination and achieve extraordinary results. It is time to set P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E Goals?.