There Should Be a Rule About That…

Good intentions are great, but to get where you want to go, you have to have a plan and a policy.

This year, my intention is to (fill in the blank). We’ve all made our goals and are embarking on 2010 with great intentions. Maybe you want to reduce your debt and invest more for retirement. Maybe you want to develop a deeper spiritual life or a better relationship with your spouse and children. It’s likely that since you’ve penned your 2010 goals (you did write them down, right?), something has already come up to throw you off track. You found a great sale at the mall on something you didn’t even know you were looking for—and you plopped down the plastic. Your child brought home a poor progress report that you responded to less than gracefully. You’ve been sucked into a new television series that cuts into the time you’d set aside for reading or meditating. Something always comes up.

“We have the best intentions, but when the rubber hits the road, we don’t always act on our intentions,” says Ann Daly, a life coach and the author of Clarity: How to Accomplish What Matters Most and Do-Over! How Women Are Reinventing Their Lives. That’s why we need not simply a goal, but a plan and what Daly refers to as “policies to get us through those moments of testing.” Daly notes that the first step to achieving anything is to get clear about your intentions by specifically defining your goals. Then, it’s critical to get into the process of creating the “how” of meeting personal and professional goals.

Get a Plan on Paper
Developing a plan is about creating a structure and schedule for what you want to accomplish. That means blocking out time on your calendar for a date with your spouse, exercise, meditation, reading, or whatever it is you need to do in order to accomplish your goal. It’s not that every moment of every day should be confined to a rigid schedule, but by creating a plan, you’re acknowledging that unplanned success is extremely rare. “Scheduling is like the rhythm in music,” Daly says. “Rhythm gets exciting when there’s a lot going on. When you use a schedule, you’re able to continue to move forward with the least amount of stress and maximum amount of joy.”

What’s Your Policy?
Once you know what you want to accomplish and how you’re going to make progress toward those goals, a clearly defined policy helps you deal with the bumps and potholes scattered along life’s path. “Policies are the link between intention and action,” Daly says. “A policy answers What do I do when ‘this’ happens? I want to be prepared in the heat of the moment so that I can conduct my home, public and personal life in the way I intend.”

Like goals, it’s important to be clear about your policies. “You develop an effective policy by being conscious and intentional and by writing it down,” Daly says. Begin the process by taking 15 minutes to think about what your vision is for a goal in your life.

Using the example of parenting, Daly says, “Ask, What is my vision of good parenting? What are the obstacles I’ll likely face? What are my policies for dealing with those obstacles?” In this example, those policies could define how you feel about work hours, what work you will allow to come home with you from the office, when it is OK for your children to call you at work (not including actual emergencies), if you are going to answer e-mails on your off-hours, how you are will respond to poor grades, etc. Then set expectations with your family by communicating your policies to your children and spouse.

Get Out of Crisis Mode
The point of defining your plans and policies is to smooth the path between you and your goals. “Life will hand us enough surprises—we don’t need to manufacture them!” Daly says. “Working in crisis mode reduces our effectiveness.” But, by thinking through how you’re going to respond to obvious obstacles, you’re also better prepared to deal with life’s surprises. “That way, when the real emergencies arise, we have a strong foundation to work from.”

Additional Reading

• Creating Job Security by Becoming the Boss
• How are Your New Year’s Resolutions Holding Up?
• Gearing up for a Great Year