FOUNDATION FOR EFFECTIVE PLANNING

So far, we have established that planning is the only way to give your goals a chance to be realized. Goals show what you want to achieve and when, while plans show how you intend to achieve them and with what resources. Without plans, even twice SMART goals are simply good intentions leading nowhere. Therefore, the strongest proof that you are serious about realizing your goals is not writing them down, but going a step further to develop plans for achieving them. Plans ensure that you regularly, consistently and repeatedly do those important things that ensure your success, no matter what else you do. Hence, the foundation for every plan is prioritization. So planning is a system for ensuring that you organize and execute activities around your priorities.

Everyone has priorities of some sort; we usually have a sense of what we believe is more important to us compared to other things. It is a known fact that we will readily give the best of our time, effort and resources to our priorities, so they infallibly indicate the direction in which our lives will go and what we have a chance of achieving. If you set twice SMART academic goals, but do not place priority on academics, you cannot achieve those goals. You can only achieve things you place priority on. You should therefore prioritize on those things that contribute the most to your personal life because your plans will move you further on in the direction of your priorities irrespective of what they are.

For instance, I knew students while on campus who placed much priority on leisure, fun, party etc., and expectedly, those were the things they succeeded at! Though they sometimes went to class, they often planned around these priorities, organized themselves around them and executed them repeatedly and regularly. They eventually became experts at those things; but what positive difference did that make in their personal life? Not much actually. Your priorities must reflect your highest positive values depending on the direction you want your life to go.

Your priorities are intrinsically unique to you and as a student; academics ought to be one of them. Think about this: what are those things that if you did regularly will make tremendous positive difference in your personal life? List them. Those are the things that should form your priorities! In my case for instance, my priorities included my spiritual relationship with God, my service of humanity, my academics, my financial education, my relationships and family, my health, hygiene and leisure, recreation etc. and these were the things reflected on my plan as shown in the previous post. Yours may be different; but must be a reflection of your highest values and beliefs. They are no right or wrong priorities, only what they lead you to.

Priorities also strengthen your decision making and your ability to say ‘No’ when necessary. For example, academics for me was of higher priority than leisure. So whenever there was a clash of both, it wasn’t hard to say ‘No’ to leisure and postpone it to a later date. Remember that your success is rooted in your ability to do things in order of importance; not in order of convenience, not even in order of urgency, but in order of importance. Prioritization and planning is the only system for ensuring that you always do the important things first.

In conclusion, goals are achieved through plans and plans are only as effective as the priorities they reflect. That’s why it’s important you decide what your priorities are and if you’d need to review them in order to achieve your goals more effectively. Reflect on what your priorities are, be sincere and original. Put it together in a list. You’ll need it in the next post.